HiRez Poll Midler, Bette - THE DIVINE MISS M [Blu-Ray Audio]

[bktouchstone]

It’s others he is referring to.

That’s the big question. The two issues are:
1. Why leave a shitty rating, then walk away with no comment.
2. Why keep buying discs that you are not going to like. So why buy and then rate them in the first place?

I don’t have a problem with anyone leaving a poor rating on a very well received new title. I just get irked when the poor rating is left by a non-contributing member who leaves no comment on why the rating left is so poor. Like just ding it with a 4 or a 5 and then walk away like that is contributing to the conversation.

So great if a comment is given along with the poor rating even if I don’t agree on the quality. It at least adds to the conversation.

Twenty years ago in Salt Lake City I was in a bar having some drinks and the piano player was just OK until he started performing “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart…” both roles. He would do a little falsetto for Kiki Dee’s parts. It was pure cheese and pure magic. Fantastic night from that point forward. Someone was making my drinks and someone else was buying them. What more could one want!

That’s what I felt about this disc. It seemed to be trying to create a moment that doesn’t translate when one is making and therefore buying one’s own drinks in one’s own home. And that’s why I didn’t rate it on the poll.

Until now there has been a relative paucity of titles relative to available budget but I like multichannel so much I try things I might not have otherwise. Call me quad-curious. From that I have found a lot of new artists and genres I like!

I was hoping that might happen with this album. No big deal that it didn’t. Some experiments work and some do not. But I am real glad that people like it as much as they do and enjoy reading of the fond memories and people they associate with it. Someday I might like it too…but you’ll have to buy me drinks.

 

[ubertrout]

I won’t give this a point score. It’s pretty clear I am an “outlier” statistically and I don’t want to let that take away from the fun Bette Midler fans may experience with this. If you are not a fan of BM, I don’t think this will change your mind. Anyway, here goes. I hated this. Probably because I am not and never have been a Bette Midler fan. Never understood the appeal of “The Rose” or “Beaches” and her voice always got on my nerves. I was hopeful after reading the raves that this would be different, but sadly no. Sometimes she just seems to drag out words and notes unnecessarily to perhaps dramatize them but for me it just subtracts. The song selection is mid 70s dreck. Listening to “Friends” I thought “If after school specials were musicals they would sound like this.” Never wanted to hear “Delta Dawn” again. Leader of the Pack never needed to be redone either. “Superstar” which talks about someone playing their sad guitar doesn’t seem to have a guitar in it, But there is a prominent piano and a harp. Most of the time her voice is immersed in reverb, so much so I swear I could still hear it after I pressed the “stop” button. There are a few diamonds: “Am I Blue?” “Hello in There” and “Boogie Woogie” are nice. There isn’t enough shelf space inside my house for my entire collection, the “less appealing” of which is in the garage which is not climate controlled. This will fit right in there.

I personally appreciate this review, as someone who has definitely followed the forum a few times and picked up discs that just do nothing for me. This always seemed the epitome of something I shouldn't touch, and it's good to be reminded of that. Doesn't diminish the pleasure of others at hearing this disc - different tastes are a real thing!

 

[steelydave]

I worry a bit about the sort of firing squad we might create by singling out people like this. I imagine there are a number of people who are interested in surround sound releases but generally don't have too much to say, but nevertheless vote. I want to make sure the environment is open enough so people who may give lower scores than others still feel welcome, you know?

Let me put this in bold, because it's not an opinion, but a policy:

No one is under any obligation to justify their poll votes via a subsequent post in the poll thread. If anyone feels like they've been bullied, intimidated or harassed beyond the confines of rigorous discussion, please click the 'Report' button at the bottom left of the offending post and the moderators will look at it. The same goes for private messages - we have dealt with issues like this in the past, and won't hesitate to do so in future. Not only is it not cool, it violates section 3 of the QQ Rules.

The idea that there's some kind of secret cabal (of one?) that's trying to diminish the reputation of a 50-year-old album via a single targeted middling poll vote is laughable at best, and as I've reiterated many times, the algorithm that generates poll results ignores "outliers." Outliers are votes that deviate significantly from the rest of the votes, so if all the other votes are 8s and 9s, and someone votes a single solitary 4, the 4 is discarded from the calculation.

...and well, if a bunch of people vote 4 and 5, then you just have to deal with the fact that maybe you like an album more than other people do. Personally I wear that kind of thing like a kind of badge of punk rock pride, because if music causes no reaction at all, positive or negative, what's the point? In other words don't sweat it whether you love or hate an album - the more votes cast, the more true representation you get of the true "sentiment" around an album, and when the math maths it will take care of the troublemakers.

In fact I would encourage everyone to go through the various poll sections and vote on the lesser-known albums without feeling any burden to post a follow-up comment. There are literally hundreds of polls that don't have the requisite number of votes (less than 6 for legacy formats, less than 10 for modern/digital formats) to appear in the poll rankings, so every vote on one of those has maybe 10 or even 100 times the value of voting on the Dark Side of the Moons of the QQ poll world.