5s: Albums that are both flawless and have had a significant personal/musical impact on me.

4.5s: Like a 5. Only, not a 5, for some reason specific to each album.

4s: 4 is my favorite rating. It says, "I like you, you make my ears happy." 4s don't have to be revolutionary, nor do they have to be flawless, but they're certainly noteworthy and worth your time.

3.5s: These albums are kind of like 4s, except something about them pisses me off a little bit.

3s: These aren't bad albums, but aren't something I would want to listen to very often. Maybe there's a few great songs that I enjoy, maybe it's just not my thing, or maybe it's an album I used to love I grew out of, but any which way, 3s get some respect.

2.5: 2.5s are the lowest of the "tolerable" spectrum. I don't necessarily dislike these albums, and in the right kind of mood I could enjoy them if they were playing, but all in all, 2.5s are mostly mediocre. In short: "not terrible, but you could do much better!"

2s: Well, there could be a few okay songs, but regardless, 2s are pretty damn awful.

1.5s-0.5s: Varying degrees of utter contempt. A much younger version of myself might have enjoyed these albums, but that doesn't make up for the fact that some of these albums should just not be considered art.

Unless I feel as if the album is a 3 or under, I don't rate them till at least the second or third listen. But most of the time there is a reasonable amount of time between the first and the second listen, so I have many albums I have on my computer lingering with the "to rate" tag.