AllMusic's Scores

  • Music
For 18,280 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 63% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 32% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.5 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 74
Highest review score: 100 The Marshall Mathers LP
Lowest review score: 20 Graffiti
Score distribution:
18280 music reviews
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Depth and dimension rule the turbulent group improv in "Were You There" before the album closes on a tender, reverent read of "Precious Lord," wherein in each player -- save for the frenetic Taylor -- engages in harmonic blues conversation. Here, the Red Lily Quintet underscores Jackson's import as a visionary and prophet. The approach to her music combines those qualities of the historic past with the power and drama of contemporary life with all its victories and struggles.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Personal and grand at the same time, Again's mixtape of memories continues Lopatin's enduring brilliance at moving forward by looking back.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    He's explicitly treating country music as a genre that evolves, one that can encompass all manners of stories by building upon what's already been laid at the foundation. With its empathetic heart and kinetic kick, Rustin' in the Rain illustrates how vibrant and vital that idea can be.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    It's ambient music at its absolute best, providing a space that the listener can be enveloped in completely just as easily as they can drift away from it without noticing.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Something to Give Each Other succeeds because Sivan has been freed: to be who he wants to be and express that through his most engaging and addictive album to date.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Joni Mitchell's powers as a songwriter and creative spirit are unparalleled at every step of her journey, but her output in the '70s was on a higher plane, even for her. Archives, Vol. 3 reflects this with behind-the-scenes material just as storied and worthy as the music that Mitchell was making during one of her finest hours.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    While this is far less downcast, the joy, wonderment, and fond reminiscences in the songs are complicated by worry, uncertainty, and longing.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Twenty years after the release of Keep on Your Mean Side -- a time when many acts consolidate their sound into something safe and reliable -- Mosshart and Hince are still at the top of their game.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Fleshed out by these extra tracks, 1989 [Taylor's Version] confirms the lasting strength that Swift's songwriting was achieving in this one of many blooms, and serves as a lovely reminder of when she officially stepped into her place in the pop culture continuum.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    There's a marked feeling of newfound ease that flows through The Comeback Kid. The always unstable elements that make up Stern's sound are still potent and volatile, but gone is any dread or confusion that may have pushed her music forward in the past, replaced by a sense of triumph and euphoric self-acceptance.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    It's not entirely the same rowdy, lascivious joyriding that made up some of his celebrated early work, but the album's fearless expression of a full emotional spectrum makes it remarkable and at times shatteringly beautiful.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    i/o
    What makes I/O unique, even special, is that the process of searching isn't central to the finished product. There's no restlessness here, only acceptance, a quality that gives I/O a quiet power that can't help but build over time.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    On Orquídeas, Uchis remains true to herself by restlessly expanding her music's stylistic reach, embracing the past as instructor to the present. It is as aesthetically appealing as it is musically adventurous.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Hopeful in a deeply honest way, She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She chronicles an evolution that brings out the best, most adventurous aspects of Wolfe's music.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Despite its thorny history, this is an exhilarating portrait of the band's shift from their no wave beginnings to the more complex and melodic style that defined their later work.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The result is indie rock, and Omni, at their 100% best and most exhilarating.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Underneath the burnished surface, the album is every bit as vital as its predecessors, examining situations fraught with private and political pitfalls.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    This is Real Estate at their best, giving us the same bright and bittersweet indie perfection as always, only better with age and experience.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A revelatory experience that's somehow been hidden within her all these years, Girl with No Face is a bold reclamation of artistic self from a thrilling pop auteur.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    There's no denying the sensibilities of Liam Gallagher & John Squire lie in 20th century guitar rock, but there's a freshness in how the duo's sensibilities intertwine that gives the record a warm, welcoming pulse.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    While Dabice and Mannequin Pussy might be worried that their destructive Dark Phoenix energy is too much to take, I Got Heaven is an album of apocalyptic rock & roll bliss.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    With Playing Favorites, Sheer Mag have made an excellent rock & roll album, and yes, sometimes that is all you need.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Wry, riveting, chaotic, and infectious throughout, Where's My Utopia? easily upstages what was an impressive debut.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Y’Y a singular meditation on ancestral history, environmental awareness and spiritual devotion, is wide ranging, complex, and in places, quite mysterious. It is also utterly compelling.