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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    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Country Club
    Plenty of rock singers have tried to honor the sound and traditions of period honky tonk music over the years, but you'd be hard-pressed to find one who sounds as ineffably right singing this stuff as John Doe, and Country Club is a casual, no-frills masterpiece.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Everybody, Come Outside!
    Pomegranates may need some more time to ripen fully, but Everybody, Come Outside! will still be a treat to some palettes.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Carbeth
    Beauty rarely hides where you expect it. Take, for instance, the debut release by the U.K.'s Trembling Bells.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Spring Tides
    Jeniferever shows some serious potential on this album, but much of it remains to be realized.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Two Suns
    Two Suns is nearly as graceful and poetic as Bat for Lashes' best work; it's just that the album's massive concepts and sounds require a little more time and patience to unravel to get to the songs' hearts.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jewellery
    A wild funhouse of an album, Jewelleryis more challenging and idea packed (not to mention more fun) than a lot of self-proclaimed experimental music.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kingdom Of Rust
    This is still a bright record, however, one that finds catharsis in the gloomier songs and strength in the tracks that resemble Lost Souls' measured anthems.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Jigsaw
    Without the instantly gripping singles, Jigsaw is as scattered as its title implies.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fork In The Road
    Fork in the Road is charmingly clunky, a side effect of its quick creation and Young's hard-headedness. Neil might be writing records as quickly as a blogger these days but musically he's stuck in the past, never letting go of his chunky Les Paul and candied folk harmonies.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Life And Times
    As immediate as Life and Times isn't nearly as diamond-hard as "Copper Blue," which is a great part of its appeal: it flows naturally, the music never pushes, it settles, comfortable in its own skin.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Yonder Is The Clock
    Yonder Is the Clock is the band's most nuanced effort to date, an effortless piece of Catskills folk and narrative know-how that shows just how far a band can grow in one year's time.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Last Kiss
    This problematic arrival shows too in the final product, but the problem may not be the much maligned rapper's ability or inspiration but the constant mishandling of his material. So many prime street cuts have been given away to comps, mixtapes, and soundtracks in the five years since Kiss of Death was released that only the slick, polished numbers remain.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Begone Dull Care
    Other than the hypnotic 'Work' and the playfully geeky 'Hazel,' the set is punchless, more a pleasant mood album fit for casual background listening, lacking the unnerved tension that runs through the majority of "Last Exit" and "So This Is Goodbye."
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Now We Can See
    The album isn't a total disaster, though, there are a few songs that manage to overcome the record's flaws and deliver some excitement.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tentacles
    A debut that largely lives up to all the surrounding hype championing the group as one of the hottest new indie up-and-comers.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Vs. Children
    His singing is of a piece with the music, at once clearer and more conventional than ever before and still touched with the reflective spoken-to-oneself melancholy that defines his work.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Unstoppable
    It doesn't help that almost nothing about Unstoppable is modest, not the sounds, not the sentiments--only the songs, which can't withstand these muscle-bound arrangements.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Last Laugh
    Forays into medieval trip-hop ("The Last Laugh") and reggae-influenced indie pop ("Jelly Bean") stretch the boundaries of the album's bedrock, but it's fun to see folk music take such unexpected turns, especially when the destination sounds this enchanting.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Telekinesis!
    Though the record could use a few more high points, there are enough hooky songs and exciting performances to make it very promising.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Atlantic Ocean
    Where the latter two releases felt like "Hail Marys" tossed into the musical ether, Ocean serves as a return to the kind of sharp-tongued, Beatlesque retro-pop that fueled 2005's "Novelist/Walking Without Effort" and the aforementioned "Letdown."
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Guilt
    Guilt may be a bad title for a pop-rap album so slick and shallow, the completely ludicrous I Am Hip Hop's Savior was the original plan, suggesting that this project was misguided since early development.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Inside Your Guitar
    Though their debut album is considerably more polished and focused-sounding than their EPs, the uniquely winsome quality of It Hugs Back's music remains, with buzzing keyboards and fuzzy guitars.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I Was A King
    Maybe by the time the next album rolls along it might be time to stretch a bit and get away from the sound they've cobbled together, but for now I Was a King sounds just about right to anyone who is a fan of the history of noisy guitar pop of the last 20 years.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Play Music
    These Thieves do often come off as just another trendy outfit hawking tawdry 20-year time warps, albeit with more streamlined sonics than many.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Everyday Demons
    Apart from two minor issues, the Answer has the right sound and feel on Everyday Demons and that does make them the perfect opener for latter day AC/DC: they work as pleasant appetizer for the main course.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It's Blitz
    Between its violently happy songs and its softer ones, It's Blitz! ends up being some of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' most balanced and cohesive music.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Woman, A Man, Walked By
    Parish and Harvey's idea of fun might be very different than that of many other artists, but hearing them cover so much musical and emotional territory is often exhilarating.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Living Thing
    If Peter Bjorn and John keep putting out albums as challenging, intelligent, and emotional as this, there is no reason for anyone to get off the bandwagon any time soon.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Quiet Nights
    There may be a bit too much classic good taste on Quiet Nights--there is no reinterpretation, only homage--but that's not quite a problem because Krall knows enough to lay back, to never push, only to glide upon the gossamer surface.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Defying Gravity
    Defying Gravity builds on the skill set that gave listeners "Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Thing" and takes it further, seamlessly combining hook-laden crafty songwriting with a pop sensibility in the modern country vernacular that blazes a new trail and underscores Duke Ellington's dictum that there are only two kinds of music: good and bad. This is a shining case in point for the former.
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