Backspacer: Official Album Thread

[digster]

This is a bit of an offshoot, but do you really want to use sales in your favor when arguing that Backspacer isn't as bad as everyone thinks it is, considering what tops the charts these days?

Basically, I think it's just way too broad and flawed a way to gauge reception. No new argument there. The difference between a 74 and 79 could basically be the decision to post the San Jose News review, which raved about a record, vs The San Diego News, which trashed it. That doesn't really seem like a good way to gauge. As I've said before, that doesn't mean there's a good way of doing it, just that we're not going to get a good answer by using a bad way.

[Blenheim Augustine]

Remember that SPIN review of "Ukulele Songs" where the guy wrote how great it would be to hear "Can't Keep" rearranged as a Pearl Jam song?

If only he'd said Sleeping by myself...

[Lounge Lizard]

I find Backspacer best listened to like this:

Gonna See My Friend
skip
skip
Johnny Guitar
Just Breathe
Among the Waves
Unthought Known
Supersonic
skip
skip
skip

[Heathen]

This is a bit of an offshoot, but do you really want to use sales in your favor when arguing that Backspacer isn't as bad as everyone thinks it is, considering what tops the charts these days?

Basically, I think it's just way too broad and flawed a way to gauge reception. No new argument there. The difference between a 74 and 79 could basically be the decision to post the San Jose News review, which raved about a record, vs The San Diego News, which trashed it. That doesn't really seem like a good way to gauge. As I've said before, that doesn't mean there's a good way of doing it, just that we're not going to get a good answer by using a bad way.

Yeah there's virtually no difference at all between, say, 70 and 80 when you know that these numbers are often extrapolated from 4 or 5 stars ratings, and that the seemingly begnin difference between a 4 stars rating and a 3.5 rating from a magazine like the LA Times (which is, due to its rating scale, much more likely to give "perfect" scores than, say, Pitchfork, which rates out of 10) translates to a 12 points drop on metacritic.

[stip]

This is a bit of an offshoot, but do you really want to use sales in your favor when arguing that Backspacer isn't as bad as everyone thinks it is, considering what tops the charts these days?

Basically, I think it's just way too broad and flawed a way to gauge reception. No new argument there. The difference between a 74 and 79 could basically be the decision to post the San Jose News review, which raved about a record, vs The San Diego News, which trashed it. That doesn't really seem like a good way to gauge. As I've said before, that doesn't mean there's a good way of doing it, just that we're not going to get a good answer by using a bad way.

Yeah there's virtually no difference at all between, say, 70 and 80 when you know that these numbers are often extrapolated from 4 or 5 stars ratings, and that the seemingly begnin difference between a 4 stars rating and a 3.5 rating from a magazine like the LA Times (which is, due to its rating scale, much more likely to give "perfect" scores than, say, Pitchfork, which rates out of 10) translates to a 12 points drop on metacritic.

i've never said this was a perfect rating, or even a good one. But i dont' think it is horrible, especially once you have aggregated enough reviews. One review will not account for a 5 point drop with a large enough sample size. Binaural doesn't have enough entries to be statistically significant. The last few albums do.

[Heathen]

This is a bit of an offshoot, but do you really want to use sales in your favor when arguing that Backspacer isn't as bad as everyone thinks it is, considering what tops the charts these days?

Basically, I think it's just way too broad and flawed a way to gauge reception. No new argument there. The difference between a 74 and 79 could basically be the decision to post the San Jose News review, which raved about a record, vs The San Diego News, which trashed it. That doesn't really seem like a good way to gauge. As I've said before, that doesn't mean there's a good way of doing it, just that we're not going to get a good answer by using a bad way.

Yeah there's virtually no difference at all between, say, 70 and 80 when you know that these numbers are often extrapolated from 4 or 5 stars ratings, and that the seemingly begnin difference between a 4 stars rating and a 3.5 rating from a magazine like the LA Times (which is, due to its rating scale, much more likely to give "perfect" scores than, say, Pitchfork, which rates out of 10) translates to a 12 points drop on metacritic.

i've never said this was a perfect rating, or even a good one. But i dont' think it is horrible, especially once you have aggregated enough reviews. One review will not account for a 5 point drop with a large enough sample size. Binaural doesn't have enough entries to be statistically significant. The last few albums do.

