20,000

Counting the hits up and down.

(Thank God): Question for/about the Singles Jukebox

matthewtowles:

I’ve noticed that a large number of recent reviews (by “recent” I mean the past few weeks, but I’m sure this could be said about the past few/several months, etc.) have an aggregate score of around five (5) out of ten (10). 

My question is this: are these average scores purely the result of simple mathematics (in that any relatively large grouping of numbers would result in a theoretical “five”)? Or are these fives a sign of an overall relative blandness (or “averageness”) in today’s pop music? 

I know that each reviewer has her or his own opinions of what is and isn’t a “good” song, and I realize that these reviewers are probably not the be-all end-all of music raters. I also realize that the term “average” is also relative depending on who you’re talking to. However it is interesting to see so many songs get such “average” scores. (By the way, if this has already been addressed before or anything, let me know! I’d love to hear what people have to say!)

What do you think?

I think it’s better to think of 5 as “average,” rather than “bland”. (Especially in pop music, where bland is a cardinal sin, and is thus likelier to push a song’s score below a 5.) Plus, it’s not a very self-selected voting group. The writers’ interests lie across the musical landscape, but most of them try to get to as many songs as possible. If you contacted, say, a dozen writers at random from the Pazz & Jop electorate and asked them to score some publication’s top 20, I bet you’d see a lot of middling averages.

But “blandness” is the wrong way to think of it. You never know when a neat sound or melody or hook or personality is going to come at you, which is super exciting. (That’s not just a pop thing, of course, but when it comes to throwing stuff to see what sticks, pop traffics in the highest volume.)

Also, we are the end-all and be-all of music raters. Wanted to clear that up for everyone.

  1. ironstring reblogged this from cureforbedbugs and added:
    why it’s happening now and not some other time: it’s january, pop music doesn’t even exist right now and we just got...
  2. matthewtowles reblogged this from cureforbedbugs and added:
    This is awesome, guys! I definitely didn’t think anyone would see this besides the few people who follow me, so this is...
  3. cureforbedbugs reblogged this from screwrocknroll and added:
    Haven’t started the Controversy index for 2012. But since the calculation uses average deviation, theoretically the most...
  4. katherinestasaph answered: There’s also the fact that we tend to hate everything around the start of the year. I don’t know why either.
  5. screwrocknroll reblogged this from the20000 and added:
    Three things: There’s often a lot of variation within these “average” scores. I’ve given [8]s or [9]s to things that...
  6. the20000 reblogged this from matthewtowles and added:
    think it’s better to think of 5 as “average,” rather than “bland”. (Especially in pop music, where bland is a cardinal...
  7. matthewtowles posted this