Album Score

The album score is a calculated scoring based on the individual track star ratings. It is basically an average of all the track ratings, but with the following variations to provide meaningful results:

• An unrated track is given 2.25 stars
• If not all tracks in an album are present, it gives 2 stars to those missing and does include them in the scoring. For example, if you delete 4 tracks from an album because you dislike them and never want to listen to them, this doesn't mean it becomes a better album. It deduces tracks are missing by comparing the tracks present with the track count (or if that isn't set, the highest track number of those that are present).
• Muso down-grades any album with fewer than 7 tracks by 1.5 stars in total (before the average is taken : the fewer tracks there are, the more this affects the average). Without this adjustment albums with very few tracks tend to end up with the highest scoring. With the adjustment in place an album of 10 tracks all rated at 4 stars has a slightly higher score than an album of 5 tracks all rated at 4 stars - i.e. it factors in quantity as well as quality.
• A track tagged as a "Bonus Track" is ignored for the purposes of calculating the Album Score.

In all album views it is possible to sort albums by their calculated score - albums of an equal score are ranked by most plays first. In cloud views, it is also possible to order the groups by the average album score in that group (so you can, for example, see the highest scoring artists, composers, etc first).

An album's score can be expressed numerically in 3 ways - base 5, base 10, and base 100 (%). This is visible in the album header and the album cover hover information.

Album Rating Graphic

An album's average track rating is also represented graphically on the main albums view - this is also based on average track rating but the number of solid stars plotted is based ONLY on the tracks actually rated. The OPACITY of the graphic represents how many of the tracks present are actually rated. So an album of 10 tracks with only one track rated at 4 stars will show 4 stars but only at 10% opaqueness (10% is the minimum otherwise it would be almost impossible to see). So the stronger you see the graphic, the stronger muso's confidence in the average rating. The graphic will plot empty stars up to the highest track rating in the album - so if you see 3 stars solid but only 4 stars in total this means that the average rating is 3 stars but the highest track rating is 4. This process does include bonus tracks (unlike the album score calculation).