Been working on a paper this weekend, listening to music. Random old crappy songs keep popping up, distracting me. I need a consistent system for rating songs on a 1-5 scale. This corresponds to the “stars” that you see in most music players that support star ratings. Thought I would write what I wrote down on a notepad here, so I can refer to it later.
So far, the rating I assign to songs has been pretty random. The finger trembles and the brain does a “wait, wait, are you sure?” before I give something five stars. The brain also can’t decide if something is two, three or four stars.
The goals of the system are three – assigning a rating for songs should be quick process, the ratings must be independent of the mood I am in when I rate a song the first time, and songs that I don’t want to hear again must be clearly identifiable.
0 stars – Songs that have not been rated yet
Listed here for the sake of completeness
1 star – Songs that I do not like, and don’t want to listen to, again.
I hate deleting informartion, files. So these are songs that will stick around – the 7th song in a 7 song album that saves the album from being incomplete, for example. Or maybe popular songs that someone else might like. But, as far as I am concerned, I couldn’t care less about these songs.
2 stars – Songs that I might want to listen to again, sometime in the future, but not because I like them. Bhaja Govindam, for example, or, say, some songs by Björk. I really don’t think I will want to listen to it, but its not a song I never want to listen to again. 2 star-songs can move up the ladder later depending on how it “grows” on me.
3 stars – I like the song. I don’t get the urge to skip the song every time it plays.
4 stars – I love the song.
5 stars – Absolute all time favourite song. I can listen to these any time, any day and not be irritated. List of songs I would take with me to a desert island – that kind of thing.
Note to self – Directions for rating songs:
- Listen to the song
- If you just cannot listen to all of it, and won’t miss it for sure, it’s a 1-star song.
- At the end of the song, if you can’t make up your mind whether you like it, and might want to listen to it again, pick 2-stars
- If you like the song, 3-stars
- If the song has 3 stars and you think it should get more ear time, give it 4-stars
- If the song is an all time favorite, 5-stars. Brand new songs never get 5 stars. If it is a brand new song you absolutely love, give it 4 stars and leave it at that. If it deserves 5 stars, you will know it when, even after a month, you love it as much as you did the first time you heard it
