AllMusic's Scores

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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:
  1. Positive: 15,329 out of 18280
  2. Mixed: 2,925 out of 18280
  3. Negative: 26 out of 18280
18280 music reviews
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    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Goodnight Rhonda Lee
    Goodnight Rhonda Lee is hardly Atkins' first stylistic excursion into the past, but here, having an audibly sharp focus, a lot on her mind, and a leave-it-all-on-tape performance ethic make for her strongest impression since her debut.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Barefoot in the Head
    The group doesn't disregard songs; the songs are nimble and open-ended, inviting exploration but also ready to be played simply. The result is the CRB's best record to date: one that captures their trippy side as easily as it showcases their sturdy foundation.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Flower Boy
    While most of these songs are rife with anxiety and isolation, the open-hearted lyricism and wide-scoped productions, put together by an artist in peak form, make them immensely engrossing. Frank Ocean, Pharrell Williams, Kali Uchis, Syd, and Estelle are among 11 supporting cast members, not one of whom is inessential to the whole.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Black Mile to the Surface
    Based on the nuanced opacity of these lyrics and the artful moodiness of the music, the answer will likely remain an elusive puzzle for listeners to ponder. Thankfully, Manchester Orchestra have made an album well worth pondering over.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Come All Ye: The First Ten Years [Box Set]
    Come All Ye: The First Ten Years is essential listening. For fans, all of this is necessary, for the curious, start with the studio offerings (there are two fine offerings entitled Five Classic Albums, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2) or the double-disc Gold from 2008.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Earl Grey
    The kind of musically rich and emotionally powerful debut that feels timeless and stands far enough apart from the rest of the music scene surrounding it that it feels like a cleansing blast of fresh air.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Across the Multiverse
    This time out, the best things are brought out in sharper focus and dressed up in finer clothing, and the record nearly achieves perfection.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Exile in the Outer Ring
    On Exile in the Outer Ring, Anderson calls on listeners to maintain their humanity in powerful, unnerving ways that make it one of her finest achievements.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Far from Over
    Ultimately, it's that balance of harmonically adventurous exploration and no-holds-barred blowing that make Far from Over nothing short of thrilling.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Antisocialites
    Antisocialites manages the rare feat of a band topping their brilliant debut with a sophomore effort that's even more brilliant. Alvvays make it looks easy, and by the time the album is done spinning, it's hard not to start thinking about how great their next record could be.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Hearts That Strain
    The album never comes off as a slavish museum piece. It feels instead as if they somehow rediscovered this sound, like an old coat picked out of the attic that looks as perfect with a modern ensemble as it did in its own heyday.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Dreaming in the Non-Dream
    Dreaming in the Non-Dream is the sound of Forsyth and the Solar Motel Band breaking into the muck and mire of rock history to emerge with a communicative, dynamic language of their own design.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Source
    An earthy, majestic, endlessly inventive album that caps both his own storied career and points the way toward the future.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Mareridt
    Mareridt is a work of atavistic mystery, unflinching honesty, and balance. It embraces everything from horror and beauty to the sacred and profane; its creator has encountered them all within, faced and accepted them, and ultimately woven them into the fabric of her being as music.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    All This Life
    Ultimately, Starsailor have been around long enough to earn veteran rocker status and All This Life, with its perfect balance of emotional gravitas and buoyant lyricism, is an album worthy of that status.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Heaven Upside Down
    Heaven Upside Down is Manson at his most human. If Pale Emperor was a welcome return to form that signaled a new day for the band, its successor is just as satisfying, if not better.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Out of Silence
    His sweetness and melancholy are as palpable in the composition as they are in the performance and, ultimately, that's why the live-in-the-studio recording of Out of Silence cannot be dismissed as a stunt: such a simple, yet kinetic, production is the only way to do justice to songs are rich as these.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Take Me Apart
    Nothing is as volcanic as "Bank Head" or as rush-inducing as "Rewind"--two past gems--but these hyperballads and zero-gravity jams always stimulate, covering a broader spectrum of emotional states with deeper resonance.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Masseduction
    Masseduction delivers sketches of chaos with stunning clarity. It's the work of an always savvy artist at her wittiest and saddest.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Arise
    Two of the album's finest originals--burning perseverance anthems "Fussin' and Fightin'" and "Freedom Chain"--are reggae to the core, translatable from an intimate hideout to a sound system. Other moments travel far afield from McFarlane's prior sessions. Not one of them is disposable.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    For Sale: Live at Maxwell's 1986
    Just as much as their very best studio work, For Sale is a invigorating, joyous, rollicking summation of a remarkable band on a night when they truly lived up to their legend. If you ever loved the 'Mats, you need to hear this.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Ooz
    No matter that feeling, illustrated with one distressed scene after another, filtered through a multitude of inspirations and a few bodily fluids, The Ooz is a completely engrossing work from a one-off.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Carry Fire
    Despite Plant's clear favor of the heart and head over primal pleasures, Carry Fire retains a visceral kick, because the singer/songwriter understands the transportive power of music, how the old can seem new when seen with a different light.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Dreams and Daggers
    Ultimately, on Dreams and Daggers, with its balanced framework of live and studio recordings, happy and sad romantic songs, small group and classical chamber pieces, Salvant remains as bold and as sharp as ever.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Mr. Davis
    The songs pop, the production is memorable, and the guests weave effortlessly into their respective tracks without detracting from Gucci's signature delivery.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Flame My Love, a Frequency
    Throughout it all, A Flame My Love, A Frequency resonates with a healing warmth that is a testament to the remarkable purity of Colleen's music, as well as to the importance of beauty and hope when life is hard.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Canyon
    For a band that has evolved from screamo to such thoughtful artistry, The Canyon is a stunning offering.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ojalá
    Elegant from the first minute to its 70th, Ojalá is an essential album for fans of Raymonde-affiliated projects like Snowbird and This Mortal Coil, and is among his and the year-in-indie's most exquisite works.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Savage Young Dü [Box Set]
    Even for longtime fans, Savage Young Dü is revelatory, charting a young band's progress as it achieved its potential for greatness.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    U-Men
    Nearly 30 years after the group called it a day, the material on U-Men barely seems to have aged at all; like the best rock & roll outliers, the U-Men created something that was less a product of a specific time and place than music that existed in a world of its own, and that planet is still a wild, fractured, and thoroughly compelling place to visit in the 21st century.
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