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    ScHoolboy Q flexes just how easy his craft is for him throughout Blue Lips, switching his styles without blinking while telling some of his most difficult truths.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Eternal Sunshine is Grande in peak form, a magical maturation that is elevated, resilient, and confidently restrained.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The ever-shifting tone of Speak to Me asks the listener to keep up with the Lage's quirks and mood swings, but the sum of its parts is quite dazzling.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Six years after Whack World, Whack has only grown more accomplished at contrasting brightly colored surfaces and what lies beneath them.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Bright Future is the type of no-filter album with enough variety and poignancy that each song is bound to be somebody's favorite.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Tigers Blood is the rarest of things: an album that feels familiar upon its surface and idiosyncratic in its details.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Even more than any music that came before it, this album highlights Rosali's unique voice, one that communicates full-hearted intensity without ever resorting to heavy-handedness or overstatement.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow stands as one of his best late-career master works.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    There are two expertly executed albums here, each highlighting just how this group has grown from being rascally jokesters to hardened, concerned members of society. As far as swan songs go, Heaven :x: Hell is a heartfelt goodbye to fans, an overly generous gift that aims to please the full spectrum of diehards and thank them for all their years of dedication.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Only God Was Above Us isn't just a great album in its own right -- it's one that enriches the understanding of Vampire Weekend's entire history.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    This is one creatively askew pop-R&B delight after another, all voiced with captivating and confident flair by a razor-sharp songwriter.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    It's that sound of love, the fantasy vs. the reality of a relationship, that fascinates McAlpine and makes Older such a lovely and bittersweet experience.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Up on Gravity Hill is a significant step forward for a group that already was doing mighty work, and it suggests any number of places they could take their talents next. Anyone who doubts METZ are one of North America's best bands needs to hear Up on Gravity Hill and find out what they've been missing.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Rife with moments of artfully sustained anticipation, Orchestras is one of Frisell's most accessible and virtuosic recordings.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Clark has more than earned the freedom she gives herself to express so many different sides to her music, and it's a thrill to hear her stretch out on these ferocious, heartbroken, and ultimately life-affirming songs.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    With its loping, relaxed grooves and patina of sweetened strings, $10 Cowboy could be mistaken for a product of FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, not an album originating from a small studio in Austin, Texas.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Despite its lyrical intensity, there is an abundance of passion and joy in Mdou Moctar's music that can't help but spill over with communal energy. This is a band and artist working at their peak, and Funeral for Justice is a career highlight.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    An indispensable addition not only to the Analog Africa catalog but to the burgeoning cultural conversation around the significance, import, and variety of techniques, innovations, aesthetics, and attitudes in African music-making from the era.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Her songs are still wounded and far away, but the expanded instrumentation gives them a prismatic glow and makes for one of the most fascinating and repeatable sets from an artist who was already in a class by herself.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The resulting album Look to the East, Look to the West is both a fitting tribute to what the band once was and a powerful new beginning.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Bullion's additions to this specific library of sounds are fresh and individualized, making Affection a soft world of its own, and one that merits frequent return visits and continued exploration.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Being able to hear any previously unreleased Broadcast music is a thrill, but discovering the raw brilliance of the music on Spell Blanket is a true privilege.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A greater amount of collaboration notwithstanding, Ten Fold couldn't feel more personal, from the in-the-moment experiential songwriting to sampled and recorded appearances from her father, Juice Crew associate Grand Daddy I.U.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Each of Dehd's album's has been smarter, stranger, and more deceptively complex than the last, and the delightful and adventurous Poetry continues this upward trend.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Lives Outgrown reveals Gibbons' music is only getting richer as the years pass.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The second (and/or third) classic, timeless, and timely Childish Gambino record in a row.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Tight, simple, and effective, Hit Me Hard and Soft does just that: it comes in with a bang, thrilling with fresh production and heavy lyrical content, before easing the listener into the murky emotional depths seen on the cover art.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    It’s a beautiful, immersive, and above all, dreamlike set that easily rewards the investment in its length.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Darning Woman is at its most captivating when it doesn't even sound much like music at all, but more like the grinding gears of an overactive brain processing confusion and bliss.