Mandy @ POLI 333D

This is a coincidence that I am also looking at MetaCritic as did Prof. Nyblade, and comparing its rating for music albums with that of NME. COM (New Musical Express), the official website of the British music publication NME.

On NME.COM, site visitors (who don’t need to register as members) can rate an album by simply scrolling their mouses. The resulting rating for the album would be the average of all the ratings received. Obviously, the rating method is quite arbitrary. I found this to be more true after I realized I can rate the album even when I am not a member (and have not listened to any songs from the album), and worse, I found that if I refresh the page, I can vote again.

> Scroll bar on NME.COM

So I believe the NME. COM rating is based on its belief that only people who are interested in music and/or know the NME magazine would browse the site and give ratings on a scale from 0 – 10 (0 being bad and 10 being good of course). While one may argue that, if NME.COM had an enough amount of reviewers, extreme ratings from random site visitors (who have not listened to the album) may balance off themselves, the problem is that there is no indication of how many reviews have been submitted. In sum, the NME. COM rating is apparently arbitrary and, unaccountable.

MetaCritic, on the other hand, shows the number of submitted reviews (by both professional critics and site members). MetaCritic shows at least four critics’ reviews, which are expressed in terms of a “weighted average” assigned by MetaCritic. This “weighted average” means that different amount of weight is given to the opinions of critics based on the critics’ quality and/or stature. The result is a score ranging from 0-100 (again, 100 being the best). In contrast to NME.COM, MetaCritic’s visitors must login in order to vote (on a 0-5 scale), reducing the possibility of random voting. By showing two separate scores from critics and members, site visitors are able to compare the professional and public opinions of the album, and make their own judgments. Needless to say, the extra work of the MetaCritic staff has made the reviews more creditable and professional.

> Critics’ and members’ ratings for (my beloved) Skrillex’s album (so low I have no idea………)

The conclusion is that the rating on MetaCritic is more creditable than that on NME. COM, mainly because of the former’s scope (and maybe standard) of reviewers and its method of calculating the rating. However, because critics on MetaCritic generally give a lower score than the members do, one may expect to have lower expectation of an album if he/she only looks at the critics’ scores.

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