Album Rating: 3.0

1. I love this thread



2.

6. Gloat in your victory of superior sarcasm as friends join in harassment.



More Opeth!!!

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

volors

Album Rating: 2.0

But what you don't understand is that unless one of you goes deeper than a surface-level assertion, his argument that it's not structured and yours that it is both hold equal weight."

Album Rating: 4.0

Oh, and my pos record is 55/55 for the most recent Plain White Ts. Fuck yeah.



I went easy on you Knott - remember that ;)

Album Rating: 2.0

Everybody neg Knott's review hehe

Album Rating: 3.5

well said, phleb

Wow. I enjoyed that review so much. Brilliant. I don't know whether I agree yet, I've only heard the album once, so I'll have to keep playing it...

Probably only negged because of the rating. Kind of the opposite of Jess' review.

Album Rating: 3.5

the BTBAM fanboys who neg'd this should grow up

Album Rating: 3.5

yeah, being a fanboy is the only reason to neg a review

Album Rating: 3.5

there's no other reason to neg it, it's a good review. bit short maybe, but I can't see any reason why anyone would neg it otherwise.

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off



I want to thank everyone who was challenging everything I was saying a while back. The discussion was actually quite helpful, in the fact that, it made me take a closer look at how subjectivity and objectivity play roles in our understanding of music and its critique. I think this was the argument that we kept scratching at, and yet never really pursued.

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

Philosophy has shown us over the years, that we can never know things for absolute certainty. Ultimately, our experience of existence is our own, and completely subjective. The problem with this point of view is, nobody lives in this completely subjective world. We live in a social world, and a world where science has shown us through experiment and observation, that there is an order and pattern to our existence, and we can strongly believe in it.



Music, like almost everything else in reality, can be boiled down to a series of these patterns. These patterns make up what we know about music theory, and are the building blocks of our objective look in music critique. This is just the way we perceive music. People don’t even need to know a thing about music theory to hear these patterns. They are perceived on a subconscious level, as well as a conscious level. A simple example would be how every one can anticipate the end of a phrase or the end of a song. In theory this is called a cadence, but to casual listeners, it seems just as obvious, but they wouldn’t describe it with a technical name.

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

Subjectivity plays an equal part in our experience and critique of music. The main way is in how we individually choose what we like. If music is not subjective, then we would all listen to exactly the same things. In critiquing music, subjectivity can come down to tastes in liking a persons voice, a genre of music, or even just liking certain melodies and beats. We are not proving anything with subjective statements, just showing what we like and don’t like.



Now we have arrived at how in rating music, some “opinions”, really critiques, can be right and wrong. If an opinion uses an incorrect objective statement, in this case of this album having a lack of structure, then the opinion has lost a lot of its potential value. We can objectively show the opposite to be true. If someone doesn’t subjectively like something, this also doesn’t mean that it is objectively bad. If you don’t like classical music, and rated Beethoven’s 9th symphony “poor” using misguided objective reasoning, then your objective reasoning will be looked upon as wrong and your overall opinion will be disregarded.

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

This ep from BTBAM has an overwhelming amount of objective evidence to support a case that it is good music. Now, there definitely is not a universal rating for any album. Therefore, there isn’t a correct rating for this album. In weighing objective events within the music, along with our subjective tastes, we each can come up with our own rating of the album. However, the stronger the rating, either good or bad, will require more objective reasons why; just as a stronger statement of what we find to be true in anything in our world requires more objective evidence.



There have been a number of people, including Melvin’s review, that have been making unwarranted objective statements about a lack of structure in BTBAM’s music. If you don’t like something fine, but that inherently doesn’t make it poor. Moreover, if you are going to call something poor, please try to make a case using some sort of objective reasoning why. Otherwise you basically have showed that you don’t like this style of music, and went out of your way to creatively put down a band that at least had the courage to try and create music that pushes boundaries of musical structure and understanding.

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

"there's no other reason to neg it, it's a good review. bit short maybe, but I can't see any reason why anyone would

neg it otherwise."



"Surprisingly, the North Carolina outfit sound reinvigorated compared to their previous few efforts, with a palpable

thread of energy and purpose in almost every moment of the record. From the deep clatter of the drums to the

blazing guitars, this is the sound of a band just bursting with the need to make some noise. Unfortunately, after

taking firm control of their output once more, they cheerfully fly the plane into the goddamn mountain, leaving

nothing but a fragmented, gleaming pile of junk. It’s far from the worst thing they have ever produced, but even

further from their best."



This is why the review got a negative from me. The first paragraph creates a highly contradictory stance. On one end

this record has a "palpable thread of energy and purpose", and then just two sentences later, has created a

"fragmented, gleaming pile of junk". These two statements do not support each other.



The second paragraph of the review is fine, presenting many well formed opinions. Lyrically, I am even inclined to

agree with this review. However, for such a short review, half of which doesn't even make sense, it surely doesn't

make for a great argument of a "poor" rating, let alone warrant a positive rating of the review.

holy shit, dude

Album Rating: 2.0

And yea did the face and the palm come in to alignment

it's like MJ evolved into his metal form

Album Rating: 2.0

I started writing a full, point-by-point reply but I can't be bothered. Your romantic notions of the way people should listen to music are completely alien to me, and I want them to remain that way. If I ever come across a punk, hardcore, metal, rock, hip-hop, d'n'b, reggae, soul, blues or pop musician that requires me to think in the prescribed way that you would like to dictate, then maybe I'll change my mind. Otherwise I'll just keep listening to the releases by this band and by bands in this genre that I DO like, the way I have for over a decade. Let me just explain two things, though:



Aeroplanes have lots of energy; energy that keeps them in the air moving at hundreds of miles an hour. If the pilot fails to fly smoothly, he or she will probably crash. The aeroplane would still have had lots of energy, but the finished result would be a big pile of twisted metal.



Reviews are always subjective opinions. The individual points are stated as if they were facts, because most people understand that every sentence is essentaily preceded by "I think that" or "I believe that" or "I imagine that" or "It's my opinion that".