Witness - Katy Perry | Metacritic (54/100 - 12 reviews)

[LetsGetHigh 52,683]

Also what a joke, metacritic should review the reviews before taking the scores. Any review that reflects today's news is so dumb. Like Trump' travel ban joke in LA times, how dumb. Focus on the song reviews.

[GypsyBabe 22,836]

On 6/6/2017 at 5:16 AM, BLACKOUTbritney said:

They gave ARTPOP + The Fame Monster a D so they can choke 

Whaaaaaat?! 

[littlepotter 75,070]

2 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

Indeed, some courses may require higher pass marks than others. Obviously, if you're in medicine, it's highly important that you're qualified, as you'll have people's lives in your hands. And yes, pass grades are being lowered in some cases because rates of passing is so bad. It does defeat the point of education and trying hard.

I learned about Finland's school system through a news story a few years ago that said, when all the world education system was measured up, Finland came out the best in the world for rates of passing, low dropout rate and high university numbers/degrees earned. It contained interviews with Finnish teachers and leaders of education, explaining why things are so good there. No private schools, 2 teachers in a class, the same teacher staying with the students for most of their years, children not starting school until they're 7 years old, no standardised testing until they're 16 years old. It was a real eye-opener and I agreed so much with it. No wonder the dropout rate is so low and so much of the country have degrees. Apparently, Finland never used to do this well in education and their main industry was agriculture, meaning they were quite poor. But they decided that even if they weren't the richest country in the world, they could at least have the best education system, and they achieved that, which is very admirable. Sweden also ranked very high, along with other Scandinavian countries. My aunt is also a teacher and she said a lot of teaching now is based on Scandinavian methods. I think we're starting to learn that if we want to improve, we need to see how the best in the world are doing things.

That's a shame that so many people are so ignorant about your country. Granted, we don't get much education about it. Most people I know can say that it's next to Sweden, near the Baltic countries, its capital is Helsinki and it has a white flag with a blue cross on it and has roughly 5 million of a population. But that's about it. I know that a lot of metal bands have come out of there, including Nightwish, who I quite like. I also know the original creator of the Moomins came from there. And according to my mum, they like tango dancing over there as well. And like you said, I knew Nokia was based there (though, until I found out about the education system, which contained a section where someone from Nokia was speaking, I thought it was a British company because that brand has always been huge in Britain!) But other than that, not much, so finding out their education system was a revelation. I think there should be more done to encourage people to find out more about countries outside themselves. At least my country's starting to be understood a bit more lately. Up until fairly recently, it was like every American thought Scottish people lived in castles and were cut off from the outside world. My friends once went on a trip to New York and visited a school where the students asked questions about life in Scotland and they were seriously asking them if they had phones and televisions and they said: "Yes...we invented those things, actually!" I also had to once tell an American who was very well educated and had actually visited the UK that Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland were all part of the same country, that we were separate in lots of ways but decided to unify. And he said: "Well, I thought it must be called the United Kingdom for a reason..."

Also, thank you for the edification re: album ratings; I've always assumed the "stars" are like grades (e.g., 4/5 is 80% and therefore only slightly above mediocre). I suppose next time I visit Metacritic I'll be far less incensed.

I don't always agree with Metacritic's scoring system, in regards to how they rank the reviews of professional critics. As the site operates on a percentage system for professionals, whatever method the critic has used (stars, grades) will be converted into a percentage according to the site's standards. And I have seen a critic who gave an album 3/5 stars get recorded as a 60% approval rating on Metacritic. And I'm like: "60% is above average! In what world is 3 stars considered better than average?" Joanne's reviews were weird like that. In a sense, this was good news for Gaga as she got higher ratings on Metacritic but they were clearly wrong. Slant Magazine, The Independent and The Guardian all gave her 3/5 stars respectively, but were for some reason recorded as 60% approval, which is too high. I thought The Chicago Tribune one was the only truly correct one - they operate on the very strange 4 star system and had given her 2/4 stars, and they got recorded as 50% approval. So, why is it, when other publications gave her 3/5 star approval, they were strangely recorded as 60% on Metacritic? Very odd.

Translated into the grading system and the percentage system, my personal 5 star system would translate like this:
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

The grading system...

F = 0.5/5

D- = 1/5

D = 1.5/5

D+ = 2/5

C- = 2.5/5

C = 3/5

C+ =  3.5/5

B = 4/5

B+  = 4.5/5

A = 5/5

And for percentages...

0-9% = 0.5/5

10-19% = 1/5

20-29% = 1.5/5

30-39% = 2/5

40-49% = 2.5/5

50-59% = 3/5

60-69% = 3.5/5

70-84% = 4/5

85-94% = 4.5/5

95-100% = 5/5

And the 10/10 star system...

1/10 = 1/5

2/10 - 1.5/5

3/10 = 2/5

4/10 = 2.5/5

5/10 = 3/5

6/10 - 3.5/5

7/10 = 3.5/5 (again)

8/10 = 4/5

9/10 = 4.5/5

10/10 - 5/5

 

As you can see, it's very difficult to get a 5 star score. Also, the lowest possible star would have to drop on the 10/10 system and I'd have to duplicate a score, which is why I'm not keen on it. I can't even work out the 4 star system. I don't understand the point of it. The 10 star system is too much, the 4 star system is too little. The best way to look at things is this - if you have 4 items and you remove 2 of them, you know have half what you had before, so 2/4 is half marks. But that isn't how it's translated, apparently.

Welp I was just passing by and I thought I'd congratulate you for writing the longest post I've ever seen goodnight

[Bat 6,162]

1 minute ago, littlepotter said:

Welp I was just passing by and I thought I'd congratulate you for writing the longest post I've ever seen goodnight

Oh babe, this is nothing yet. She can do way better. I've seen posts that surpass the Bible in length.

[ViviLittleM 3]

54 now

[Talent 9,333]

The way Gaga Daily is acting like this is a Gaga album. Damn, Metacritic thread and all. What's up with that? 

[ryhanna 3,507]

40 minutes ago, LetsGetHigh said:

Critics hate pop girls besides Beyonce it's disgusting. 

It's not critics fault pop stars continuously release mediocre albums.

I mean, yes, some critics are certainly biased against certain artists, but it bugs me when people "blame" them for the poor/mixed reception of an album. If you like an album that has a meh score, then cool, but clearly a lot of others didn't. 

Critics don't make albums good or bad, artists do.

[FrozenKookie 2,638]

18 minutes ago, Talent said:

The way Gaga Daily is acting like this is a Gaga album. Damn, Metacritic thread and all. What's up with that? 

This is posted on Entertainment News section. You don't need to kiss and rim Gaga's ass 7 times a week. Welcome to the block, new kid.

[Talent 9,333]

4 minutes ago, FrozenKookie said:

This is posted on Entertainment News section. You don't need to kiss and rim Gaga's ass 7 times a week. Welcome to the block, new kid.

I... was just asking. 

[Pierre 10,480]

The first two seem like payola.

[River 116,197]

The Guardian.. they gave 60 to Joanne.. come on.. someone payed for this after she saw all the 40s lol

[ViviLittleM 3]

Telegraph 2/5 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/what-to-listen-to/katy-perry-witness-album-review/

[Fiona Apple 13,006]

So happy about Guardian

[baptism 2,670]

it deserves literally 0

[ViviLittleM 3]

4/5 http://www.nme.com/reviews/album/katy-perry-album-witness-review