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Brat's supersaturated sound amplifies her music's swaggering highs and vulnerable depths. .... She delivers some of her most engaging and mature music.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Though wit and sincerity have never been opposites in Grant's music, he's never brought them -- as well as beauty, cruelty, anger, and love -- together quite as potently as he does on The Art of the Lie's portraits of a society tearing itself apart.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Far from limited and much more than a gimmick, O.'s approach on WeirdOs is undeniably strange -- and a lot of invigorating fun for anyone who loves music that's as unpretentious as it is inventive.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    This is rock music at it's most exciting and meaningful from a band that's doing their level best to keep the form alive and thriving.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The band finishes off the album by following "Cinnamon Temple" with a raucous remake of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" that shoves the acid rock classic in front of a fun house mirror. Increased chaos and whimsy only heightens Hiatus Kaiyote's ability to enchant and exhilarate.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    It's an absolute must for fans, but also a great starting point for anyone who's a little more than just a casual listener, but not quite ready to venture too deep into the vaults.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Her previous album was a breakout success for good reason, but My Light, My Destroyer succeeds in all the right ways, pushing Jenkins' songcraft ever forward and expanding her already impressive catalog.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Her previous album was a breakout success for good reason, but My Light, My Destroyer succeeds in all the right ways, pushing Jenkins' songcraft ever forward and expanding her already impressive catalog.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    There's no heaviness here, no sense of torment. Even when he's singing about a "Swamp of Sadness" and wondering "If the Sun Never Rises Again," it's clear that Simpson has made his way through the darkness, settling into a place where he's utterly comfortable in his skin and scars.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Poetic symmetry drives much of Across the River of Stars and speaks to how our personal memories get intertwined with the music and movies we love, bridging us to the past. It's a poignant, desert-campfire texture they return to on songs like "Falling Forever," "Faded Glory," and "High Noon."
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Baldwin's words are woven into eight of the 17 tracks, whether sung by the pained if undaunted Justin Hicks on the rippling funk of "On the Mountain," or recited by Jamaican poet and activist Staceyann Chin on "Baldwin Manifesto I" and "Baldwin Manifesto II." The pieces that don't quote Baldwin are often equally charged, freighted with anguish.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    With Aghori Mhori Mei, Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins have made an album for those grown-up kids, their fans; a rock & roll pyre lit with myth and memory.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    At the center of all this are Nascimento and Spalding, whose smiling interplay helps make Milton + Esperanza feel like both a capstone to a monumental career and continuation of a musical legacy.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Punk without guitars has been done before -- everything has. Few have done it with the blend of skill, imagination, and flat-out commitment that Osees exhibit on SORCS 80.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Beneath the Neon Glow is thoroughly welcoming. It's a dynamic production adorned by polished songcraft, excellent charts, and peerless lyrics.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    With 2024's Short n' Sweet, Sabrina Carpenter reintroduces herself on an instant classic summer album of stylishly fun, smartly-executed pop.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Bed I Made is easily the equal of any of their earlier work. It should make old fans very happy, while giving anyone lucky enough to come across the record a chance to discover that one of the best bands to come out of the indie rock scene of the 1990s is now one of the best bands of the 2020s too.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The group's reputation as London's craziest live act is not overexaggerated -- the fact that they've managed to capture that energy on record is exhilarating. They've bottled the spirit of chaos that has been haunting the masses in these uncertain times, catalyzing it into something that can be collectively expunged.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Caws and Nada Surf hone in so eloquently on the essential, bittersweet ideas at the core of Moon Mirror that their honesty and sweetness can hit unexpectedly hard in the way the best rock albums often do.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    In Waves sounds like the music Jamie xx needed to make at this point in his career -- its love letter to the communal healing power of dance music is often more purposeful, and more satisfying, than his instant-classic debut.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Even setting sequencing, production, and stylistic reference points aside, EELS is simply chock-full of great songs.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Blood Incantation belong to the class of bands such as Gorguts, Demilich, and Sigh who push extreme metal far beyond its conventions, and Absolute Elsewhere is a towering achievement which exceeds all expectations.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Bold and fearless, Chappell Roan's The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess is the best kind of pop album: it captures a generational zeitgeist and introduces the world to a refreshing new voice that can hopefully stand the test of time and a fickle industry.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    As technically gifted as she is, Williams also plays with passion, and Acadia is easily her most ambitious release to date.