Some blogger does ‘statistical analysis’ of Pitchfork ratings

Published on Tuesday 3/2/2010 @ 1:49 PM by the ALT REPORT Robot

Links: http://www.parttimemusic.com/2010/02/25/pitchfork-a-statistical-look-at-their-ratings/

Many music fans consider ratings by the Pitchfork Magazine to be ‘the Bible of Indie Music.’ Recently, a blogger did an ‘in depth’ analysis of ‘what these ratings really mean.’ Many insiders have suspected that these numbers ‘don’t really mean anything’, and ratings are the ultimate advertorials meant 2 help bands move units.

It seems like the goal of the post to find out what was ‘average’ according to the Pitchfork robot. The score 7.0 seems to be ‘average.’

The bulk of the histogram centers around the 6.5-8.5 range with a score of 7.0 being the most common rating (51 times). Also, because pitchfork tends to not publish reviews on horrendously bad albums, it’s a no brainer to see the plot negatively skewed significantly. Similarly, exceptionally performing albums (i.e. 8.7 and above) are also relatively rare events.

I have never taken a ‘statistics’ class, so I cannot confirm that this statistical analysis is ‘legit’ or if it is just an entry level analysis.

Confirming our natural inclination that a majority of albums are rated around the “7″ mark, the box of the boxplot, representing the middle 50% of scores, occurs from 6.1 – 7.6. The final interesting part is that if an album scores below 3.9, it’s considered a statistical outlier

Not sure if this was an ‘innovative study’ or something obvious/something no1 should care about. It also goes into the concept of ‘Best New Music’, and how statistics prove that there is ‘favoritism’ when it comes to assigning the label to legacy artists:

If you are a hyped record or are an established act, you have a better shot of getting a Best New Music when you are on the cusp. Now this seems kind of obvious, but there were some egregious instances where this occurred. Of the 41 albums that scored an 8.1 and 8.2, five were chosen as BNM: Surfer Blood’s Astro Coast, Atlas Sound’s Logos Cass McCombs’s Catacombs, Bill Callahan’s Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle, and Wavves’s S/T

Is this a ‘conspiracy’?

Do yall like investigative blog journalism?
Are there only lies, damn lies, and statistics?
Can some1 create an alternative fantasy league?
Will MGMT get the highest Pitchfork Rating of all time?
Did yall take algebra, statistics, calculus, or a remedial math class in High School?

Tags: Pitchfork gossip, Pitchfork rankings

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38 comments to “Some blogger does ‘statistical analysis’ of Pitchfork ratings”

strato
March 2nd, 2010 at 1:51 pm

‘wicked’

white blipster
March 2nd, 2010 at 1:52 pm

MGMT will get the lowest p4k rating after Owl City

//////////Reply by meaningful bro
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 1:59 pm

@white blipster, miss owl city

//////////Reply by chong
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 2:37 pm

@meaningful bro, hello seatle

//////////Reply by elliott
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 3:28 pm

@meaningful bro, is owl city ‘relevant?’ i thought they were a low-quality copy of the postal service and they were seen as cool since everyone forgot about the postal service (via 2005). but apparently they’re good?

//////////Reply by chilisfan
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 6:06 pm

@elliott, not sure what owl city is? feel like it’s a meme from 2k9. don’t remember that year.

//////////Reply by twink
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 11:57 pm

@elliott, Nooooo. No no no. Owl City is ‘fucking horrendous’/'a disgrace’ to everything.

//////////Reply by meaningful bro
//////////Posted March 3rd, 2010 at 7:40 pm

@elliott, postal service is to owl city as the pleix video ‘birds’ with the jumping dogs in slow mo is to this pedigree commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNd2wyEmmfU

memes, yo

$\\\\\\\\\\$

//////////Reply by \\\\\\\\\\
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 2:18 pm

@white blipster, oh no u ddnt

//////////Reply by Laura Dern
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 2:32 pm

@white blipster, MGMT will go to 11.

//////////Reply by white blipster
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 3:10 pm

@Laura Dern, hope ur right. also hope the ‘album art’ release was a ‘hoax’. do not approve of the ‘tom vs’ jerry’ theme.

//////////Reply by John Hayda
//////////Posted March 4th, 2010 at 12:41 am

@white blipster, Yeah I do agree with you MGMT will get a bad rating. What they should look at is how P4K jizzes all over Domino Records. It’s so ‘indie’

teh
March 2nd, 2010 at 1:57 pm

as an alt scientist, it’s a pretty straightforward, simplistic analysis. especially interesting was the BNM stats. wish he woulda quantified “hype” via some metric. maybe i should continue the study and report back??