A single review won't, but very small differences in a handful of reviews WILL result in a difference that looks much bigger than it really is once you put it on a much larger scale. It's like you give tests to your students and rate them out of 3, then display the total out of 100. Student A scores 3/3, 2/3, 2.5/3 and 3/3. Student B scores 2.5/3, 2/3, 2.5/3 and 2.5/3. Average ratings for student A: 2.6/3. Student B: 2.4. You can't say there's a drastic difference between the two students, right? But after you put their scores on a scale of 100: A scores 86,7 and B scores 80. Four tests isn't significant? Make that 8, or 16, or 32 using the same pattern of student B having mostly the same notes than student A except for a handful of 0.5 points dropped now and then, and look at how these tiny differences end up much bigger on a larger scale. Make that scale 1,000,000 and OMG there's a huge gap between the two students now.

But of course, even that would be more fair than metacritic because at least in this example both students are judged by the same guy, whereas in order to truthfully depict the metacritic system you'd have to have them judged by two different sets of professors all using different rating systems, some tests being arbitrary left out and some scores being made up.

By all means keep reading whatever you want to read into these numbers, but really you might just as well ask a ouija board.

[stip]

you'd be right if I was saying that metacritic enables us to find some sort of universal objective standard to measure the quality of an album. But that would be nonsense and is not what I am saying. To measure the critical RECEPTION of an album (which is also not an objective measure of its quality), you could do a lot worse than a site that aggregates critical reception.

[Heathen]

you'd be right if I was saying that metacritic enables us to find some sort of universal objective standard to measure the quality of an album. But that would be nonsense and is not what I am saying. To measure the critical RECEPTION of an album (which is also not an objective measure of its quality), you could do a lot worse than a site that aggregates critical reception.

no this is exactly what I'm adressing

[harmless]

I wonder if we could get Lounge Lizard's thoughts?

[Heathen]

I wonder if we could get Lounge Lizard's thoughts?

the Backspacer full album video has more views than the self-titled

[stip]

you'd be right if I was saying that metacritic enables us to find some sort of universal objective standard to measure the quality of an album. But that would be nonsense and is not what I am saying. To measure the critical RECEPTION of an album (which is also not an objective measure of its quality), you could do a lot worse than a site that aggregates critical reception.

no this is exactly what I'm adressing

then you are wrong

[stip]

I wonder if we could get Lounge Lizard's thoughts?

the Backspacer full album video has more views than the self-titled

does it have more than vitalogy?

[Heathen]

you'd be right if I was saying that metacritic enables us to find some sort of universal objective standard to measure the quality of an album. But that would be nonsense and is not what I am saying. To measure the critical RECEPTION of an album (which is also not an objective measure of its quality), you could do a lot worse than a site that aggregates critical reception.

no this is exactly what I'm adressing

then you are wrong

this is the kind of positive posting that makes this place better

[stip]

i wonder what that posts metacritic score would be?

[Heathen]

in the green and inconclusive

[EJ]

So, is Backspacer a good album or not? I need to know soon.

[harmless]

So, is Backspacer a good album or not? I need to know soon.

In order to say it is a good album
We must confront the real possibility
That it is also bona fide pablum
And that above it, all albums have priority

[Thejambi]

So, is Backspacer a good album or not? I need to know soon.

In order to say it is a good album
We must confront the real possibility
That it is also bona fide pablum
And that above it, all albums have priority

Bravo!

[WaitingForBluey]

So, is Backspacer a good album or not? I need to know soon.

In order to say it is a good album
We must confront the real possibility
That it is also bona fide pablum
And that above it, all albums have priority

Bravo!

"Googles pablum..."

[VinylGuy]

just listened to this one after a long time, all the album...hell i love it. Even if the production is not that good, if some songs ( ATW, UK , JB) were out played this last couple of years...yeah, i love it.