Over the past week I noticed a comment on my Jars of Clay CD. In short the comment, while not critical of my review, was questioning my stance on rating The Long Fall Back to Earth while the rating Third Day (I’m still not quite sure where that came from honestly) and Superchic[k] were much lower (if you are unaware of the debate of Superchicken’s CD Rock what you Got check it out). While The Long Fall back to Earth might have contained slightly more spiritual themes than Superchic[k] was the 5 star rating system 4 to 1 (stars) justifiable? No it’s really not. So to Dr. Bull, you have caught me: I have rated a CD higher than another for no great reason which in his words qualifies as inconsistent. So here is your chance to say “AH HA! What a hypocrite.” I’ll admit it, you got me.
Now before anyone one goes overboard with this I want to clarify something. The least important part, now please pay attention, the least important part of my reviews is the rating! The LEAST! I don’t care about ratings, I care about reviews. Those familiar with my reviewing past know that at one time I even stopped putting ratings on my reviews to prevent discourage those who would take one glance at the rating and skip my review. I hate putting ratings on CDs, not only is it irrelevant to me it’s hard to give a CD a definitive rating. To this day I still shy away from reviewing fence riding albums because I don’t want anyone to take any review I write the wrong way. In fact I don’t even give ratings to secular released CDs, not because I hate all of them, but because I would have to change standards to rate them.
How I review a CD is the important thing and if you disagree and think that five star ratings are critical to any professional review fine. But there was little to no inconsistency when it came to The Long Fall Back to Earth verses Rock What you Got. I quote from my own unedited review ‘The most spiritually influenced song is “two hands”… The lack of God centered lyrics might be a little disconcerting… [Hero] suggests maybe God isn’t listening to us’. If that’s not being critical enough for a CD I enjoyed I’m not sure what is. So if you want to discuss this be my guest. If you want to harp on my inconsistent ratings go ahead. But I hope this will have settled something instead of adding to the division,
Nathan's Blog 
