Album Review Guide

Hi, I just wanted to post a little overview and explanation of how my album reviews are going to go.

First, I usually like to post some facts about the album. I include facts about how the album has done on the charts, the genre, ratings etc.

Then I will do a breakdown of the track listing. Any songs that have a star next to them (*) are songs that are my favorites. If it has multiple stars, it may be my most favorite. If a song is bolded, it means it is a song that I didn't like. If the song isn't bolded and has no star, it just means I thought it was fine and okay.

I will also talk about who wrote the songs and played the instruments. This is always important to me to see how much influence the artist had on the album.

I will include a rating. The rating will be for how much I, personally, enjoyed the album. Here's my rating system:

1- Oh god, please make it stop! This is the worst thing I've ever heard.

2- Ugh, why do I have to listen to this?

3- Bad

4- Okay, but verging on bad

5- Okay

6- Good

7- Really good

8- Really enjoyable

9- Pretty perfect

10- The best thing I've ever heard!

I would consider a 5 and above a good/decent rating. I am very stingy with my stars. Something has to really impress me for me to give above 6 stars. If I post ratings on other websites (discussed more in next paragraph), I will have to bring my ratings up a little bit more to be more consistent with how other people rate. Other people tend to be more generous with their ratings.

If I post mini reviews and ratings on other websites I may take a more objective view rather than if I just enjoyed it. For example, I recently reviewed Alexandra Savior's last album. I rated it a 6/10 for me personally. If I were to post a mini review and rating on Metacritic, I would probably give it a 7/10 or 8/10. The average rating for her album according to other reviewers is 8/10. She is a very small artist and I think what she's doing is so creative and interesting that I wouldn't want to bring her score down at all. And I think artistically and creatively the album is a 7-8/10. I personally, just didn't have as much enjoyment as I like to have when listening to the album. I love what she is doing and I would never want to have a negative impact on her making another album or having less people listen to this one. I would give her a better rating on other websites because I want this album to do well because it is well done and creative and I want her to continue making music (which I will listen to).

I also just wanted to point out that I have very limited technical knowledge here. My opinions are mostly going to be based on how entertaining, unique and catchy it sounded to me. I'm not going to be discussing chord progressions and lyrical pentameter. My reviews are just going to be short little tidbits that give the gist of whether I liked it, why, and whether I recommend other people to listen to it.

I also usually talk about whether I am going to continue listening to the album in the future. I will also talk about whether I will go back and listen to their old albums, or whether I will keep look out for their future albums.

I think that's pretty much all I had to say. I just wanted to explain why I may have different ratings depending on the website. Let me know if there's anything else you think I should add or change about my reviews!