Program for rating U2 songs

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ArthDent

The Fly
Joined
Aug 26, 2004
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Hi.

Just wanted to see if there would be any interest in a program in which you could rate U2 songs on a scale.

I know there are many U2 fans like me and a friend of mine, that like to sit down and rate songs. Just look at the "survivor" topics on here :)

I would like to challenge myself in programming and see if I could make a program with features like this:

Rate any U2 album and it's songs.

Rater an album at a time.

A database handles the scores and via the user interface of the program you can view lists of for example Top 10 songs, Top albums based on average score, etc

A compare with a friend feature where you load another database into the program and lists are lined up next to each other..

No more pen and paper. Go in and adjust the scores when you feel like it or when a new album arrives.

As for scale I am fond of 1-10 scales. 1-6 doesn't give me as much choice as I would like. I am also considering several scales for each song but this will make a lot of extra work and I'm not sure it is really necessary.

It would be able to split the songs with max score though. 10's could be 9.65 or 9.43 etc with several scales added, and an average taken of those.

Views on this?
 
Awesome idea, and I'd fully support it and use it all the time (interchangable with other bands?), but I have no idea how you'd be able to create something like that...

If you can pull it off, full credit to ya.

1-10 scale is the way to go
 
Not the greatest interest I gather :)

But anyway that's less pressure and gives me more time.
I will try to make this program come to life. I may give updates here if it looks promising. I may release some test version and add features as we go along. I may also fail ;)

Suggestions are welcome.
 
Done some work on it.

It's a lot of programming but I have a sort of user interface going now. The program is able to write and read your ratings to a file and will show what you have rated and not, and what your score is for each song. So you do not have to start from scratch every time.

You may also change the rating of each individual song at any time. I'm now trying to make a simple graphical bar representation of the average albums ratings from 1-10 (for example 6.74) that will be displayed on the stats page.

It may not be the most slick modern loking prog out there but it will do the job of keeping track, calculating, showing and storing your ratings for all major U2 albums and songs.

I can not give a release date yet as I'm currently very buissy with new job etc This is kinda like a hobby.

Suggestions and testers are welcome.

Sorry for bumping this myself but I think someone out there is interested in rating like me and is tired of the ol' pen and paper :)
 
Great idea. It would be a good shot for me to see what U2 fans think of the different songs. I will defenitly support that idea. And by the way: I like rating songs too.
 
This should be pretty cool.

I understand that in the next version of RateYourMusic.com, whenever it happens, there will be a function to rate individual tracks, but that will stick with its less useful 5 star system, so I'd prefer this 1-10 style and it sounds like it would have more features and usability anyway.

:up:
 
Yes. And it's only U2 albums/tracks. But then much more focus on that as well.

I may release a build of this program when it can stand on it's own. Then just release updated exe files of the program you can overwrite the old one with. The ratings will not be affected as they are stored in other files in the directory. Updates may be a new album, or new features, bug fixes etc.
 
I like the idea of being able to generate things like top ten charts and other features like that - something a site like RYM doesn't have unless you spend the time making it yourself. The specific focus on U2 certainly gives a good opportunity to go more in-depth, and I like that.

Are you planning on including non-album songs and unreleased tracks? I could compile lists of all the various "unreleased" sessions and such that I know of, if you'd like. I know that for me personally, a few of the unreleased songs out there would factor highly in my ratings - Wild Irish Rose is in my top ten U2 songs, as a matter of fact.
 
I certanly appreciate the offer. Firstly though I will implement the album rating. Focusing on the 11 main albums. From that info I can make list of songs.. Like for example you can take out your top 20 album songs, or top 10 1980-1990 etc.

Firstly though I will probably release the version with Album ratings. Then expand on that with single song lists. Then I may add "rare songs and b-sides". Time will tell.

I warn you. My apps don't look like sleek modern apps but more like button action based progs. Still I think it's pretty nice. I'm an amateur though :)

Better put up a website with updated news and easier download a little later.

I'll keep ya posted here.
 
I have a question for you guys. When putting together this program I need to make certain decisions. For example. I think it is unfair or wrong to for example rate the Rattle and Hum album as a whole. It has many live songs from The Joshua Tree and some covers. It would be wrong to rate the live Joshua Tree songs on a Rattle and Hum album right? So what to cut to make it "fair". This is the original list.

1. "Helter Skelter" (live) – 3:07
2. "Van Diemen's Land" – 3:05
3. "Desire" – 2:59
4. "Hawkmoon 269" – 6:22
5. "All Along the Watchtower" (live) – 4:24
6. "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" (live) – 5:53
7. "Freedom for My People" excerpt by Adam Gussow and Sterling Magee – 0:38
8. "Silver and Gold" (live) – 5:49
9. "Pride (In the Name of Love)" (live) – 4:27
10. "Angel of Harlem" – 3:49
11. "Love Rescue Me" – 6:24
12. "When Love Comes to Town" – 4:15
13. "Heartland" – 5:03
14. "God Part II" – 3:15
15. "The Star Spangled Banner" excerpt by Jimi Hendrix – 0:43
16. "Bullet the Blue Sky" (live) – 5:36
17. "All I Want Is You" – 6:30

I'd like to cut it to this to make it comparable to the other albums.

