MetaCritic Celebration Thread

Hole’s original précis was to become something like Sonic Youth crossed with Fleetwood Mac, and America’s Sweetheart is the closest she’s come to creating that vision

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review.

I like this site a lot, but is it acceptable to guess scores to make up the review numbers?

http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/allienellen/thrills

Tell me, does this review read like a 60/100 score to you? http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/2257

Because it doesn't to me! Am I interpreting it wrong? It certainly contains reservations, but appears generally more positive than the cokemachineglow and pitchfork reviews. Yet it is "rated" significantly lower than both. What gives?

It's record reviews aggregator isn't its strongest part. Better at handling movies because there are less of 'em. Entire genres of music are basically excluded from the music tag by dint of its structure.

So at this point the site is kinda useless except for the upcoming release calendar.

OMG OMG OMG. I AFFECTED A METACRITIC SCORE! WAHOOOOOO!!!!!

CAN WE ALL GET EXCITED?!

http://www.creativeworlds.net/Gifts/TAura/Kirby_Celebration_Gif.gif

http://www.dickdestiny.com/nomorepeas.jpg

Please Mommy, no more peas!

How does metacritic decide which reviews to monitor, anyway? I've reviewed each of the following '08 albums for either Blender, emusic, or the Village Voice, and they don't seem to count any of the reviews I wrote (not to mention reviews I've written of tons of other albums not up there at all, for those and other fairly visible publications.) I'm not complaining, since they'd probably assign goofy scores anyway, but it seems so...random!

75 Sheryl Crow
76 Kathleen Edwards
75 Shelby Lynne
72 Tift Merritt
67 Allison Moorer
73 Dolly Parton
56 The Presidents Of The United States Of America
70 The Sword

We put up a hundred reviews a month at our website http://www.residentadvisor.net/ and they completely ignore us. Genre bias? /shrugs

Whose idea was it for them to stop ranking 2008 albums? I'm tired of looking at their best of 2007.

You can "sort by score," apparently -- though this 2008 top-18-or-so looks as meaningless as usual.

90 Protest The Hero
87 Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
86 Hercules And Love Affair
85 Bon Iver
85 Sun Kil Moon
84 Raheem DeVaughn
83 Meshuggah
83 Drive-By Truckers
82 Erykah Badu
82 Jim White
82 Vampire Weekend
81 DeVotchKa
81 Why?
81 Atlas Sound
80 Fuck Buttons
80 American Music Club
80 British Sea Power
80 Los Campesinos!

90 Protest The Hero

! . . .

?

it's a great record! but yeah don't know wtf it's doing @ #1

it only has four reviews, so it doesn't qualify for the actual year-end list.

really fun record though.

I always criticize their subjective selections of reviews and cds at year-end critics-poll times.

Since its inception, Metacritic has provided a cross-section of reviews from a carefully-screened group of the most respected critics

Yea, whatev...

it's a good idea. i just wish someone would do it better.. i think they should narrow down the number of publications and ask each to submit a score, even: not at all, good, very good or excellent.. they way it is now, with some scores taken directly from the reviews and others estimated after reading the review, and some mags worth more points than others.. it's almost worthless. i still visit for links to some reviews, but the aggregate aspect is a failure.

another 2008 ranking list...

Pitchfork's 50 Highest Rated Albums of 2008
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/kenyon330/pitchforks_50_highest_rated_albums_of_2008

That Fuck Buttons is sure overrated.

i think they should narrow down the number of publications and ask each to submit a score, -- poortheatre, Sunday, April 13, 2008 2:40

Ha.

Hi, New York Times

We do not want to try to understand your review of (). Can you just give it a score and send it to us.

Someone upthread explained METACRITIC's rating system, I think, but I still don't get it. For instance, how can this Tom Petty band -- Mudcrutch -- have a debut disc with a METASCORE of 84 as of today (05.17.08) when the highest score the disc received in any of its 6 reviews is an 83? (n.1)

____________________
(n.1) The 6 reviews, as of 05.17.08, are from EW (83), The Onion (83), NOW Magazine (80), Rolling Stone (80), AMG (80) and The LAT (75).

i think they should narrow down the number of publications and ask each to submit a score, -- poortheatre, Sunday, April 13, 2008 2:40

Ha.

Hi, New York Times

We do not want to try to understand your review of (). Can you just give it a score and send it to us.

-- curmudgeon, Monday, 14 April 2008 19:50 (1 month ago) Link

the parisian equivalent of Time Out, Pariscope, does a similar thing with films, as does Film Comment. at least it allows for all the critics to rate the films on the same, er, plane, however unsatisfactorily.

That's true, and Christgau gives grades in addition to his reviews, and several American film critics have their grades for movies listed in Entertainment Weekly. Metacritic just so weirdly compiles grades for cds and only picks a very narrow range, genre-wise, of cds to include in their weird grading syste,.

GUYS THE HIGHLY SCIENTIFIC METACRITIC BEST ALBUMS OF 2008 POLL IS OUT!

1 Welcome To Mali by Amadou & Mariam 92
2 London Zoo by The Bug 90
3 Fed by Plush 89
4 Dear Science, by TV On The Radio 88
5 Exit by Shugo Tokumaru 88
6 For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver 88
7 Fleet Foxes by Fleet Foxes 87
8 Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds 87
9 Sugar Mountain: Live At Canterbury House 1968 by Neil Young 87
10 Robyn by Robyn 86

(funny how only four of them appear in the top tens of any of the publications they list..)

never understood how they choose the score number for a written review.

Interns.

http://www.dickdestiny.com/nomorepeas.jpg

Please mommy, no more metacritic rubbish peas!

I feel like that same Robyn album has been appearing on year-end lists for the last 4 years

I very belatedly discovered that some albums are listed by title only, so for inst reviews of James McMurtry's current album are under Just Us Kids, and how they got a mere 70 for my (Voice) review of it I dunno; xxhux said he kinda understood the score they hung on his review of it, though I forget what that score was (some of your other reviews you wondering about back in April might also be listed by title, xxhux)

Mind you, it can be very educational to view range (from auto-similar to bizzaro-wild-card, and all points in between) of takes on known target.

I feel like that same Robyn album has been appearing on year-end lists for the last 4 years

― The Brainwasher, Friday, December 19, 2008 11:13 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it has

as much as that woman irks me, robyn's strategy wrt promoting her album (release it again and again until enough markets notice her) is one that a lot of other "internet pop stars" could do well to note. when her second album drops - i assume we are still at least two re-releases of the debut away from this - i can see it being fairly massive.

No reviews for "The Hurt Locker"? I don't understand...

Whoops. I thought this was ILE. Sorry.

http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/hurtlocker

odd thing to celebrate... it's useful to have the links but the percentages are dodgy + an escalation of star-ratings crap.

Thanks!