how do you judge albums?
 

do you judge an album bu it's best songs or by it's worst songs?

for instance, NYCGAF has 2 of the best songs ever (NYCGAF and Free City Rhymes) but i'm allways put off by some of the lesser (to me) tracks. Same as A Thousand Leaves.
Some albums have alot of shit but 1 or 2 good songs, some have 1 or 2 shit shit songs but alot of good songs (not just SY...)

so how do you decide if an album is excellent or good or shit?

good tracks > bad tracks = good
good tracks < bad tracks = shit

I use the (surprisingly innovative) Vice music reviews system. A happy face or a barfy face. Either it fucking sucks or it doesn't........

(I'm not even close to joking I have more music purchased than I could ever listen to, I don't have time to try and find a rationale to like something that's sub par....... a great example could be NYCG&F....... And A Thousand Leaves........)

i check their pitchfork rating



*runs away*

I make a point to read the Pitchfork 'year in review', I always feel so much better when out of the 50 I've bought one or two of the albums they seem to love....... it's always Emeralds and Oneohtrix Point Never ha ha........

I never read reviews. I check the albums out by myself so I'm completily neutral and without any impression of someone else when I listen to it.
All albums do have at least 1 "bad" song, but what makes an album good is everything about it: the concept, artwork, sound and after listening through it you must feel that "damn it was good, I could listen to it again", somethin like that..

i think they were joking about pitchfork...

i've re read my first post and it doesn't make sense.
NYCGAF is one of my favourite albums. the only song on there i dont love is the last song, and even that is ok sometimes

continuity. does it flow together like cinema or a scenic hike or it is just a bunch of tunes strung together.. good albums flow together like one continuous tune.. good bands make consecutive albums that continue to thread together while allowing for considerable artistic growth and depth of vision

I wasn't....... I will read Aquarius Records for new stuff to investigate, but I'll leave the final judgement up to actually listening to an album........ I also go into a book store once a month and read Decibel, The Wire, Rocka Rolla, Classic Rock Monthly, Waxpoetics and a few other semi interesting magazines to get a heads up to some new stuff, but again......... only listening will truly tell my opinion........

Okay like for example that recent comp called Those Shocking Shaking Days on Now-Again Records which promised "heavy Indonesian psych/prog/funk" what the fuck?!?!? That comp barely had any of that stuff and a lot of boring shit on it!! Yet, I loved one of the recent ones they did called "Forge Your Own Chains" that one was fucking SICK........ and I got all excited and pre-ordered it from amazon and when it showed up I was really let down.........

I was. I can't read :(

repped

an album that asked for a lot of days working on it is often good

I judge the album for it´s entity, it´s ok if there few bad songs if the whole entity works.

NYG&F got 0.0 from pitchfork

That was the moment i realised all numerical ratings were nonsense

Much like age being just a measurement of how long since you were born.

correct
yes
good to know

by their covers