Listenability
Yes, listenability is in fact a word:
Listenability (Noun): Being such that listening is pleasurable lis'ten·a·bil'i·ty n.
Yes, listenability is exactly what it sounds like, as many of the older generation might encounter when listen to the "new fangled banging on pots and pans music" that they're offspring enjoy so much, listenability is a very subjective thing (keep that in mind). I try to review in terms of very general listenability, there tend to be certain elements of bands that are just horrendous to listen to (i.e. for me high pitched screaming, poor studio equalizer work (the high end needs to be brought in guys..)) It's probably unlikely that the listenability grade will really vary much from each of my reviews (Disclaimer: I only tend to review albums I would actually recommend, I don't review just anything unless requested). So how well.. easy is it to listen to it? That's what listenability is.. basically.. I know it might seem a little obscure, but I hope you understand. (:
Relistenability
Now this is not particularly a word (at least it's not in the dictionary) I just prefixified it (the meaning should be obvious). I'm truly a believer that some albums exponentially decrease in listening pleasure the more times you listen to it. Relistenability attempts to gauge the "play it again" factor with various albums, that is will you enjoy listening to it the 100th time you play it, or just the first few times? Relistenability is exactly what that is all about.
Listening Experience
Once again we delve into the more obscure and subjective arenas of my rating system. I do hope you'll forgive me I'm a very obscure guy (: Listening experience has a lot to do with the overall "feel" of the album. Am I sitting there thinking about what I should make for dinner that night? Am I feeling like this album really makes me want to jam a pencil into my brain? Or does the music allow my mind to kind of clear and focus in on the sounds providing a more relaxing or exciting or insert emotion here feeling? If it does allow me to focus into the album, then the listening experience is good, if I'm able to almost completely ignore the music the listening experience might not be very high.. (or you have some awesome tuning out skills) Did I listening to the album? Did I feel like I was forcing myself to listen to the album? These are the kinds of questions I ask myself when attempting to place a listening experience rating on the album.
Variation
Once again, I hope this is fairly straight forward for you. Variation deals more with "Do the tracks all sound the same?" than anything else, when I'm providing a rating. Some bands suffer from cloneitis when they are writing tracks. Each track sounds almost the same as all the other tracks, how much did they mix it up? That's what I attempt to gauge in variation. Now keep in mind most bands exhibit a certain "style" variation is not gauging this I would include a complete explanation at the beginning of the album review if the band had changed its core style. I speak more of interalbum variation. How much do the tracks sound alike? Could I tell one track from another one? That's what variation attempts to gauge.
Overall
Okay, this really should be the least obscure one of them all. (: This is merely a culmination of all the rating things (expressed here and ones that I haven't expressed) put together into one averaged grade. Keep in mind there are no mathematical calculations taking place with the overall grade. I do not precisely average the gradings of the other categories, this is just a one shot take everything into account, lay all the cards on the table, kind of grading thing. It takes into account not only the grading categories I have expounded on here, but more obscure grading critera that flow in my disorganized brain.
So, I hope this has been educational for you, I don't mean to be obscure, but it's hard for me to put things so simply when rating music. I just want to give you as verbose a rating as I can when grading something as a new music album. I love music, and I hope I can point you to some new stuff. Cheers.
Yes, listenability is exactly what it sounds like, as many of the older generation might encounter when listen to the "new fangled banging on pots and pans music" that they're offspring enjoy so much, listenability is a very subjective thing (keep that in mind). I try to review in terms of very general listenability, there tend to be certain elements of bands that are just horrendous to listen to (i.e. for me high pitched screaming, poor studio equalizer work (the high end needs to be brought in guys..)) It's probably unlikely that the listenability grade will really vary much from each of my reviews (Disclaimer: I only tend to review albums I would actually recommend, I don't review just anything unless requested). So how well.. easy is it to listen to it? That's what listenability is.. basically.. I know it might seem a little obscure, but I hope you understand. (:
Relistenability
Now this is not particularly a word (at least it's not in the dictionary) I just prefixified it (the meaning should be obvious). I'm truly a believer that some albums exponentially decrease in listening pleasure the more times you listen to it. Relistenability attempts to gauge the "play it again" factor with various albums, that is will you enjoy listening to it the 100th time you play it, or just the first few times? Relistenability is exactly what that is all about.
Listening Experience
Once again we delve into the more obscure and subjective arenas of my rating system. I do hope you'll forgive me I'm a very obscure guy (: Listening experience has a lot to do with the overall "feel" of the album. Am I sitting there thinking about what I should make for dinner that night? Am I feeling like this album really makes me want to jam a pencil into my brain? Or does the music allow my mind to kind of clear and focus in on the sounds providing a more relaxing or exciting or insert emotion here feeling? If it does allow me to focus into the album, then the listening experience is good, if I'm able to almost completely ignore the music the listening experience might not be very high.. (or you have some awesome tuning out skills) Did I listening to the album? Did I feel like I was forcing myself to listen to the album? These are the kinds of questions I ask myself when attempting to place a listening experience rating on the album.
Variation
Once again, I hope this is fairly straight forward for you. Variation deals more with "Do the tracks all sound the same?" than anything else, when I'm providing a rating. Some bands suffer from cloneitis when they are writing tracks. Each track sounds almost the same as all the other tracks, how much did they mix it up? That's what I attempt to gauge in variation. Now keep in mind most bands exhibit a certain "style" variation is not gauging this I would include a complete explanation at the beginning of the album review if the band had changed its core style. I speak more of interalbum variation. How much do the tracks sound alike? Could I tell one track from another one? That's what variation attempts to gauge.
Overall
Okay, this really should be the least obscure one of them all. (: This is merely a culmination of all the rating things (expressed here and ones that I haven't expressed) put together into one averaged grade. Keep in mind there are no mathematical calculations taking place with the overall grade. I do not precisely average the gradings of the other categories, this is just a one shot take everything into account, lay all the cards on the table, kind of grading thing. It takes into account not only the grading categories I have expounded on here, but more obscure grading critera that flow in my disorganized brain.
So, I hope this has been educational for you, I don't mean to be obscure, but it's hard for me to put things so simply when rating music. I just want to give you as verbose a rating as I can when grading something as a new music album. I love music, and I hope I can point you to some new stuff. Cheers.
