Blender's Scores
- Music
For 1,854 reviews, this publication has graded:
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39% higher than the average critic
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3% same as the average critic
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58% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 7.9 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 65
| Highest review score: | Together Through Life | |
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| Lowest review score: | Folker |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 957 out of 1854
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Mixed: 862 out of 1854
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Negative: 35 out of 1854
1854
music
reviews
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Murdoch's gift for loopy, tender, unshakeable hymns, stomps and meditations is untouchable. [Nov 2003, p.109]- Blender
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Out Of Season's usefulness as ambience almost trumps its self-importance and paucity of standout material. [Dec 2003, p.136]- Blender
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Jet frequently manage to turn in the kind of bulgy-veined, streamlined gonzo rock that [Oasis] haven't managed since the mid-90s. [Nov 2003, p.114]- Blender
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The emotional terrain is much more treacherous here, and more rewarding for it. [Oct 2003, p.114]- Blender
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It's not always successful. But the sheer audacity of taking computers to Camelot works splendidly in the pastoral beauty of "Y.T.T.E." [Oct 2003, p.124]- Blender
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It trades the epic scope of their more established countrymen for a stab at pop accessibility. [Nov 2003, p.116]- Blender
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South won't win any prizes for originality, but their songwriting is endearing enough to mask the stink of opportunistic career change. [Nov 2003, p.121]- Blender
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He lays it on so thick, the music all but drowns in pretty surfaces. [Oct 2003, p.129]- Blender
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Slug pushes against the beat like he's afraid it'll pass by before he's done, returning to the challenges of coupledom. [Oct 2003, p.114]- Blender
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[His] loquacious, dizzying delivery and disjointed imagery paired with the abstract soundscapes of [El-P and Blockhead] make for occasionally uneasy listening. [Nov 2003, p.108]- Blender
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The Furnaces play with a whimsical charm, so the band seems more like an arts-and-crafts project than an occupation. [Nov 2003, p.113]- Blender
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Matthews's singular skill is adroitly tipping his elastic, emotive voice and sorority-seducing melodies from buoyant to melancholy. [Oct 2003, p.123]- Blender
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This 'boxxx holds an explosion of creativity that couldn't have been contained in just one LP. [Nov 2003, p.118]- Blender
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Sparxxx is no producer's creation. His lexicon is deep, his diction clear and his words resolute. [Sep 2003, p.130]- Blender
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Her understated grooves... ooze natural-woman sex appeal. [Oct 2003, p.122]- Blender
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These songs are pleasant, stripped-down and also a little limp. [Oct 2003, p.124]- Blender
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There's rambling, digital fiddling and self-indulgent sprawl here, but a sense of purpose, too, even as her lips move on autopilot. [#20, p.114]- Blender
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Conley could use a few more breakups to check his sentimentality. [Oct 2003, p.126]- Blender
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Stone’s voice is remarkably authentic, and the atmosphere she conjures is smoky and sleazy, pure mid-’60s Detroit.- Blender
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The Darkness play old-fashioned metal with such elan that at times they ascend to pop music's Olympian heights. [Nov 2003, p.110]- Blender
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This is a classic 1970s-style headphones record that is both arty and unusually undisciplined. [Nov 2003, p.108]- Blender
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Like [Norah] Jones, Mayer never lets his personality talk over his elegant melodies, but unlike her, he has range. [Oct 2003, p.112]- Blender
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There are long, gloriously messy instrumental passages, and Coomes pulls off a bunch of swaggering guitar solos. [Oct 2003, p.126]- Blender
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Seal remains one of the best half-dozen male pop singers drawing breath. [Sep 2003, p.129]- Blender
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British Sea Power's vision makes most independent rock seem callow and weak-minded. [Sep 2003, p. 119]- Blender
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At 72 minutes, the gorgeous gloom of It Still Moves lasts a bit longer than it has to--but it offers a host of tarnished gems along the way. [Sep 2003, p.126]- Blender
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These tunes sound like they're built out of yard-sale detritus, salvaged and held together with masking tape, chewing gum, anger and sentimentality. [Nov 2003, p.112]- Blender
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Staggers under the unbearable preciousness of donkey-voiced singer Colin Meloy. [Sep 2003, p.122]- Blender
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The Wolf sets up Andrew W.K.'s post-partying career as motivational speaker for the bloody-nose set. [Sep 2003, p.132]- Blender
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Amid the fidgety guitars and twitchy rhythms are enough hair-raising hooks to reach far beyond the counters of independent record stores. [Sep 2003, p.128]- Blender
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An utterly original if slightly queasiness-inducing album. [Nov 2003, p.109]- Blender
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The dark spaciousness that boosted BRMC's uneven 2001 debut is replaced with garage-rock fist pumpers, which are all catchy but cramped. [Sep 2003, p.119]- Blender
