AllMusic's Scores

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For 18,282 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: 15,331 out of 18282
  2. Mixed: 2,925 out of 18282
  3. Negative: 26 out of 18282
18282 music reviews
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    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Narrows
    Hearing him sing is always a richly enjoyable experience, but The Narrows delivers as both form and content. It's recommended to anyone who has ever found pleasure in his work.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pangs
    Peculiar and ultimately charming, Pangs is another high caliber entry in Roberts' dependably creative catalog.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Surrounded by Time
    Surrounded by Time is magnificent -- it's redolent with wisdom and a raging lust for life that is free of camp. It offers abundant proof that despite the passing of years, Jones has lost none his power or swagger.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    softscars
    While it's not always as easy to listen to as yeule's previous recordings, softscars contains some of their strongest songwriting and most daring sound design, and feels like the most honest expression of their vision to date.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Blackjazz
    This is one of the most assaultive, addictive albums around, a rip-roaring journey through sonic violence that will leave most quivering in the corner and others (a special few) totally enraptured.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Live: The Storyteller
    If you want to know why Snider has a loyal and growing following as a live act, Live: The Storyteller will tell you all you need to know about his rapport with a crowd and his way of making his songs and stories come to life.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wild Flag
    Wild Flag isn't just an exciting debut and one of 2011's most dynamic rock records, it proves that a group is truly super when the personalities involved work together and have fun.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Swim
    So even though you could call this move toward the dancefloor a surprise, Swim retains all the qualities that make Snaith and Caribou so impressive. It just dresses them up for a night out at the club; no, make that a great night out at the club.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Identity Crisis
    Without a doubt the most moving, ambitious, and elegant album of her career thus far.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    I Am Shelby Lynne
    Luckily her sixth full release has some true charm, with some fine blue-eyed soul and slickly produced rock. But the production tries too hard to align her with Sheryl Crow's growling sound.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Midnite Vultures
    Musically, Midnite Vultures is filled with wonderful little quirks, but these are undercut by the sneaking suspicion that for all the ingenuity, it's just a hipster joke.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Master And Everyone
    Oldham concentrates on crafting unremittingly introspective and confessional material in a spare, old-timey format. As sometimes happens on the recordings of his kindred spirit Cat Power, such unstinting uniformity can be a curse as well as a blessing.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Shine A Light
    A tautly crafted, thoughtful album, Shine a Light more than follows through on the promise of their debut, and proves that the Constantines have the ability to be both down to earth and dramatic within their grasp.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Think Tank
    Sure, it might be easier to accept if it was called a Damon Albarn solo album, but that's splitting hairs. A lousy album is a lousy album, no matter who gets credit.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Harlem River Blues
    Harlem River Blues is utterly balanced, skillfully crafted, and exquisitely written and produced. Earle proves that he is a force to be reckoned with; in these grooves he embodies the history, mystery, and promise of American roots music.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Peace Sells...But Who's Buying? [25th Anniversary Special Edition]
    Arguably Megadeth's strongest effort and a classic of early thrash, Peace Sells combines punkish political awareness with a dark, threatening, typically heavy metal world-view, preoccupied with evil, the occult, and the like.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Year of the Horse
    Don't go into this expecting casual listening (a notion Fucked Up's fans got used to years ago), but if you're willing to meet this music on its own terms, it's impossible not to be dazzled by it.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Only Love From Now On
    Only Love From Now On is a beautiful and satisfying culmination of everything she's done so far.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Immutable
    Ultimately, Immutable delivers the very essence of Meshuggah. While comfortable in their collective skin, they continue expanding their reach by obliterating -- hell, nearly swallowing -- metal's genre boundaries in their long, relentless search for the undiscovered.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bird's Eye
    Bird's Eye is more of a grower than Hypnos, but it gradually reveals itself to be another marvelous, multifaceted record.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Migratory
    Fujita clearly listens to nature as intently as he listens to music, and Migratory is a wondrous reflection of our environment.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Bang Bang Rock & Roll
    Though it runs out of steam slightly (at least in comparison to the pop art brilliance of the band's best songs) on its second half, Bang Bang Rock & Roll is a terrific debut, and Art Brut is smart, catchy, and fun.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Grinderman
    While the sound of pure snarl and glee is what melts the speaker cabinets the most, the overdriven menace of most these songs doesn't undermine their worth as songs.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Love vs Money
    Ultimately, Love vs Money is Love/Hate's equal, stuffed with hooks, ceaselessly absorptive productions, and clever and often funny wordplay.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Choral
    That said, try as you might, you can listen a hundred times and not catch all the utterly magical, deeply moving, and beautifully arresting aural majesty to be found on Choral.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hopelessness
    Anohni's targets deserve all the fury she unleashes upon them, but that doesn't make this any easier to engage with, even if you agree with what Anohni has to say.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    How Ill Thy World Is Ordered
    How Ill Thy World Is Ordered would feel like a grift in lesser hands, but there's no chicanery to be found here, only solid, smart songwriting with a little bit of rock & roll peacocking tossed in for good measure.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Let God Sort Em Out
    Here, the duo still sounds like the mortal threat they represented in younger days, but integrates refinement, spirituality, and reflection on hard-learned lessons under that lens, communicating from a place of wisdom without losing any of their time-tested fury.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone
    This music is taut and soulful, but also a document of one woman baring her spirit and mind to the world, which has always been the case with her best music, and if this isn't a masterpiece, it's as pure, straightforward, and compelling as anything she's done since Essence.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Look Around the Corner
    Russell's powerhouse voice is not used to best advantage on the lightly dancing Latin-soul grooves that are Quantic's strength, and so on a number of tracks it sounds as if she's a racehorse being kept to a trot. That's not enough to keep this from being a very good album, but it prevents it from being a great one.
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