It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock & Roll)...

Every album is a sum of its parts. And consistency is key to a high rating.

To determine the album rating, I analyze and rate each song. The Desert Island Disc* concept drives my opinions. If I love the song (i.e., I'd put it on a Desert Island Disc), it gets the highest rating (100%). If I hate the song, it gets the lowest rating (0%). In between, there are four additional ratings. Think of them this way:

• Hate It - I never want to hear the song again
• Dislike It - I'll skip the song on the CD
• Ok - A mediocre song, neither good nor bad
• Like It - A good song, but not a favorite
• Like It A Lot - Good enough to include on a band's "Best Of" CD
• Love It - Desert Island Disc material

*The concept is based on a BBC Radio show that began in 1942. The idea is that you imagine yourself cast away on a desert island, and you only have a certain number of songs to listen to forever after.

I use a spreadsheet to convert the ratings to numerical values, multiply them by the length of the song, and apply a few more simple calculations to determine the album rating. (That's why you'll see odd numbers such as 89.06.) And I expand to two decimal places to determine overall rankings. You can simply round up or down to keep the numbers to two digits.

So, the more I like each individual song, the higher the album rating. One bad song or a few mediocre songs may have a big impact on the overall score, especially if those songs are lengthy.