Music Wednesday/Announcement

In the sprit of updating this bad boy more regularly, I've decided to start updating every Wednesday in addition to my usual updates when there are concerts or albums these will include, but are not limited to the following areas

• Musings, rants and other thoughts on Music and related topics
• News and news related commentary
• Top5 or ten type lists
• Catch up––things that I’ve missed reviewing for whatever reason
• Youtube gems––both in the good and the really bad.
• Single/ song of the week reviews
• Blog updates/news/notes

In the sprit of this, here’s an explanation of my ranking system

First the basic numbers, I use a one through six system

1. You have to work to earn a one. I would hesitate to call bands/albums that earn this rank music.
2. Bad, but tolerable.
3. Fair, not bad, or good, just right in the middle.
4. Good, it’s the bottom end of the good ranking
5. Great. You have to work for a five. Five used to be my top ranking before a band blew the roof off of my system.
6. Phenomenal, beyond anything else I've heard. I've given fours or fives to most of my top ten bands. You have to be spectacular for this.I rate bands on different criteria depending on genre (see upcoming rant on genre), the band’s progression and, in the case of a live show, the quality of the sound system in the venue. I’m not going to fault a band for the venue having a bad sound system, but I will call them out on poorly tuned instruments. There are a few basics, however, that most of what I review is judged by.

• Instrumentation—how well tuned are the instruments?, how precise are they  and how complex/innovative they are while respecting the genre?
• Vocal quality (If there are vocals)–– Is the singer enunciating, do his vocals fit the song? Do the vocals keep in time with the song?
• Balance: Do the instruments and vocals mesh well  (Or are they pleasantly dissonant)? Is one instrument out preforming the others?
• Recording quality(on albums): While this isn’t entirely the band’s fault I still hold them accountable for what they put their name on.
• Have they improved since their last album/show?(if there was one) Are they innovating or stagnating as a band? While this is a hard one, I don’t feel it's fair to put, for example, a really young band’s first album up against a seasoned band’s fourth album.
• Not a criterion per se, but I should throw in that I review bands based on the sound, performance and/or album, not the band itself. It’s not personal.

There are tons more criteria, but these are some basic components of what I look at.