Why is iTunes giving ghost ratings to these songs?

[oxband]

I noticed that iTunes is now giving these ghost-like 5 stars to songs I've never rated before. It messes things up when I make playlists with 5 star songs. I'm attaching a photo to show what I mean. Any thoughts? How can I get rid of it?

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I believe it is the album rating showing up.

Edit: Yup. It is crazy annoying.

 

[oxband]

Is there a way to get rid of it?

 

[cdcastillo]

Do not rate albums, but only songs. If you rate the album, every song within it will be ghost-rated what the album was.

 

[oxband]

I didnt rate the album! I dont know how this happened.

 

[atmenterprises]

I had the same thing happen. Who knows.

 

[Partron22]

Try unrating the album? i.e. give it a rating, then take it away.

 

[phairphan]

Is there a way to get rid of it?

Partron22 is correct. Go into album view give the album a rating, then take it away. That will remove the album rating and maintain any existing track ratings for the album. Unfortunately, this database corrupting activity is not a one-time event (i.e., this didn't just happen during an iTunes upgrade). Whatever bug that is causing this will continue to apply bogus album ratings throughout your library—seemingly at random.

I'm not sure why Apple has been unable, or unwilling, to squash this obnoxious bug. Perhaps iTunes has become such a dump they're not able to keep up. I would say that all of their attention has been directed at Apple Music, but they are able to alter the iTunes UI every couple of months, so... I'm a bit concerned that the jettisoning of ratings from the music app in iOS is a sign of things to come on iTunes.

 

[Partron22]

The AppleScript dictionary for iTunes 12.5.1 has an interesting entry on album ratings:

• album loved (boolean) : is the album for this track loved?
• album rating (integer) : the rating of the album for this track (0 to 100)
• album rating kind (user/‌computed, r/o) : the rating kind of the album rating for this track

Looks like there's an automatic rating system in place (kind = computed)
That could be how the albums are getting rated in the first place.