Second-Guess the Critic: Round 8

[murlough23]

Wow, that last round was tough. Josh and Danny in particular threw us some curveballs. New moral of the story: Josh gives out more 5's than any of the rest of us.

Here are the albums for Round 8:

bdg: Farewell June, 1939 (Clips here)
bloop: Original Soundtrack, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Brenden: Various Artists, In the Name of Love: Artists United for Africa
Danny: Michael Miller, When We Come To
Josh: Daniel Lanois, For the Beauty of Wynona
murlough: Mae, The Everglow
worldofcm: Crystal Lewis, See

Notes:
- Danny, your album is in AMG but it has no track listing and thus, no clips. Where can we hear clips?
- To those who are having trouble searching for the Episode III soundtrack on AMG, try searching by album title. For the U2 covers album, search for album title "In the Name of Love", sort by year, and look for 2004. I'll provide a direct link if this proves to be a hassle.
- The strategically placed wording on the Daniel Lanois album cover is... um... interesting.

[eatahouse]

4 Stars to All

[Wildcatblue7]

EDIT:  switcheroo at the last minute:

bdg--3
bloop--4
Danny--3
Brenden--4
Josh--4
Mur--4
worldofcm--3

[Waltrane]

bdg - 4 stars
bloop - 4 stars
brenden - 3 stars
Danny (who I need to get to know) 4 stars
Murlough - 5 stars
worldofcm - 3 stars

[enemy anemone]

4 Stars to All

4 to everyone, schil style.

apparently I've started something.

*jumps on the back of my own bandwagon*

4 from everyone.

   

[Guest]

http://pastemusic.com/product/536
http://cdbaby.com/cd/mmiller2

That ought to help people trying to guess Danny's.

[beautifulmess]

I'm also jumping on the 4-star from everyone bandwagon.  

[worldofcm]

bdg: Farewell June, 1939 (Clips here) - 3 stars
bloop: Original Soundtrack, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith - 4 stars (this one is way too hard to call for me)
Brenden: Various Artists, In the Name of Love: Artists United for Africa - 3 stars
Danny: Michael Miller, When We Come To - 3 stars
Josh: Daniel Lanois, For the Beauty of Wynona - 4 stars
murlough: Mae, The Everglow - 5 stars

These may change before the deadline...

[Josh]

bdg: 3
bloop: 4
Brenden: 4
Danny: 3
murlough: 4
worldofcm: 3

[NinjaRob17]

bdg: Farewell June, 1939 -4 stars
bloop: Original Soundtrack, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith -4 stars
Brenden: Various Artists, In the Name of Love: Artists United for Africa -3 stars
Danny: Michael Miller, When We Come To -4 stars
Josh: Daniel Lanois, For the Beauty of Wynona -3 stars
murlough: Mae, The Everglow -5 stars
worldofcm: Crystal Lewis, See -3 stars

[dgp11776]

bdg: Farewell June, 1939
3 stars
bloop: Original Soundtrack, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
4 stars
Brenden: Various Artists, In the Name of Love: Artists United for Africa
4 stars
Danny: Michael Miller, When We Come To
4 stars
Josh: Daniel Lanois, For the Beauty of Wynona
4 stars
murlough: Mae, The Everglow
5 stars
worldofcm: Crystal Lewis, See
2 stars

[cbluejays]

bdg: 3
bloop: 4
Brenden: 2
Danny: 3
Josh: 5
murlough: 5
worldofcm: 4

[bdg13disciple]

bloop: 4
Brenden: 3
Danny: 3
Josh: 5
murlough: 4
worldofcm: 2

peace... love... bdg...

[Brenden]

bdg: 4 stars
bloop: 4 stars
Danny: 3 stars
Josh: 5 stars
murlough: 4 stars
worldofcm: 3 stars

[murlough23]

bdg: 3 stars
bloop: 4 stars
Brenden: 4 stars
Danny: 3 stars
Josh: 5 stars
worldofcm: 4 stars

Side note: Is it just me, or are everyone's browsers crashing at least half the time when they try to listen to the sound clips on AMG? Very frustrating.

[bloop]

4 for all, except murlough.  I think murlough will do a 5 for Mae - maybe a low 5, but a 5.

[worldofcm]

I'm gonna go ahead and do this now before I forget -

Crystal Lewis, See.   3 good songs does not equate with a good album, and definitely doesn't deserve 3 or more stars.  2 stars.

[Danny]

Gah, people are posting answers and I haven't posted my guesses yet!

After thinking over what I wanted to guess, I realized I'd put 4 stars down after each one....so put me down for 4 for everyone.

Crud, and I've already lost on one.

[Danny]

I'm going with 4 stars. I didn't get to listen to this one as many times as my other picks, but I thought it was good enough to give 4 stars to.

Murlough, I'll do Portishead's "Dummy" next time.

[murlough23]

I'm having a tough time making up my mind about Mae, but for now I'm going to go with 4.5 stars, rounded down to 4 stars. With further listening it could work its way up to 5, but at the moment, while I can appreciat the lyrics, the way the album flows, and the composition of several songs, something about it just isn't grabbing me on that deeper level. As a whole, the album reminds me of a collision between The Juliana Theory and Denison Marrs. And the piano intro on "The Ocean" is eerily similar to "Go and Sin No More" by Rebecca St. James!