I have a question for you guys. When putting together this program I need to make certain decisions. For example. I think it is unfair or wrong to for example rate the Rattle and Hum album as a whole. It has many live songs from The Joshua Tree and some covers. It would be wrong to rate the live Joshua Tree songs on a Rattle and Hum album right? So what to cut to make it "fair". This is the original list.


2. "Van Diemen's Land" – 3:05
3. "Desire" – 2:59
4. "Hawkmoon 269" – 6:22
10. "Angel of Harlem" – 3:49
11. "Love Rescue Me" – 6:24
12. "When Love Comes to Town" – 4:15
13. "Heartland" – 5:03
14. "God Part II" – 3:15
17. "All I Want Is You" – 6:30

This is the "true" Rattle and Hum". The new stuff that really make the album. The rest is songs from JT and UF which has already been rated..

Should these two covers and sag be added?
1. "Helter Skelter" (live) – 3:07
5. "All Along the Watchtower" (live) – 4:24
8. "Silver and Gold" (live) – 5:49
 
I think that perhaps you should have options, e.g. rate RAH studio and RAH live separately, and combine the two for an overall rating. It could be fairly interesting that way. I know that I rate RAH the album much lower than I rate RAH the studio songs.

ArthDent said:
I certanly appreciate the offer. Firstly though I will implement the album rating. Focusing on the 11 main albums. From that info I can make list of songs.. Like for example you can take out your top 20 album songs, or top 10 1980-1990 etc.

Firstly though I will probably release the version with Album ratings. Then expand on that with single song lists. Then I may add "rare songs and b-sides". Time will tell.
Click to expand...

Righto, that's cool. I'm sure most people mainly rate the album songs. It's just that for someone like me, I rate tracks like Treasure and Wild Irish Rose in my top 10 and Luminous Times, Spanish Eyes, and Bass Trap in my top 20. I know other people here rate Walk To The Water and Mercy in their own top tens.

U2Wanderer.org should have all the resources you need to cover the obscure b-sides and other non-album tracks that might otherwise slip your mind, and if you get to the stage where you want to include early demo sessions and other unreleased songs, I have most of them listed on U2-Vertigo-Tour.com and can find links to them pretty quickly.

I warn you. My apps don't look like sleek modern apps but more like button action based progs. Still I think it's pretty nice. I'm an amateur though :)
Click to expand...

I prefer something that's functional to something that looks sleek anyway! :)
 
I decided to go for only the "new" true Rattle and Hum songs to be rated. I may make the live tracks an option as well later on in an update if it seems right.

Coming along nicely. All albums are now rateable and most menu items work.
 
Is there an option to give an overall album ranking, or will that just be drawn from the average of the songs? I often consider my rating of albums as a cohesive work to be separate from my ratings of individual songs, so it would be interesting to see how the album rating and song averages compare.

Glad to hear it's coming along well. :up:
 
The album scores are made up of the average of the 1-10 scores, of the songs on the respective albums. I feel that gives the most accurate answer to your favourite album.

Thanks for the feedback.
 
I like the 5 * system better...

it makes you THINK real hard... you don't give the ***** toi ANY song... and you don't give * to all the bad songs


10 is just too much
 
I entirely disagree. After using RateYourMusic for about 2.5 years now, the 5 star system has become a source of frustration to me as it lacks necessary nuance. Too many albums are grouped together in, say, the 4 star ranking when in a 1-10 ranking, the high 4 star albums would be on a separate and deserved higher rung above the low 4 star albums.

ArthDent, is it a simple 1-10 with just whole numbers, or is it possible to rate 9.5, 8.25, 7.1, etc.?
 
It is a system of 1-10 in whole numbers that you assign each song. It will be displayed as an average with two digits when you compare the albums. Like for example JT ends up with 7,36 average after a quick rating by me now.

I think 1-10 is necessary to give each songs it's corect rating. In my opinion it is better than 1-5 simply because you have way more choice.

Here is a screen of how the program looks now when rating The Joshua Tree. You can see my ratings there. Remember that the screens show a work in progress and not necessarily the final version.

Click picture for bigger size.



Here is a screen from the album compare function. Here albums from 1980-1990 are averaged and compared .



I rated all songs on all albums 1980-1990 in 3 minutes so the issue here is not my scores, remember that :)

That also shows how quick it is to get going with this program. You may do it rough in 3 minutes then go back and adjust or reset to 0 which ever individual song you like for every album..

The average bars in album rating is also somewhat animated so they start at 0 and "extend" towards right fluently..

Remember work is under progress..
 
^^^^ That's very cool, coming along nicely. These kind of projects could come in nicely for ye for job interviews and folios and stuff in computer programming or whatever.
 
Thanks.

Putting together a website for "launch day" of version 1.0 now.
 
Hehe, as I said thrown together for demo purposes. I have to say I agree. :wink:
 
Rate One Tree Hill any lower and you will incur my wrath. :wink:
 
yeah yeah lol

I knew this would happen.

I rated 11 albums in like 3 minutes :)

The website for the program will be published either tonight or tomorrow..

The program will be released there once it's finished.
 
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