A dinosaur rocker, I was born May 31, 1956; and my earliest musical memory is watching The Beatles perform "I Want to Hold Your Hand" on the Ed Sullivan show. As a drummer I tend to like music with a good rhythm section.
Here's a brief explanation of my ratings:
5 stars - I reserve for a DESERT ISLAND album. (Rule of thumb: I take a lot of road trips. These are discs that I absolutely cannot leave home without!!)
4.5 - This is an All-Time favorite (Usually an artist's best work)
4 - I love it, but it just misses being an all time favorite.
3.5 - I really like it, it's very good not quite great.
3 - It's pretty good
2.5 - Hit and miss. Maybe it's just ok, maybe it has a few really good tracks and some filler.
2 - A mediocre album, with at least some redeeming qualities (albums I keep because there's one really good song on it, but I rarely listen to the rest would fall into this category).
1.5 - I don't like it, but it doesn't totally suck.
1 - This is REALLY bad.
.5 star is reserved for an album that really sucks. And I mean really sucks to the point where it actually pisses me off in some way!
I also knock off one-half star for a "greatest hits" or "best of" album. Otherwise all "greatest hits" albums would have an unfair advantage over regular releases. That, and the fact that I just don't really like the concept of greatest hits albums. They are, for the most part, for people who are just casual music listeners and too lazy to dig in to an artists work.
My bootleg ratings are for sound quality only. 5 is never given, and 4.5 means you could "fool" someone into thinking it was an official release.
Sometimes I disagree with my own ratings; depending on my mood; so I tend to change ratings quite a bit. Also, There are many albums that I would have given a higher rating 30 years ago, but have not aged that well with me; or visa versa. Of course, tomorrow I could change my mind again :)
Several years ago, about two-thirds of my vinyl collection was wiped out in a basement flood. This should explain many obvious gaps in my collection (although I'm trying to replace them on CD and once in awhile I'll pick up a good piece of vinyl when I can find it).
I'm going to try to comment at least briefly on every album I've rated but haven't reviewed. A lot of these won't be actual "reviews"; but rather snapshots of albums. After I finish this task, I'll try to expand on these type of reviews.