[bloop]

I'm having a tough time making up my mind about Mae, but for now I'm going to go with 4.5 stars, rounded down to 4 stars. With further listening it could work its way up to 5,

Damn it, murlough, didn't you listen to the rounding rules in math class?    (I took a risk with my guess, and I'm mostly right in taking it)

Whether the movies have been good (old trilogy) or mediocre (new except the latest), the soundtracks to the Star Wars films have remained universally at least pretty good.  Episode III's soundtrack is clearly a mixture of the modern, more choral SW soundtracks with a bit more reference to the older series.  For most things, this kind of resting on one's laurels wouldn't get very far with me, but in the case of a soundtrack, the music needs to find a center and be unified.  Williams gives it that.  Having the luxury of seeing it work in the film thanks to my brother (he called me at work - I seriously thought someone had died), I'm going with 5 stars here.  Just like the new film is easily the best of the prequels, the soundtrack brings the music to an ultimately satisfying, better-balanced conclusion.

[dgp11776]

Damn it, murlough, didn't you listen to the rounding rules in math class?    (I took a risk with my guess, and I'm mostly right in taking it)

Preach it, brotha!  I actually had four stars down and then changed it to five, thinking he would round up from 4.5.

[Brenden]

I'm going with 4 stars. There are several really good covers that push it up from three. I considered lower because of the covers that added nothing to the song, and Grits murdering With or Without You was definatly a low point. But covers like Todd Agnew, Tait, TobyMac, and Sixpence None the Richer

Next round I'm gonna do John Reuben's remix album.

[bdg13disciple]

well, the review went up sometime yesterday, and Farewell June ended up at 3 stars...
pretty quaint album, nice gentle tone to it overall...

peace... love... bdg...

[murlough23]

Damn it, murlough, didn't you listen to the rounding rules in math class?  (I took a risk with my guess, and I'm mostly right in taking it)

Preach it, brotha! I actually had four stars down and then changed it to five, thinking he would round up from 4.5.

Hey, it's not my fault you guys didn't want to get as specific as half-stars when I first created this game. If we were being that specific, you'd both have guessed my rating with perfect accuracy. I knew that actually mentioning I was straddling the fence would piss people off no matter which way I ended up rounding, but hey, I had to be honest, and I only give 5's out to stuff I feel really strongly about. I tend to regret more 5-star ratings later on than I do 4-star ratings, so I've become very cautious about awarding 5 stars.

Regardless of what you score for it, kudos for figuring out almost exactly how I would end up feeling about that one.

[bloop]

Hey, it's not my fault you guys didn't want to get as specific as half-stars when I first created this game.

Actually, I don't remember being as specific as that, though that could be true.  In any event, I thought you'd go with an A-, 4.5 on it, but round up to 5 because you consider it some variety of A (as per the rules of the game).  I guess 4.5 could also be considered a B+, meaning you still followed the rules, but that would be odd because, then, the 5 star rating is the only A rating.

[murlough23]

Actually, I don't remember being as specific as that, though that could be true.  In any event, I thought you'd go with an A-, 4.5 on it, but round up to 5 because you consider it some variety of A (as per the rules of the game).  I guess 4.5 could also be considered a B+, meaning you still followed the rules, but that would be odd because, then, the 5 star rating is the only A rating.

4.5 is midway between an A- (which would be like a 4.66...) and a B+ (which would be like a 4.33...), and those numbers are closer to 4.5 than they are to 4 or 5, so using different ratings systems (whole stars vs. half stars vs. grades) means that there's not a one-to-one correlation between those systems. At the moment, yeah, I'll call The Everglow a B+ album.

As for 5 stars being the only A... sure. 5 is an A, 4 is a B, 3 is a C, 2 is a D, and 1 is an F. That works pretty well for me.

[Josh]

I'll give Lanois a 4.

It's really a very solid album, full of loud, angry, messy guitar rock. It's not nearly as powerful as his more intimate, prayerful offerings go, but, as a rock album, it's easily B+ material.

[bloop]

4.5 is midway between an A- (which would be like a 4.66...) and a B+ (which would be like a 4.33...), and those numbers are closer to 4.5 than they are to 4 or 5, so using different ratings systems (whole stars vs. half stars vs. grades) means that there's not a one-to-one correlation between those systems. At the moment, yeah, I'll call The Everglow a B+ album.

As for 5 stars being the only A... sure. 5 is an A, 4 is a B, 3 is a C, 2 is a D, and 1 is an F. That works pretty well for me.

When I said it would be strange that 5 would be the only A, I was speaking of a full system (halves at least).  Anyway, it's all cool.  It's only a game after all.  

(You know, of course, if you said that it's a 4.5 A- in your estimation, I would jump all over you.  I'm also thinking you're going to upgrade that opinion eventually and I'll be right once more)

[murlough23]

(You know, of course, if you said that it's a 4.5 A- in your estimation, I would jump all over you. I'm also thinking you're going to upgrade that opinion eventually and I'll be right once more)

Yes, but this game is about what we think of the albums at the time of rating them (presumably after enough listens to get a decent feel for them, of course) - all of our opinions could change later. When I first rated Kid A, for example, I went with 3 stars; now I'd go with 4.

NP: "Everybody Wake Up", Dave Matthews band

[bloop]

[murlough23]

As scintillating as the Radiohead discussion is, I'm starting Round 9 now.