Blender's Scores

  • Music
For 1,854 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 39% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 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: 100 Together Through Life
Lowest review score: 10 Folker
Score distribution:
1854 music reviews
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    4
    At its best, the echo-chamber soup of flute trills, infinitely cascading drums and fuzz-ball stoner riffs does seep into your head and expand the contents. But the jams often drift when Ejstes wants them to glide; his singing, all in Swedish, is a touch whiny; and his ear for melody can be painfully flat.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Nada Surf settle comfortably into adulthood. [Nov 2005, p.138]
    • Blender
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This new material could benefit from the kind of friction that kept Whiskeytown from being stable for more than a few months. [May 2003, p.115]
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    • 85 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Striding purposefully forward on vaguely cinematic fanfares and catchy soul-queen loops, Murs reveals more than you want to know about his sex life. [May 2004, p.130]
    • Blender
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    They resemble a Seattle version of Iggy and the Stooges. [#9, p.152]
    • Blender
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Album No. 5--their first for indie stalwart Epitaph--amps up the band’s aggro guitars, cookie-monster yells and proggy ambition.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Recalls The Bride Stripped Bare, Ferry's 1978 art-R&B lament. [#8, p.116]
    • Blender
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Unfortunately, the production smoothes down the band's sharp edges to an overly polished finish. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.116]
    • Blender
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The formula gets a bit stale. [May 2004, p.133]
    • Blender
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    They exult in a catchy send-up of swaggering retro-rock sleaze. [May 2005, p.121]
    • Blender
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Orton still oversteps the foul line that separates affectingly vulnerable from irritatingly feeble, but this is a step twards something more distinctive. [Mar 2006, p.114]
    • Blender
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    [Hayley Williams'] Tennessee crew's second album isn't as charmingly precocious as the first. [Jul 2007, p.116]
    • Blender
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The CD is loosely tied together by a browbeating concept that condemns the glorification of Scarface-style violence and disposable pop-rap, but the moralism is as trite as a Tony Montana reference.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Linkin gain from their hip-hop daring, and the dance domos get to wedge a foot in the crossover door. [#9, p.151]
    • Blender
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Neither for the faint of heart, nor for those allergic to pretentiousness. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.103]
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    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Musically they offer nothing that hasn't been heard in every coed dorm via their 1989 hit "Closer to Fine." [Apr/May 2002]
    • Blender
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    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
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    It takes a few listens for Songs to feel more than just odd, but as with most Eitzel projects, its mood lingers like cigar smoke. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.106]
    • Blender
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rhett Miller’s lovelorn lyrics remain respectably literary, while his pretty singing and his pals’ pretty playing turn increasingly wan and half-cooked.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    R.E.M.'s recent albums have increasingly resembled singer-songwriter records. Around The Sun is much the best of the last three... because the tunes are better. [Nov 2004, p.140]
    • Blender
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The world's second-best co-ed lo-fi blues-rock duo are as sunny and merry as they've ever going to be, and that's not very sunny or merry. [Apr 2008, p.79]
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Williams' rapping is thankfully peripheral and the music is a fantastic, distracting mess. [Aug 2008, p.90]
    • Blender
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The electronic dance-rock gets the pop job done. [Mar 2003, p.119]
    • Blender
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The promising threesome spend most of their time in a creative rut, largely because of an unrelenting adherence to a diet of chunky beats and straightforward battle rhymes -- neither of which is particularly easy to digest.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    An inevitable return to their punk-meets-dance-rock basics, featuring their sexy, trademark battery of geometric riffs, careening bass and shrapnel noise. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.108]
    • Blender
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    On Tarantula, Mystikal futher refines his formula. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.114]
    • Blender
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    [The songs'] unrelenting wallop, growling guitars and mock-operatic choruses tend to blur together even as they're kicking your ass. [Oct 2005, p.137]
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Curt Kirkwood has written a gorgeous album that channels his brother's world-weary relief. [Aug 2007, p.116]
    • Blender
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    One can't help but miss Erasure's old-school glee. [Apr 2005, p.116]
    • Blender
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Used remain best when dripping with sweat, not sentiment. [Jun 2007, p.108]
    • Blender