Update #10 (2024. April 30th):
With the release of the 10th update to the database, I can now say that I listened to all classic trance tunes from 1993 and from 1994. This represents around 15,000 tracks, or roughly 10% of all the tracks I have to listen to (150,000).
This is a big update. I overhauled the whole Weighted Rating system, and I believe that after countless of iterations, I finally managed to find something that presents a reliable framework to properly rate and evaluate music, and also gives results based on the inserted values that are in line with my objective and subjective expectations.
For the more curious, this means the following:
- No track in the curated selection goes below 70% (broadly speaking, this is similar to iMDB pre-2010: only the best movies reached a score of 7.0 or above, thanks to their weighted rating system)
- A track's emotional and melodic components play a significant role in the weighted rating formula
- Tunes that represent the artistic peak of trance music can reach a score exceeding 95%
- For the most part, the Curator's Rating (which is also a part of the Weighted Rating) provides a very similar value compared to the average of the other subratings
- Ideally, each subratings' dominance is the equation is well balanced, and roughly equal to their real world importance (so to what extent they matter when listening to a piece of music)
- All of the above things happen in paralell
Of course, it's not just the equation that was changed, but also what is used in the equation. Melody & Emotion got seperated into two distinct categories: Melody & Memorability and Emotional Impact. Furthermore, Harmony & Depth got renamed to Diversity & Depth and I clarified it a little bit to make it clear how it differs compared to Structure & Arrangement, which I also tweaked a little bit. All the other stuff is there as before, including Technical Quality, but right now, it's not taken into account when calculating a tune's overall rating.
The final formula looks like this:
- Curator's Rating = 50%
- YouTube Rating = 25%
- Discogs Rating = 7.5%
- Impact & Recognition = 1.25%
- Originality & Innovation = 1.25%
- Melody & Memorability = 5%
- Emotional Intensity = 5%
- Diversity & Depth = 2.5%
- Structure & Arrangement = 2.5%
Technical Quality = 0% currently
With these percentages, every goal I pointed out above gets met, but if you want to understand this formula even better, here's some additional information.
I wanted the Curator's Rating to be a really dominant part in the equation. The Curator's Rating primarily represents the overall enjoyment level of the track based on my own taste, knowledge, and experience with the genre. This is one of the key ways how this database can become more than just a simple popularity list that can change day by day. A list that can give the same level of attention and recognition to tunes, practically regardless of their popularity. Hence, 50% dominance makes sense.
At the same time, I also wanted to involve the community in some way and give room to their opinions, hence, I tried to utilize every worthwhile data that is available to me from the community's side. Obviously, that's why I used data from YouTube and Discogs, where there's lots of music-related data in the form of star ratings or likes and dislikes. YouTube Ratings account for half (so 25%) of my Curator's Rating, while Discogs Rating is 7.5%. On Discogs, you can't rate individual tracks, only whole singles/albums, and typically, a vinyl album houses 3.3 tracks on average. So it makes sense that Discogs Rating's dominance is only around 1/3 of YouTube Rating (which is for an individual track).
As for the other subratings: I wanted to rate tracks on a more granular level. This granularity can help to:
- Understand tunes better
- Recognize which tunes excel in which parts
- Slightly differentiate otherwise equally rated tunes (e.g. two 3.5-star tunes), which will be useful in creating a score-based toplist
Obviously, a tune's originality or impact has little to do with how good it actually is, so these criteria (Impact & Recognition, Originality & Innovation) only account for a fraction of the total score (1.25% each). At the same time, they still help to make the rating more granular and possibly more precise, without getting ahead of tunes that for example have better structure or better complexity - things that arguably matter more in a track. This means that Diversity & Depth and Structure & Arrangement each account for 2.5% of a tune's score. Finally, what matters the most is Melody & Memorability and Emotional Intensity that each account for 5% of the total score.
Of course, aside from overhauling the entire rating system, new tunes have been added as well which you can see here:
- Ultimate - Automatic (Original Mix)
- Spacewalker - Tenerife Dream
- Odyssey Of Noises - Firedance (The Sunrise)
- Trance Team - Wake Up (Trance Mix)
- Trance Team - Breath Of Life (The Force)
- Scooter - Back In Time
- B-Flame - Tochluaney
I'm still trying to finalize 1994 (including tune selections and filling up the remaining ratings) and I still have to listen to all the compilation albums from this year. Furthermore, I need to create the Community curation and change some things in the Adjacent database. So the next update will more than likely still focus on 1993 and 1994.
