Open your heart!. Review on Tips on Rating a Music Album

I buy some sweets from the newly opened store in my locality. When I taste them at home, they make me want to puke. I lampoon the sweetshop on MouthShut. Except for those who have either not purchased anything from the shop or those who have been luckier than me, the rest immediately agree and narrate their bad experiences about it.     Next, I visit a music store and purchase an album. I hate all the songs and tear it apart on MS. Fans of the artist/band hurl brickbat after brickbat at me in anger and question my musical sense. Eventually, I wonder what on earth made me write what I did.    That, as you can see, is the difference between rating a music album and rating anything else. OK, to a large extent, the same subjective element is present in books and movies. But it gets greatly exaggerated in music.  This is because in movies we relate to audio-visual elements - majority of the people would have found the sweeping shots of Ladakh in the opening moments of the film Lakshya stunning. Majority of the people think Amrish Puri had a brilliant voice. Again, in books, it's easier for people to relate to the flow of language, sentence construction, vocabulary, imaginativeness of plot creation and so on. But in music, everything is subjective. After all, what is music? I hit some random keys on my keyboard without any thought. That is NOISE. I now play a pattern that is supposed to have a definite, harmonious progression. That is MUSIC. But really, the concepts of scale, harmony, chords, these are the creations of man's fertile imagination. We have decided by ourselves what is off-key and what is not. There are no natural laws of scale or rhythm.  And yet, a section - a fairly large one at that - have an innate sense of music. They can keep scale and beat in their sleep.      And it is this section that is the 'trouble-maker'. People belonging to this section can appreciate the beauty of music so easily that when somebody else fails to understand the whole point of it, they become disagreeable and take it as an offence. This is but the start of all the troubles. Different patterns, different rhythms, different sounds affect us differently. Naturally, we may find a particular combination of these elements very fascinating. Another person may take after another combination. Again, the effect of music is such that we think that the music we like is the best in the world and anything we dislike is trash. In fact, the very music we hate may be some other music lover's favourite music. This leads to more arguments. And yet, people do have some common forms of music or individual works that they like and such people with similar tastes form a 'club'. Now, the verbal tiff becomes a war with teeming armies on either side. On the internet, I have read lengthy and heated debates between Ilayaraja and Rahman fans. It's a wonder to me that either faction could say such terrible things about the other music director, since both composers are the pillars of modern Tamil music. Rock v/s Pop, Rock v/s Rap, Pink Floyd v/s Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden v/s Metallica - these are all topics of much heartburn for Western music lovers.   So, having rambled on about why rating a music album is so tricky and complicated, I get to the advice part: 1) Stick to your favourite genre. If you don't understand a particular genre, don't land yourself in trouble lambasting music belonging to that genre. I am dead against rap as I can't imagine how anything without a definite progression of notes can be called music. But that's my opinion and who am I to force it on fans of 50 Cent or Kayne West? All my music reviews have been about albums/artists I appreciate. But from the point of view of film music, I don't agree that each composer is a genre in himself. If you are a SEL fan and think Anu Malik's latest album is bad, write about it by all means. There will be others who think the exact opposite and enjoy an exhausting debate with them. 2) LISTEN to the music. This is important: What is the music telling you? How is it affecting you? If it doesn't particularly affect you - favourably or adversely - it's just decent - three stars. If some tracks are very enjoyable and get you hooked but the other tracks are either dull or put you off, it's damn good - four stars. If you just can't stop listening to the album and have gone bonkers over it, it's a masterpiece - five stars. If the album as a whole puts you off but one or two tracks capture that magic spark, it's below average - two stars. If you skipped the opening track after the opening notes and couldn't stop hitting the skip button, it's awful - one star. In my opinion, very few music albums are really so bad as to deserve just one star. 3) SPEAK YOUR MIND. If you really liked the album, go ahead, give it five stars and let words of praise ooze.

Likewise, if you hated it, go ahead and tear it to pieces. Don't be dishonest for the sake of conformity. Somebody will read between the lines someday or the other. JUst ask yourself: If somebody else were to write this review for a newspaper and I were to make a decision based on a rating, how many stars should that someone give the album? That should be your rating. 4) RATE THE ALBUM, NOT THE ARTIST. This is the sentiment Shiva expressed in his review on  St.Anger by Metallica. You must remember that your review will be read by people who may not have ever heard the artist's work before. So whether or not the album lives up to the expectations from the artist is irrelevant. How good is the music? That's all that matters.        Finally, a word for amateur instrumentalists like me. If you can play any instrument, just switch on the PC, start the 'Sound Recorder' and play a short passage from your favourite song/track. When you have finished, play it back and see how it sounds. Yuck! Was that really me! Am I right? Keep that in mind before you decide that an album is bad and deserves to be lampooned. Just think how difficult it is to master the instruments, fine-tune your voice and finally record it clearly. And then think whether you would pay 50-100 bucks to listen to someone who's made all those efforts. That should be your flagpost for rating a music album. Keep the comments coming!        ersonally take down these reviews, this will have to do in the interim.  My sincere apologies to anyone who clicked on this link expecting to read a review.