Pitchfork's Scores

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For 12,724 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 41% higher than the average critic
  • 6% same as the average critic
  • 53% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 Sign O' the Times [Deluxe Edition]
Lowest review score: 0 nyc ghosts & flowers
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10,460 out of 12724
  2. Mixed: 1,950 out of 12724
  3. Negative: 314 out of 12724
12724 music reviews
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    • 79 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    On Your Own Love Again
    On Your Own Love Again has more earnest moments, but its unadorned emotional uncertainty is profound and relatable.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    II
    They're more interested in following intuition than patterns, and II is way more physical than mental. Its density, pace, and exuberance are, for anyone that likes to get lost in sound, basically a sonic amusement park.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    VEGA INTL. Night School
    The production values are higher, and there’s even more of Palomo's queasy pitch-shifting, 16-bit synths, and disembodied samples--more of everything.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Wavering Radiant
    Easily the band's most accessible effort, hipsters and headbangers will likely agree it's also their most intricately imagined.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Wenu Wenu
    Dabke lives or dies by its ability to make people move, and although Souleyman is no-frills, and borderline gruff compared to other dabke performers, there’s something in his stentorian singing that’s irresistible.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    It's Album Time
    For as much ground as he covers on It's Album Time, the music feels effortless, gliding from Henry Mancini-esque detective jazz to bouncy, Stevie Wonder funk like breeze blowing through the waffle weave of a leisure suit. Conventional wisdom bears out: The looser the grip, the tighter the hold.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Gang Of Losers
    The band is, if anything, more confident than ever, but the sound's grandiosity too easily verges on melodrama, a too-bold-to-be-believable misery.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Out Of The Shadow
    The bicoastal milieu of Out of the Shadow is apparent: It reflects both a lush, sunny "California Dreamin'" temperament, and Gotham's grimy, melancholic disposition.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Alegranza
    Most of all, it's Díaz-Reixa's intuitive feel for rhythm that marks out Alegranza! as such an unusual and enticing listening experience.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Felt 3: A Tribute To Rosie Perez
    With Aesop Rock on production, Felt becomes a triangulation that canvasses almost the entirety of U.S. undie rap in terms of geography and affiliation. So why is this thing kind of a bummer?
    • 79 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    No. 2
    When moments like the funereal horn lines on “Vostok” break into the open after several tracks of frigid drones, the contrast is absolutely heart-rending. But these transcendent moments are few, and No. 2 could still use a little more of that drama.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Dissed and Dismissed
    Dissed and Dismissed ends just before it starts to feel formulaic.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Bleeder
    Mutoid Man may not be the resurrection of Cave In’s on-again-off-again majesty, but it savagely boils down Brodsky’s brainy ambition to a primal scream.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Hateful Eight [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
    There's a wealth of both visceral adventure and reflective emotion in hs pieces. At best, these songs are thrill rides, mood swingers, and thought provokers, all at once.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Weval
    It is perfectly sequenced, mysterious and moody. For a debut album, the fully-formed nature of their songwriting, sublime pacing and monolithically tasteful atmosphere is remarkable.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Mordechai
    Mordechai doesn’t quite commit to delivering fleshed-out songs, or to synthesizing Khruangbin’s influences into something new. It’s too busy to settle fully into your subconscious like the intercontinental ambience of Khruangbin’s 2018 breakout Con Todo El Mundo, but not substantial enough to satisfy more active listening.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    ALPHA
    It would be simple for Day Wilson to cut an album of Stax-style soul tunes or smooth jazz standards and call it a day. The immaculately mixed Alpha is instead built on weighty writing and daring arrangements in which Day Wilson stays front and center, never allowing the production to overshadow her presence.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Exister
    Inviting guests into the fold is a huge step for a longtime solo artist who has previously distanced himself from the world; alongside his sharper songwriting and unrestrained performances, it’s a sign that he’s ready to welcome others into his healing process. By opening up the pit, he’s opening his heart, too.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    No Need To Be Lonely
    On her latest LP, No Need to Be Lonely, she reconnects with the punchy hooks and confidence of her previous work while taking bigger creative risks.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Ship
    The Ship is a great, unexpected record.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lenses Alien
    While Why There Are Mountains reminded me of what those records [Perfect From Now On or The Moon and Antarctica] sounded like, Lenses Alien does something more difficult by reminding what it felt like once they were over and you were left to wonder if you just stumbled upon a cosmic, philosophical treatise disguised as an indie rock record.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    God's Problem Child
    At times, Nelson’s nonchalance makes some of the more topical concerns on God’s Problem Child feel a tad hackneyed. ... That leaves plenty of space for the other veteran songwriters to slip Nelson their own meditations on aging.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 66 Critic Score
    Long Island
    Long Island probably isn't going to win any new fans for Endless Boogie, but their strengths are on display regardless.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Space Heavy
    His songs have always felt close to home, charcoal-smeared with London dusk and the nocturnal cadence of London jazz. On Space Heavy, for the first time, the great London singer-songwriter’s ambitions feel accordingly local, too.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    In Advance Of The Broken Arm
    Unfortunately, In Advance isn't an EP, and things falter a bit past the halfway mark.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Deep Trip
    If space-rock as a whole is a role-playing game, one in which its players imagine having front-row seats for the heat-death of the universe, then Deep Trip is the one of most advanced vehicles yet designed to take them there.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    Beyond
    Beyond, the band's first record as the selfsame trio since 1988's Bug, benefits enormously-- more so even than fellow MA-veterans Mission of Burma or latter-day Sonic Youth-- from the years, experiences, successes, and disappointments elapsed between then and now.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 71 Critic Score
    Near to the Wild Heart of Life
    Near to the Wild Heart of Life ultimately lacks the urgency of the band’s best music. The tower hasn’t collapsed, but it’s starting to wobble.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    The Price of Progress
    Despite some murky production by Josh Kaufman of the Fruit Bats and Bonny Light Horseman, the Hold Steady turn these songs into weird, vivid snapshots.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Tug of War [Deluxe Edition]
    The extras dug up for the Tug of War reissue (the Super Deluxe Edition of each also contain DVDs of era-appropriate ephemera) make for some interesting listening—demo versions of "Wanderlust" and "The Pound Is Sinking", and a version of "Ebony" with just McCartney on electric piano. But those pale in comparison to the veritable alternate LP included in Pipes of Peace.
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