A few years ago, we did away with our previous star rating system because there were heated discussions about the fact that we had published too many 5-star reviews, which made the whole rating system seem somewhat absurd. My colleague Gary Chapin has now written a post stating that all the albums he reviews deserve five stars. I - who used to be quite happy to hand out five stars - would say that actually only very, very few albums deserve five stars - and that’s why I’m glad we got rid of the rating system.
When I think back on which albums I gave five stars to, I’m not sure in hindsight if they were all worth it. Here’s a small - completely arbitrary - selection: Evan Parker’s Electro-Acoustic Ensemble’s Hasselt, Colin Stetson & Mats Gustafsson’s Stones, Zoh Amba’s Bhakti; William Parker’s Wood Flute Songs, Matana Roberts’s Always ; Ken Vandermark/Paal Nilssen-Love’s Extended Duos, Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet+1’s Walk, Love, Sleep … . And are these releases are all as good as - let’s say - Cecil Taylor’s Alms/Tiergarten ? Or the first two Die Like A Dog albums? Or Matana Roberts’s first two Coin Coin projects? That’s up to each of our readers, but I think there are definitely differences. In a nutshell: Not all the albums I review are 5-star albums.
What we ultimately also did away with a while back are sorchers. If we don’t like an album, we don’t review it. That’s understandable, too. I’ve written a few scorchers - and I don’t regret it. I never felt like I was shitting in anyone’s cornflakes. I’m still convinced that those albums are bad. I dismissed Alabaster De Plume’s Gold because, in my opinion, the album was completely and unjustifiably praised to the skies almost everywhere. The same goes for Kamasi Washington’s Epic (at least partly), Trilok Guru’s Spellbound, and Günter Baby Sommer/Till Brönner’s Baby’s Party (in a double review, since Nick Ostrum liked the album, which is totally okay to me, of course). Not all the music sent to us or suggested for review is equally good. If you treat everything the same, you don’t do outstanding music justice. The late German literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki was famous for his scorchers. The ones compiled in a book sold like crazy. No one was interested in the compiled praise.
I, too, want to promote very good music and I don’t write scorchers anymore. I don't think my reviews separate the what from the chaff, but maybe help draw some attention to something others out there might enjoy. When Stef Gijssels started the blog almost 20 years ago he wanted to provide a guideline for people who stand in front of a CD or vinyl shelf and have no idea what to buy. And I remember me as young guy reading music magazines. I had a bunch of writers I could trust blindly. If they raved about an album, you could be sure it was really good. And if they didn’t think something was that great, you’d listen to it first. That’s the spirit in which I write my reviews.
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