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A kind of survival tool, Quiet in a World Full of Noise is one of the most remarkable albums either artist has made.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    An even more clearly defined rendering of the group's sound.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    On Limits of Language, they specifically utilized a handful of synthesizers to craft their intricate songs. What's particularly engaging about the band's production here is that, rather than trying to get the keyboards to stand in or mimic other instruments, you can really hear them drawing inspiration from the specific sounds of each synthesizer.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Songs of a Lost World isn't just an album of unlikely listenability, though. It's a new chaper late-in-the-game so unexpectedly powerful that it's nothing short of stunning, and just as unexpectedly, it ranks among the band's best work.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair highlights how Owens can write songs detailing life's harshest miseries and somehow twist them until the main takeaways are hope and gratitude. It's a rare feat, and Owens accomplishes it on many of these songs, making the album not just a collection of some of his strongest work but a humbling reminder to remember to be thankful for what we have while we have it.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Distant Call: Collected Demos [2000-2006] is a heartfelt farewell from an act whose inspired -- and inspiring -- music will always leave fans wanting more.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Even compared to the brilliance of Elverum's albums in the late 2010s and early 2020s, Night Palace holds a special place in his discography. This document of the peace he found while reassembling his life and his music offers a deeply rewarding experience for fans who have loved his sound at any stage of his career.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    In the end the album is strangely uplifting and yes, cleansing, as he washes out the sadness, pain, and suffering he's been through and ends up on his feet, bruised but still ready to carry on. By the end of the record, listeners are liable to feel the same way. There are no barriers or guardrails here, it's an unblinking gaze into the abyss, and victory over that bleakness, that can be shared by anyone brave enough to tag along.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ecce Homo registers as strong, wildly creative, focused, and vulnerable. It may be his solo masterpiece.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Nobody Loves You More is some of her finest music yet, and while any of these songs would've been a standout with one of her other projects, it's all the sweeter that they're hers alone.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    With Shawn, Mendes has crafted an album of sustained confessional intimacy, one that continually invites you to listen closely.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Pursuing their independence has led to some of their most widely appealing songs, and Sniff More Gritty is the musically inventive, emotionally direct, razor-sharp album Du Blonde has always had in them.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Mahashmashana, despite its weighty poeticism and nostalgic sonic grandeur, feels rooted in the here and now. Tillman is still a keen and sardonic observer of the human condition, but here he directs the proceedings with a gravitas that finally feels earned.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    GNX
    GNX is a pillar of reflective realness, a flag planted in the lineage of Black musical visionaries, a silhouette of the West Coast in the high beams of fame -- and Kendrick's most speaker-knocking set to date.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    [The] Last Will and Testament is among Opeth's most adventurous and sophisticated outings. Like a cross between Watershed and In Cauda Venenum, it's heavier and more adventurous than either while bringing the band's past, present, and future under a single creative umbrella.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 is essential listening for Ferry fans, illuminating the broad scope of his musical taste, from glitter rock to synth pop to jazz and beyond, revealing through it all that he has remained as indelible as ever.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    This handsomely packaged box offers stellar sound across four discs. The sound on the final two suffers a bit as Carter's playing is sometimes difficult, though not impossible to hear: It's a minor, fleeting irritation.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    12
    While White Denim's stylistic touchstones are certainly at play on 12, the album feels less like a band working through their influences and more like one coming fully realized into their own.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    If made by a group other than them, might have topped year end list made by serious music publications. As it is, the record will likely exist as a lost treasure to be excavated years down the road to be loved and emulated. Saint Etienne have more than their share of great albums over the years, chalk this up as one of the best and proof that the band have become more than just a brilliant pop act.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Debí Tirar Más Fotos is a Puerto Rican triumph, as verdant as its foliage and as vital as its cause. Hollering “Yo soy de P fucking R” from the rooftops, Bad Bunny roots himself in his homeland, yet again proving himself one of his generation’s most potent voices.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Think of Mist is another affecting and impressive release from an artist who should have more eyes on her creations.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Force Majeure is a small-scale triumph that's built on musicians sweating it out in small rooms, cranking the amps until the begin to crackle, and plugging directly into the still beating heart of rock & roll.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    With its widescreen romantic grandeur and orchestral sweep, it feels like the culmination of both his personal and artistic ambitions. If misty moor-walking weren't just for the lovelorn, this would be its soundtrack.