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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    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Zootime
    Honestly, none of it makes a lick of sense, but unlike, say, the Beta Band -- whose entire shtick was that the parts of their music never fit into a coherent whole -- there's a shapeliness to Zootime that suggests the record was constructed from some inscrutable blueprint that's just naggingly out of reach.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Human The Death Dance
    Human the Death Dance may be his most personal effort, but it's also an incredibly well-built full-length -- even when it borrows from a handful of genres -- and it's arguably his best lyrical effort, undoubtedly his best production-wise.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Strength & Loyalty
    Strength & Loyalty doesn't overcome its challenges; it just sidesteps them and works hard to reward fans for a decade of patience.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everything Last Winter
    Spellbinding.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Prog
    Anyone who has already decided that jazz is dead, that the great innovators have come and gone, needs to listen to the Bad Plus to be proven dead wrong.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Send Away The Tigers
    Send Away the Tigers never seem heavy-handed, which is something that even their best albums often are. So, this isn't merely a return to form, then--it's also a welcome progression from a band that only a couple of albums back seemed stuck in a rut with no way out.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Magic Position
    The Magic Position loses a little focus near the end, but flashes of inspired lunacy like the jarring arrival of a spectral Marianne Faithfull on the spooky "Magpie" help to make this unpredictable collection of Victorian-peaked electro/folk-pop so hard to dislike.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    American Doll Posse
    Her musical vision and production skills are almost astonishing in places. [But] American Doll Posse is a work that has its problems due to its sprawling nature.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Baby 81
    A painfully disappointing artistic failure.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Beyond
    Beyond isn't merely a worthy album from a reunited band, it's simply a great record by any standard.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Tears Of The Valedictorian
    One listen to Tears of the Valedictorian confirms the group's uncanny talent for creating manic, beautiful and upsetting songs that seem to exist wholly for themselves.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Because Of You
    The key to the album's potency and freshness is its differences from In My Own Words.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
    Crazy Ex-Girlfriend would have been impressive if it was just a showcase of her strengths as a singer or as a songwriter, but since it is both, it's simply stunning, a breakthrough for Lambert and one of the best albums of 2007, regardless of genre.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Snakes & Arrows
    Snakes & Arrows is one of the tightest conceptual records the band has ever released.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    5:55
    As good as the atmospheric heartache of the first half of 5:55 is, it's on the second half, when Gainsbourg and her crew stretch out a bit, that the album really gets interesting.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Woke On A Whaleheart
    It employs all his strengths as a writer of lyrics and music and stretches the canvas of his colorful if sparsely arranged tapestry.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Twelve
    Full of slow burning passion and emotion, Twelve is magnificent.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Favourite Worst Nightmare
    On [the] debut, it was possible hear all the ways they were similar to their predecessors, but here it's possible to hear all the ways Arctic Monkeys is a unique, vibrant band and that's why Favourite Worst Nightmare is its own way more exciting than the debut.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dumb Luck
    Dumb Luck isn't quite as cohesive as Dntel's debut was, but it is beautiful and carefully crafted enough to show that none of Tamborello's successes are flukes.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    No Need To Be Downhearted
    They've given up some of the whimsy and trippiness that marked their first two releases, but they've gained direction.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    We'll Never Turn Back
    We'll Never Turn Back is the kind of album we need at the moment, one that doesn't flinch from the tradition but doesn't present it as a museum piece either.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Book Of Bad Breaks
    What it does has pretty much been done before -- but it's done well, and done right, and in the end, it's successful.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Fear of a Blank Planet
    Porcupine Tree makes a triumphant return to experimental, non-linear style with 2007's Fear of a Blank Planet.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Best Damn Thing
    True, this is far from deep but Under the Skin proved that a deep Avril is a dull Avril. The Best Damn Thing, in contrast, builds on every one of her bratty strengths which makes for ridiculously catchy pop - the kind of music that provides a soundtrack for teens and guilty pleasures for everyone else.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Let's Just Be
    There's an air of sloppy experimentation, of demos and B-sides and other things that probably won't interest more than the heartiest fan.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Year Zero
    Year Zero is the finest Nine Inch Nails recording since Downward Spiral. Its songs are memorable, beautifully constructed and articulated.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    At The End Of Paths Taken
    What At the End of Paths Taken means for the Cowboy Junkies: it's like a renaissance.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Spells
    Though it may not be flawless, it's pretty satisfying nonetheless.
    • 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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cassadaga
    The band's fullest and most developed record to date.
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