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Chain Gang of Love promises racy thrills--and delivers them. [Sep 2003, p.128]- Blender
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Campbell and Millan use boy-girl harmonies to make a mockery of romance. [Jan 2004, p.109]- Blender
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Practically every song sounds as though we've heard it before--because, well, we have. [Sep 2003, p.122]- Blender
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It's not so much what Zevon says as how he says it: with an air of ragged, nothing-to-lose spontaneity. [Sep 2003, p.133]- Blender
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All of this might be more satisfying if the group's lyrics were strong enough to turn caricatures into characters. [Sep 2003, p.116]- Blender
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An excellent debut.... Derivative, but irresistibly infectious. [Sep 2003, p.129]- Blender
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Smarter, bouncier and more full of insidious electronic hooks than its predecessors. [Aug 2003, p.124]- Blender
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Clones feels at points like a candy store that carries only one brand--it's a damn good one, though. [#18, p.130]- Blender
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Alien Ant Farm's songs may be catchy, but their wishy-washy personality makes it hard to care. [Sep 2003, p.118]- Blender
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The pie-in-the-sky ambitions may be a little much, but credit Franti for dreaming up a kinder, gentler new world order. [Sep 2003, p.122]- Blender
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Quirks and all, it's a consistently absorbing tale from a songwriter who's still pushing himself. [Sep 2003, p.132]- Blender
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Their debut throbs like the Strokes with cross-eyed parents, their songs gritty and economical, their drummer nasty in all the best places. [Aug 2003, p.126]- Blender
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As a songwriter, Carrabba is growing: this album shows more melodic and tonal variety than his previous efforts. [#18, p.118]- Blender
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Ceaselessly enthusiastic European dance-pop that's deliriously colorful, vividly inane and usually about themselves. [Aug 2003, p.126]- Blender
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They're so straightforward, you can forget how crafty, even sly, Smash Mouth can get. [Sep 2003, p.129]- Blender
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This is a credible update on the classic Killing Joke sound. [Oct 2003, p.118]- Blender
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These oddballs have chops aplenty, and the balancing act they pull off on Quebec is no joke. [Sep 2003, p.132]- Blender
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Beneath the sweetest of the album's retro harmonies, though, lurk harsh synths and dark thoughts. [Oct 2003, p.128]- Blender
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There are solid songs here... but the spliced-on attempts at gritty authenticity make every note on this record sound test-marketed. [#18, p.121]- Blender
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The kind of laconic, deceptively laid-back statement that cult heroes Alex Chilton or Doug Sahm might have dashed off in their prime. [#18, p.123]- Blender
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Oliveri needs a grounding element; without it, he just plays the Neanderthal wild-ass screamer. [Sep 2003, p.126]- Blender
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Roars like Led Zeppelin, churns like King Crimson and throbs like early Santana. [#17, p.138]- Blender
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Farrar revives Neil Young's habit of presenting the same songs in different styles. [#17, p.134]- Blender
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Problem is, that kind of constant high gets as dull as life on Prozac. [Aug 2003, p.120]- Blender
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Too often... Branch expresses loneliness or betrayal or yearning without the precision or detail that would make her sentiments memorable. [#17, p.132]- Blender
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Beneath the highlights, she's still a messy troublemaker whose brain is as spicy as the rest of her body. [#17, p.146]- Blender
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A strangely dispassionate exercise in record-collection rock. [#17, p.133]- Blender
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He's a full-fledged alternative auteur, skipping effortlessly from hypnotic electronics to refracted torch songs to balls-out alt-rock. [Aug 2003, p.134]- Blender
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The perfect introduction to Tindersticks' queasy, cinematic elegance. [Aug 2003, p.133]- Blender
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Only a few of Barzelay's tunes... are the equal of their sonic textures. [Aug 2003, p.121]- Blender
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Though their restraint can be alienating, Steely Dan sound hungry, relevant and full of ideas. [#17, p.147]- Blender
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A nearly flawless collection of hummable overtures. [#17, p.138]- Blender
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Bare might impress someone who thinks there should be more Cutting Crew records. Others should beware. [#17, p.136]- Blender
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The album seems resigned, defeated, passive -- like an hour-long sigh. [#17, p.130]- Blender
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Overall, this is the grimiest and grimmest of the band's Bob Rock productions. [#17, p.145]- Blender
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This free-wheeling debut has the potential to run and run, carried aloft on the shoulders of the overly emotional. [#18, p.131]- Blender
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McGrath sounds both sexier and more gentle, sensitive and more irresponsible. [#17, p.143]- Blender
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Not everything is as heart-stopping as the velvety, elegiac "Bitter Apple," but there's enough quality to suggest that Depeche Mode could use a few Dave Gahan songs. [#17, p.135]- Blender