Artist Ranking System

Importance
Importance refers to the contribution that an artist has made to Classical Crossover

•  = This artist is a pioneer of Classical Crossover. 
•  = This artist has contributed a great deal into the growth and development of Classical Crossover. 
•  = This artist has contributed a small amount into the growth and development of the genre. 
•  = This artist simply copies the tried and tested formula created by others.
•  = This artist stagnates the genre by trying absolutely nothing new, and has failed to make any impact whatsoever.

Success
This simply refers to how famous an artist is worldwide or how many records they have sold.

•  = This artist is successful throughout the world and is a household name in many countries. 
•  = This artist is very successful in individual countries, and may be a household name in those countries.
•  = This artist enjoys relative success within the Crossover market, and the Crossover audience know who they are.
•  = This artist is somewhat obscure and effort has to be made on the behalf of the audience to find this artist.
•  = This artist is very obscure and has probably only made one album (and it typically flopped).  Otherwise, this artist may be new and upcoming.

Talent
This is a subjective category and reflects my opinion only.  I judge this on the technical elements of vocals or their ability to play their chosen instrument.  Elements include note accuracy, difficulty, technique,  range, power and diction.

•  = This artist is pitch perfect and has a huge range.  Instrument: This artist is a virtuoso.
•  = This artist is accurate but may be lacking a little. Instrument: This artist can play their chosen instrument very well and to technical perfection.
•  = This artist can sing well and is generally accurate.  An instrumentalist can just about play, and needs a lot of distraction in their recordings away from their instrument.
•  = This artist can sing the basics.  Instrument: nothing to shout about, and has probably made an album out of novelty and passable playing.
•  = This artist has a very thin voice, and may record albums with a raw, untrained voice.  It’s likely that this artist is a novelty act – perhaps a celebrity.  Same for the instrument.

Interpretation
This is the most subjective of all categories.  This is how well an artist interprets the music on an emotional level, either vocally or with their instrument.  This will be different for everyone, but I chart down the reflection of my opinion.

•  = This artist is very connected with their material and will always tell a story through their performance.
•  = This artist is emotive and connects with the audience.   They may rely on only one to two techniques to do this.
•  = This artist generally performs with feeling, but the listener may have trouble hearing it.
•  = This artist relies heavily on technique and will only convey feeling every now and again.  They generally use a single tone in all of their performances.
•  = This artist is robotic and is a textbook performer.  Any emotion is sacrificed for the artist to concentrate on technical elements.

Creativity
This refers to the artists’ artistic prowess.  It considers how much artistic input they have into their material, and if they experiement with new ideas, arrangements and material.

•  = They make a clear effort to be innovative and are not afraid to take the plunge with new material.  They are very creative regarding their arrangements of covers and do not mind penning their own compositions and lyrics.
•  = They sometimes write their own material and it tends to be of good quality. They still like the security blanket of sporadic Crossover standards to haunt their tracklists, but these standards are of their own choice.
•  = This artist will dip their toes into the pool of creativity but are too safe to do anything completely new.
•  = This artist may try a new song out of the ordinary, either original, or an unexpected cover, but ultimately, they will not stray away from the standard material or formula.
•  = This artist has sacrificed all artistic control to their record company, or simply have not a trace of creativity within them.

Performance
This refers to how good their performance is on the album.  If a singer, how well they sing, if an instrumentalist, how well they play their instrument

•  This artist has performed flawless on this album.
•  This artist performs well.  There may be a slight issue.
•  This artist performs adequately.
•  The artist’s performance is passable but has many flaws or is very basic.
•  This artist shouldn’t have been let into the recording studio.

Arrangements
Arrangements can make or break an album.  This refers to how well the songs are arranged, and their suitability to the material and the performer.

•  Arrangements are original, creative, vibrant, fresh and varied.
•  Arrangements are inspired, but maybe samey throughout.
•  Arrangements are a bit average.  They’re not bad, but there’s no spark.
•  Arrangements are dull and are samey.
•  Arrangements are practically absent – they’re the same as other artists.  Dull, uninspired.

Creativity
Creativity is the most important element for me.  I want the artist to have involvement with their album.

•  This album is a coherent, artistic vision.   This album has set trends and has tested the boundaries.  The artist composed or arranged some of the songs.
•  This album includes some twists and unexpected material or arrangements.  The artist was clearly involved with its process.
•  The artist has influenced some of the songs, perhaps composed a little and was involved with the song selection.
•  The artist had no involvement with production, composition or arrangement.  They may had chosen some songs.
•  The artist must be so excited to have a record deal that they jump when the company says jump.  Either that, or they have no creativity.

Tracklisting
I am very  picky about the tracklist.  A tracklist full of standards stagnates and tires the genre out. 

•  The tracklisting is not typical.  It has one or two standards on it, whilst all the other tracks are originals, unexpected twists, or radical reworkings of pop songs.
•  The album contains an overall good balance of songs.  Good selection of pop covers, and has some originals thrown in.  Has a number of standards.
•  Has some great songs, but the selected standards are predictable.
•  Has made an incredibly predictable album.  Probably the product of the Cowell or EMI/UCJ’s Mother’s Day/Christmas rush.  Has one or two songs that are unexpected.
•  As above, only without the unexpected songs.

Overall
This takes the average of all of the above rankings.

Classical < < < > > > Pop
This scale represents how much classical or pop influence the album contains.   The more yellow arrows there are, the more poppy the album will be, and vice versa.

Highlights
These tracks represent what tracks I think you should listen to first so you can decide whether you wish to purchase the album.  I will nearly always provide one of these tracks at the bottom of the review using Youtube.