The Shifting (Ben) Sands

With the long-anticipated rebirthing of George Starostin's Rock and Pop Album Reviews, now titled Only Solitaire, I am able to at last make peace with my past, and move Starostin into my growing heap of discarded intellectual idols. Now I see the flaws of his website. There are certainly a lot of positives; he clearly states his tastes, he has detailed, and occasionally interesting reviews of 2065 albums, a nearly mastodonic figure.
I suppose criticizing his tastes isn't a real way to critique his website. No one is going to have the same tastes as me. Perhaps it is just because his tastes are so clearly stated, that they seem foolhardy. On his Stevie Wonder page, the following quote especially irked me:
"When I say that Stevie's melodic skills do not match Lennon's, the meaning is not that Lennon's melodies are more complex - they are not - or more experimental - which they can be sometimes, but that's not often the case. The meaning is that Lennon is able to make a simple-but-great, almost spontaneous, melody, which will overwhelm in an instant without even taking much time to develop it, whereas with Stevie, labour is very much an essential component."
Although he is not totally such a person, this paragraph condemns him as the sort of man who is unwilling to really get into music, who decides for good whether he likes it or not after one listen. I also had a harder time getting into Stevie Wonder than John Lennon. But where most of John Lennon's songs, especially his solo career, wear thin after awhile, Wonder just sounded better and better to me. It should matter not at all how long it took you to like it, but how much you like it, right now, as you write the review.
A proper critique of George Starostin, however, should begin and end with his band rating system. Even to me, the man desperate to quantify all of life with numbers, his band rating system is far too neat and hierarchical to capture the raging tides of artistry, to capture the fluke great album that comes out of a merely good band. The Beatles, the Stones, the Who, and Dylan all get 5's on his system, which does make sense, but only if you're trying to cultivate a museum of rock history. Although I like and respect those four bands/artists, it is surely ridiculous to give 15's to every Beatles album after Revolver, just because they happened upon a style of writing vocal melodies that suits your fancy. All four have made albums that are among my personal favorites (Abbey Road, Let It Bleed, Quadrophenia, Blonde on Blonde), but all four have made albums that I respect, but that I would find better-suited for appreciation in a museum, rather than as the main emotional conduit of my life (Sergeant Pepper's, Beggars' Banquet, Who's Next, Blood on the Tracks). I respect those last four albums, but for whatever subjective reason, I never actually want to listen to them.
And this is ultimately where Starostin's vain attempts for 'objective subjectivity' turn from a positive into a negative. I have come to doubt that his ratings actually correspond with his personal tastes. Sometimes, he accounts for his tastes, by giving Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Police 4's, where most people might not. This is fine, even if I don't agree with giving either of those groups 4's. But most of the time, I think he strives too hard for objective subjectivity, and loses sense of what his gut is telling him, making him just a friendly automaton who happens to spend all his free time writing album reviews. I find it hard to believe that for every band, that he really believes that their album ratings always progress like a bell curve, starting mediocre, working up to their peak, staying there awhile, then going back to mediocre. I find it hard to believe that he really thinks that a 2-star band is incapable of sometimes making an album with a 14 rating. I find it hard to believe that five Beatles albums suit his fancy enough that he gives them all perfect scores, when he only gives 15 out of 2065 albums perfect scores. The Beatles are supposed to be so overwhelmingly amazing that they account for a third of the perfect scores? Maybe drooling airhead fans of bands think this is possible, but for a purported scholar, Starostin should know better.
Having realized the flaws of Starostin, I have realized my own flaws. When I had my own album reviews website, and later, when I just kept tabs of my own ratings on my computer, I too, strove too much for 'objective subjectivity,' ignoring my gut. My ratings were biased towards what other people told me what I should like, not towards what I was thinking. This didn't make a vast difference in rating, since I find critically acclaimed albums usually fall into at least my "I can respect them, if not live by them" category, which is still a solid rating. But my ratings tended to confuse the albums I greatly respected with the albums that I greatly loved.
To some extent, I needed this bias. I needed some guide to help me with my plunge into the wide world of rock music, and whether it was my huge MusicHound Buyers' Guide, or Starostin and the WRC, a lot of people helped shape my record-reviewing perspectives and what I should be really listening for in music. I learned to listen in detail, to unearth great vocal melodies, to understand guitar wizardry, and splendid band interplay.
But now I have finally shook off the influence of these guides, and I think I have become my own man at last. I no longer feel the urge to strive for 'objective subjectivity' in my heart, although I do think it holds some place in album-reviewing. I think the rating should perhaps be more subjective, but the review should be more objective. This way I can give a 14 out of 15 to Stevie Wonder's Fulfillingness' First Finale and say in the review that I totally identify with the vibe and passion of the album, so I will give it a great score, but it is not very diverse, which doesn't bother me, but it could bother you. This way I can give a 13 to Dangerous and talk about I adore the sound and how its a dark trip into the mind of Michael Jackson, but it does have some notable flaws like its long running time, and its McDonalds commercial-style ballads. I've adjusted some of my ratings in my personal file on my computer, and it is nice to see them corresponding better with my emotions.