Like every publication that has ever existed, Rolling Stone has thrown its share of editorial curveballs that didn’t quite make it over the plate — from sending out free roach clips to readers in 1968 to putting the very hairy band Blind Melon on the cover, completely naked, in 1993. What’s important about these odd decisions is that we saw the error of our ways and learned from our mistakes (usually). There was never a Rolling Stone coke-spoon promotion, and we didn’t follow the naked Blind Melon cover with a naked Candlebox cover.
We recently went through a similar learning process with our record reviews. It’s a little inside-baseball, so bear with us. For decades, RS had used a star system to rate albums. A classic album got five stars, an excellent album got four stars, right on down to one star for albums deemed “poor.” Then, in 2022, we decided to ditch that system and go with two ratings — “Hear This” for good albums, and “Instant Classic” for, well, instant classics. Anything worse than that just got no rating. At the time, we explained our decision by saying, “If you’re an engaged music fan in 2022, your opinion isn’t going to be defined by some random number.” The move wasn’t exactly met with rioting in the streets. But if you’re a longtime Rolling Stone kremlinologist, you definitely noticed.
Turns out, the Hear This/Instant Classic gambit was an instant-classic example of an experiment that didn’t really work. Having only two ratings turned out to be way too limiting. A clear, well-defined system that lets readers know what we think about a record — from the greatest masterpiece to the duddiest dud — worked perfectly well. And now it will work perfectly well once again. So, to quote Fats Gonder’s introduction of James Brown on Live at the Apollo, “It’s star time!” Again.
Now, for a little refresher, here is a guide to the Rolling Stone critical cosmology.
Five: A classic. This album is perfect in every way and is destined to exert a massive influence on the course of music for years and years to come.
Four and a half: Incredible, but we need more time to tell if it’s a classic. Look for it at the very top of our Albums of the Year list.
Four: Excellent. It’s important and impactful and nearly every song on the album is great. Even listeners who don’t always like this artist or genre will immediately recognize how good it is.
Three and a half: Great. If you like this genre, you will like this record. If you like the artist in question, you’ll love it.
Three: Good. The artist did what they do, and it turned out fine.
Two and a half: Eh. Either the artist tried something different and didn’t quite pull it off, or they just weren’t on their game this time out.
Two: Fair. Even if you’re a pretty big fan, you’re gonna have to engage in some pretty high-level magical thinking to make this one seem good.
One and a half: Skip it.
One: Poor. You’re definitely going to want to check this one out, if only to bask in the breadth and scope of its manifest horribleness.
