Album Rating: 3.0

"Not sure about this logic, I thought everyone had their ‘5 star songs’ etc"

Sure. But the vast vast majority of songs are appreciated (or not) within the context of their overall environment (the album) because I almost exclusively listen to albums in their entirety, especially when first being exposed to them. Now there are occasional exceptions and listeners with more song-orientated listening habits may think differently here, but by and large my estimation of a song's enjoyment is usually had in that context. There are whole heaps of individual cuts which would be rendered almost useless outside of this context, so how am I supposed to evaluate them?

At the end of the day artists in the modern day (mostly) put a collections of songs together in a set order, for a specific reason. This is the way they're meant to be digested and cherry-picking your faves is all fine and dandy, but lacks much needed context imo. Almost every album seems to have some kind of over-arching concept, continuation or theme, it's practically widely expected in the modern era. It's why I have a distaste for shuffle (outside of specific circumstances / playlists) and why evaluating select cuts outside of this context against other select cuts outside of a very different context, is highly perplexing. My simple mind cannot compute.

Album Rating: 5.0

I agree with most of what you said Demon, but in some cases I like the primitive gut feeling of "hey, that's a great fucking song" especially when you hear a song somewhere when you're out and about, not necessarily hearing the context it was released in. Great thing about this record in particular is that almost all of the songs are amazing individually and also work well in the context of the record

Album Rating: 5.0

A song is a song is a song.



It gets an enjoyment rating, can’t imagine complicating it more than that.



If I rate the pre release single 5 star it doesn’t become a 4.5 because of how it sits on the album or because even better songs appear on the album. Dunno, seems odd, I definitely have an underlying rating of individual tracks across all music ever, just like albums - I thought that was the easier bit.



The idea I’d have to find an ‘S Tier’ on the next Nickelback album and an E tier on this seems strange.



You can identify a ‘classic album’ but not a ‘classic song’?

Album Rating: 5.0

“For a Nickelback song this is S Tier”



Rrrright.

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

💯

Album Rating: 4.0

the live version of "I Can Never Say Goodbye" is too good

Album Rating: 3.5

A tier list is merely a tool to assess the constituents of some larger thing relative to one another. That's its entire purpose.



If you pick one of your favorite albums and you just have every single song in S-tier, what fucking good does that do?

Album Rating: 3.5

"If I rate the pre release single 5 star it doesn’t become a 4.5 because of how it sits on the album"

yet there are more examples of the reverse being true than there are degrees in the full-circle eyeroll i made on reading this

Album Rating: 3.5

i heard we were flooding the thread with 3.5s

Album Rating: 3.5

This is a really good album. Maybe even a great one. Surely the best thing they've done since at least WISH, possibly even DISINTEGRATION.

Album Rating: 3.5

ain't it right

Album Rating: 4.5

This is constantly on repeat, will probably adjust my rating to a 4 or 4.5. Was not feeling it on the first couple of spins but damn it's such a hypnotising record.

Album Rating: 4.5

The pacing is very peculiar and I’m growing to like it.

Album Rating: 4.5

I'm definitely persuaded by the consistent tier-ranking of songs across albums as opposed to within albums argument. It is true that sometimes listening to a song in the context of an album can make you appreciate it more, and rarely less, but so what? That just lifts its tier - like when you watch a movie or TV show and a song is used so well it makes you view it in a different light.

For me, it makes more sense to reserve S-Tier songs for classic songs - and lower tiers for lesser songs (regardless if they are the best song on their respective albums or not).

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

Seems like a bit of a computer game crossover thing going on that doesn’t work with albums.

Album Rating: 5.0

Seems some confusion over tier lists and ratings, I presume when I see someone rate a song it’s how much they like the song but some people are rating the song just against the remaining songs on the album.



I’m always rating a song against all other songs ever and that’s the tier list- the lot, lol



For the record It feels an awful lot like the dreaded RYM positive rating scales - which are very irritating.



‘I hate the low rating for the album I love…but I use the positive rating scale so all the albums I ‘like’ I award a 0.5 for and me and those like me are tanking averages all across the site’ …!

Album Rating: 4.5

Music is binary - choon/not choon. Hth, hth.

Album Rating: 5.0

‘It is true that sometimes listening to a song in the context of an album can make you appreciate it more, and rarely less, but so what?’



That is a factor in how you rate the album rather than how you rate the song imo



That’s why I don’t average track ratings to make an album score, it misses the point.

Album Rating: 5.0

Ranked/rated:



1. Endsong [5]

2. Warsong [5]

3. Alone [5]

4. I Can Never [5]

5. And Nothing [4.5]

6. Fragile Ting [4.5]

7. All I Ever [4.5]

8. Drone [4]



That’s after about 12 goes.

Album Rating: 3.0

if I was to evaluate individual songs, the ratings would not be particularly kind on "And Nothing" or "Drone" but then I've not heard them in isolation. Would comparing them to better cuts do them a disservice (i.e. as standalone songs, they would improve?) What if I'm thinking they get a mild pass because the album as a whole is still enjoyable and I'm still whetting my whistle for what's to come. idk, I lean towards the latter but it's tricky

tl;dr - agreed with tect's assessment in that I could conjure up a tier list for an individual album and see the benefits of this as a point of discussion only