Ridin' Derby review

[Cutter]

LOLZ.

[Jabbermusic]

LOLZ.

ditto.

if anyone else has listened to the samples or the CD, where do you fall, 1 or 5?. has there ever been such a huge gap between review scores?

[kirsten.babin]

has there ever been such a huge gap between review scores?

I was wondering the same thing. I've seen differences of opinions before and some contradictions in what different reviewers highlight as the pros and cons, but at least in recent months I don't remember seeing a gap like this in the overall scores. I'd be interested to hear some clips as well.

[gcampbell]

There appear to be some clips available at CDBaby.

[ryangrajo]

For those missing the staggering irony here, check out the Casual Harmony review thread.

[Ed Boyer]

Read the review then checked out the clips. IMO, both the 1 and the 5 are a bit extreme. But at least their average is pretty accurate.

I don't think the average listener will find the tuning as problematic as Tom does. It's never perfect, but it's often passable.

Nor do I think the average listener will be as refreshed by the honest sound as Brian was. I think most people will, to some degree, respect the approach. But I don't think it'd be enough to put it on a level with top pro groups (if that's what a 5 in fact means...I know...whole other thread)

But I must say, this set of reviews made me more curious to hear clips than any other reviews I've read.

[mcbc]

LOLZ.

ditto.

*ding*

Ahh such glorious, tastycake irony after the last tCHread.
http://forum.rarb.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5402

Drawn out thread? Nay. Perfect timing I say. Thank you a cappella G_ds. Thank you so fresh and so clean clean & smells like Herbal Essence a cappella higher powers. Gracias tastes like cinnamon, looks like Oprah, sings like Jennifer Hudson and mixes like the love child of Trevor Horn and Bill Hare a cappella G_ds. You are too good to me ... and my ears. Love, me

Ahhh ... with that said. No I'm certain there have been no 5s on top of a 1star review. Maybe in the olden days with like 5 reviewers there were 5-star and 2-star reviews. (Having heard the album, I agree with Ed Boyer. But I am still reveling in the tasty delicious irony.)

[H.F.]

I mean...it's ironic...sort of. It's not like it changes anything about CH's review. They got the 'right' score by most accounts, and this doesn't have any bearing on the validity of same. If anything it's an example of the overall difficulty in reviewers following rarb's stated rules (really, Brian?), but the same thing didn't happen in the CH review, so other than someone being prescient (or just lucky), I'm not sure it's all _that_ tasty...

[Box_Beatin_Lady]

Yeah, clearly this whole bidness is tasty like Golden Grahams for those of us who enjoy using discussion forums for, y'know, discussions. :)

But to get back on track? I'm all for the "organic" approach to recording an album... but you have to give up the goods to fill in the gaps that production will not, in that case. I will say that it doesn't sound like the guys are untalented, but rather, supremely lazy. Tuning, phrasing, diction... they're all missing. And I'm a Derbys fan, no doubt, but this particular album doesn't show them off, at all. I don't really attribute it to the lack of production (though, it does seem like it may or may not have been recorded on-location during filming of Hostel) - the singing is just plain uninspired, and for me at least, that fire and excitement for performing need to translate to the album to keep me engaged. I'd even go so far as to say that, even with top-notch production, the less-than-enthused recording style would only lead to a 3-ish album in the end.

And to tie the threads together, I don't see how the Derbys' album stands up to anything out there now (even the more "organic" stuff)... which makes the existence of this disparity in the first place rather curious, indeed, given what reviewers "should" be doing. Not to say that reviewers aren't entitled to their own opinions, but if a comparison is supposed to happen, I just don't see how this passes that test.

PS - I'm still waiting for the hard-core stats nerds (... mcbc) to let us know definitively if this has ever happened before.

[colton]

As another data point: I just listened to all the samples at CDBaby, and I would likely have rated the album a 3. Possibly a 2, almost certainly not a 4. Granted, it's not the same as listening to the actual album, but there you go.

[dr00bles]

As another data point: I just listened to all the samples at CDBaby, and I would likely have rated the album a 3. Possibly a 2, almost certainly not a 4. Granted, it's not the same as listening to the actual album, but there you go.

Agree. Most likely a "high 2" or a "low 3", from the impressions the clips provide. So, actually, the overall averaged score is almost spot-on! :)

Again, really need to listen to whole album before passing judgment, but those clips at least speak to the general quality of work we're looking at.

[seth]

It hasn't happened before. Of the 689 albums in the eight years since we switched to three reviewers per album, two albums got a 5 and a 2. There are many more cases of a 5/2 or 4/1 split back when we had five reviewers per album, even though we published less than 200 reviews that way.

Three reviewers per album:

• Mezzo Macho - In the Whyland
• Tangled Up In Blue - The Blue Book

Five reviewers per album:

• CARAs 2000
• A Cappella Angels - An A Cappella Christmas
• The Persuasions - Frankly A Cappella - The Persuasions Sing Zappa
• Best of The Harmony Sweepstakes
• Rock N' Rhythm - Havin' A Party with Rock N' Rhythm (4/1)
• Up the Octave - Clandestina
• From the Edge - Pub Night in South Central Czechoslovakia (4/1)
• Mosaic Whispers - Don't Tell My Parents
• The Euphorics - Standing Up For Love
• The Buffalo Chips - Remember The Songs
• Jabberwocks - Sermons and Soda Water
• Ball in the House - Love Drug
• Alexx - Street Elite (4/1)
• Western Wind Vocal Ensemble - My Funny Valentine: Classic American Love Songs, 1920-1990

[edited once to add that list of albums, edited a second time to add this note.] :)

[clyxz]

Well, you know what they say... de gustibus non est disputandum.

[billhare]

Well, you know what they say... de gustibus non est disputandum.

For those of you who don't speak Latin, I believe that means "We're not sure whether we'll do yet another Guster song on our next album".

-B

[billhare]

Last edited by Seth on Mon Jun 15, 2009 9:58 am; edited 1 time in total

So Seth, I've been curious about this myself - how come sometimes if I edit my own post I get that tag at the end telling how many times I edited it, and other times (like my post from this morning which I edited 3 times) it doesn't come up? Not a big deal, just curious.

-B