Madness.

Sure, that makes sense, but it still leaves me wondering what a 5 or a 6 would be, in that case

I guess, if we were using my "Love or Hate?" scale, a 5 or 6 would equate to a "Meh", whereas anything below that would be a "Hate" and say 7 or 8 would be "Love" with 9 or 10 equating to "True Love", if that helps any.

TBH the scale is not supposed to be taken as too accurate a rating, given that I only listen to the albums once. It's just a general idea of how impressed, or not, I am with the album on the first listen. If I were doing proper reviews of these albums the ratings would likely be much more representative of my view of each.

The numbers kind of don't matter that much. It's built, as you can see, on a speedometer, so the faster I go (as it were) the more I like the album and the slower the less I like it. Don't know if that makes any more sense?

I still don't understand the Expectation Index.

Sigh.
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Each time I do an album I have a Fear Factor, right? That's a prejudgement on how I think I'm going to react to an album. Most hip-hop, Punk, Grindcore etc would be High, maybe Critical, whereas prog, rock or now K-pop for example would be Low or Very Low. Once I've listened to the album, I then note whether my initial idea of it was right or not: did I expect to hate it and in fact loved it, or vice versa? The higher the EI is, the more wrong I was. So an album I thought I'd love but turned out to be hot garbage would get an EI of up to 10, whereas one I thought I'd hate and did, or one I thought I'd love and did, gets a 0 or maybe a 1-4 if I didn't quite love or hate it as much as I did. The EI is generally saying whether my initial Fear Factor was justified, so you can see by looking at it whether I guessed right or not in all cases.
Clear now?

What a straightforward and not at all needlessly obtuse scoring system.

It's not a scoring system, dummy. It's a way, as I explained, of seeing if I was right or wrong in my assessment of the album, after I've listened to it.

That’s what I mean though; when the speedometer indicates a «Love» (if not a True Love), but the review expresses a plain ‘meh’ sentiment, it seems like you’re being too generous with your rating, something that I also think skews your end-of-month ratings towards the positive end of the spectrum. It’s no issue with me how you choose to rate these albums though, do whatever you fancy.
I’m enjoying reading these btw :)

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Album title: Little Fictions
Artist: Elbow
Genre: Indie Rock/Art Pop
Nationality: English
Release date: February 3
Position in Discography: Seventh
Fear Factor: Low
Familiar with this artist? No but I've heard of them
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? Yes
Average RYM Score: 3.23
Nice stuff. I was trying to place the singer's style, and I think it's somewhere between Morrissey and Morten Harket from a-ha. Nice orchestration on the second track, very almost soul. Enjoying everything on this, though it's odd how “Trust the Sun” goes from a sort of rolling shuffling beat on what I thought was going to be an instrumental into a heavy piano track, and that, and the singing, seem at odds with the main melody. That threw me a little. I guess nobody in America knows or cares about Elbow, as the difference in peak chart positions for this album is ridiculous: number one in the UK and Ireland, number 172 in the US! Philistines! Most of this is what I'd call quite laidback, but very pleasant. I don't really see them rocking out at any stage, but that's okay.

Check out more from this artist? Yes
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Yes
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Expectation Index: 0