//////////Reply by teh
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 2:01 pm

@teh, also, you missed the best part of the analysis where he gives a map to better rate albums relative to all other p4k reviews, and not just on some arbitrary scale.

//////////Reply by fb
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 2:30 pm

@teh, Someone needs to come up with a regression model of p4k rating so that we can design the perfect indie band.

//////////Reply by sgt d
//////////Posted March 4th, 2010 at 5:13 pm

@fb, agree

//////////Reply by PTM
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 4:47 pm

Good point about the need to have a metric for “hype”. The easiest way I could think of doing that would be to look at the annual rate of blurbs each artist had and compare, which required more time than what I wanted to commit.

And you’re right, the percentile break-downs were the most interesting part (and my inspiration for the post). I was just tired of not knowing what a 7.2 or an 8.1 meant and wanted to do some easily calculable introductory stats to get more meaning out of just a number (this was never meant to be “in depth study”).

//////////Reply by MGL
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 6:05 pm

@PTM, Tracking advertising dollars, if possible, would probably be ideal. I suspect even among indie artists the avenues for advertising are pretty well-defined; i.e., a dollar spent by one band will “buy” the same amount of hype as a dollar spent by another band. … unless there are youtube videos a la OK Go or something.

Also, cocks.

//////////Reply by chilisfan
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 6:12 pm

@teh, are factorial ANOVAs the most alt statistical function?

//////////Reply by dudebroman
//////////Posted March 3rd, 2010 at 1:30 am

@chilisfan, i was gonna say nonparametric regression, but i’m chill with anovas [via russian female surname]

//////////Reply by Charles M.
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 11:54 pm

@teh, my greatest goal is to become an alt scientist via molecular biologist.

$\\\\\\\\\\$

\\\\\\\\\\
March 2nd, 2010 at 2:00 pm

soo entry-level

needs some hypothesis testing instead of Excel-level summary statisties, doesnt matter bc interns at p4k prob ‘suck at math’ and dont know ne thing abt bias or normal distributions

just trying 2b vulnerable abt ‘plugging numbers into SPSS/Matlab/SAS’ to convince ppl of ______.

//////////Reply by skybeard
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 3:45 pm

@\\\\\,

sup bro, u wanna chill out and look for some orthogonal contrasts?

//////////Reply by Jeff
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 4:45 pm

@\\\\\, While I’m sure lots more interesting statistical analysis could be done on this data, it was written at a level where the largest number of people would understand a good bit of what was being said. I don’t think this would be of near as wide interest if he was comparing multivariate regression coefficients for various factors that affect album ratings.

Brobi Wan Kenobi
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:03 pm

So basically, from my understanding, P4K’s ratings “don’t mean shit”?

//////////Reply by white blipster
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 3:11 pm

@Brobi Wan Kenobi, you are wise.

deej
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:48 pm

h8 u bloddy surfer wavves.

feel like the track reviews are even more inane.

//////////Reply by deej
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 3:49 pm

BLOODY

rmzy
March 2nd, 2010 at 4:06 pm

some1 should get on this ‘fantasy alt league’ idea

$\\\\\\\\\\$

//////////Reply by \\\\\\\\\\
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 6:38 pm

@rmzy, hmm not sure whether to trade Ben Gibbard or Karen O. They’re pretty well established brands, maybe I’ll start a ‘Yankees’ label/team with and big names to guarantee ‘hits’.

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//////////Reply by \\\\\\\\\\
//////////Posted March 2nd, 2010 at 6:39 pm

@\\\\\, what i wanted 2 say is that it’s a good idea. u could determine who’s ‘not alt nemore’ by their stats.

//////////Reply by chugg
//////////Posted March 3rd, 2010 at 2:03 am

@\\\\\, i’m drafting the pavements

oops

eggs
March 2nd, 2010 at 4:36 pm

rode the bell curve all the way to the alt bank.

yvynyl bro
March 2nd, 2010 at 7:59 pm

no doubt.

Franz_Kafka
March 3rd, 2010 at 10:29 am

Kind pissed that they don’t give 10.0s anymore. Yeah, we understand you fucked up when you gave Source Tags and Codes a 10.0 when it was more like a 7.6 but I still want to get really excited about albums.

CrisisMaven
March 3rd, 2010 at 7:22 pm

As I see you are dealing with statistical research: I have put one of the most comprehensive link lists for hundreds of thousands of statistical sources and indicators on my blog: Statistics Reference List. And what I find most fascinating is how data can be visualised nowadays with the graphical computing power of modern PCs, as in many of the dozens of examples in these Data Visualisation References. If you miss anything that I might be able to find for you or if you yourself want to share a resource, please leave a comment.