Ranking albums

[CosmoKramer]

No, this isn't another "Rank them" thread.

I just wanted to share my thoughts on fans, including myself, and how we rate things.

I never know when a U2 album comes out if I'm too easy or hard when judging the music. I see people rank U2 albums and they are all between 7/10 and 8/10 or more than half are 10/10. Perhaps that is how they really feel but for me, even the mighty Joshua Tree is not 10/10.

The reason being, that would mean (to me) that every song is a 10 and that isn't the case. Overall, its a classic album but I think I have it at about an 8/10. Truth be told, I don't know if an album exists that every song (10 minimum) is a 10/10(even Thriller or the White Album, etc...)

For me, AB and JT are both about 8/10(just under actually when you average the songs) by contrast, one of the lower rated albums for me is Zooropa at a 4.9/10(Passengers and October would be at the bottom for me with Passengers at probably a 2/10 but I never scored it as I don't consider it a U2 album). Its funny because I'll see someone say the new album is an 8/10 and I'm thinking they really like it but then the other album scores are all 9/10 or 10/10 and its like....guess they don't like (as much perhaps).

I mean, I get if you love Zooropa but would you give every song on it a 10/10 if you do? Those that have read my posts over the years know I really like HTDAAB. But even with that said, the album is a 6.7/10 for me (AMAW is a 4/10 and Crumbs is a 3/10).

My question is, how do you personally score an album? I take the average of the songs but would be fine with adding in other things like "cohesiveness" or "mood/tone" scores.

And yes, it's all a matter of preference but I'm just curious.

By the way, my scoring:

10-Classic......With or Without you
9-Excellent
8-Very Good
7-Good
6-Solid (pretty good)
5- Average (at best)
4- Pretty Bad
3- Bad
2- Very Bad
1- Horrible (Epic shit).......Miami



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[bobsaget77]

I rate it as a whole and not a sum of its parts. I'd give Achtung Baby and Joshua Tree 10's. And I'd give Zooropa, The Unforgettable Fire, and October 9's. While Zooropa, The Unforgettable Fire, and October aren't all loaded with 9 score songs, they're my favorites so I just score them high in comparison to other albums. In comparison with other bands, for instance REM, I kind of compare the albums and rank based on how much I like them. For REM, I'd give Lifes Rich Pageant and Out Of Time 10's. And New Adventures In Hifi, Automatic For The People, Document, Fables, and Murmur 9's. And I base that off the same way I'd rank U2. And that's basically how I rank mine. But I guess we all have different methods and criterias. But that's what makes it fun to rank.


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[DomCobb]

Have to agree with Bob. You can't just rank based on the average of songs. Cohesiveness, consistency, and the whole are important factors. Otherwise we'd all just rank the best of's as their greatest.

And a 10/10 is relative depending on what you're grading. A 10/10 for an album is not relative to songs, but to other albums. The Joshua Tree is perhaps my favorite album of all time, so, relative to other albums, it's easily a 10/10. Similarly, Where the Streets Have No Name is perhaps my favorite song of all time, so also an easy 10/10.

 

[bobsaget77]

Have to agree with Bob. You can't just rank based on the average of songs. Cohesiveness, consistency, and the whole are important factors. Otherwise we'd all just rank the best of's as their greatest.

And a 10/10 is relative depending on what you're grading. A 10/10 for an album is not relative to songs, but to other albums. The Joshua Tree is perhaps my favorite album of all time, so, relative to other albums, it's easily a 10/10. Similarly, Where the Streets Have No Name is perhaps my favorite song of all time, so also an easy 10/10.

I'd give Streets an infinity/10. Greatest song of all time imo. Completely changes the album from top to bottom. If streets is not on that album, it would have never become what it is. That's why averaging them out would not be accurate, one incredible song can outway the averageness of 2-3 songs.


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