Pitchfork's Scores

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For 12,767 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: 10,500 out of 12767
  2. Mixed: 1,953 out of 12767
  3. Negative: 314 out of 12767
12767 music reviews
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    • 79 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Rarely Do I Dream
    Powers narrates these vignettes from a distant storyteller’s perspective, and a gap emerges between his authorial point of view and the intimacy of the home video material. This dissonance is certainly haunting, but when the album’s final track arrives in a montage of the VHS clips strung together over heartfelt piano, its affecting ambience feels somewhat abrupt. But the record’s final moments remind us that these songs still spring from a singular voice.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    People Watching
    In an effort to make everything sound as massive as possible, the team obscures some of Fender’s more pointed moments.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Unraveling In Your Hands
    The lucidity and beauty of this music feels hard-won, something to revere and cherish.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Like A Ribbon
    Like a Ribbon is lush and engrossing, the rare Big Indie debut that outstrips its own hype.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    1991
    “Mayfield” barrels out of the gate like a runaway Arctic train—the 2025 mix adds propulsion by removing a flanged drop-out section. As vocalist Paula Kelley winds black ribbons around Ackell’s melancholy topline, sheets of guitar clip overhead: proto-blackgaze. The two other EP tracks included here are dreamier, but no less impressive.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Phonetics On And On
    Here, Horsegirl learn how dazzling it is to instead pull back and feel the invisible touch of what was once there, a fizzy tingling on the palms and cushion of silence around the ears. That growth is the most memorable part of Horsegirl’s new album.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    $ome $exy $ongs 4 U
    His singing voice isn’t nearly as tender and smooth as once it was. .... Sometimes the effect is monotonous and emotionless, which might suit his headspace, but ultimately it’s just boring. When he adds a little spice to his voice he can still sound expressive, like on the album standout “Small Town Fame,” which, if you ignore the shamelessness of the Brat summer bar, features him at his most earnest.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    End of the Middle
    Drawing out stories across generations, Dawson captures the way memories loom large in the present.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Cowards
    Squid’s most wide-ranging album yet, and somehow still the one that hits closest to home.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Lay Low
    More than his previous records, Lay Low focuses on the clarity that arrives with age and time. You can hear the proof in Chacon’s songwriting, which has sharpened to an impressively minimalist degree.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory
    Even with this shared billing, Van Etten remains the album’s undeniable highlight, though she explores a range of vocal approaches outside her trademark wail.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    A Shaw Deal
    Your tolerance for freeform and frequently harsh-sounding guitar music determines whether A Shaw Deal will make it into your regular rotation or slot into the lesser-played ranks of the band’s catalog. But its funky, egoless spirit is infectious.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Ebo Taylor JID022
    It all amalgamates into a fine late-career achievement for the master bandleader.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 71 Critic Score
    BLACK’!ANTIQUE
    Not every intuition bears fruit, but more and more it is becoming clear that the iconoclastic rapper’s impulses are to be trusted.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Humanhood
    The group effort renders Humanhood’s songs lush and circuitous, seemingly propelled by an internal logic that’s being pieced together as you hear it.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Louder, Please
    A record with infernally catchy dance-pop hooks and the nutritional value of cotton candy.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Forever
    Hiatt’s candid emotions feel earned; her open-hearted melodies and punchy hooks play out like a series of unguarded moments.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Hurry Up Tomorrow
    The result is an opulent, elegant, and occasionally exasperating farewell. This is the Weeknd’s most expansive-sounding album that’s also narrowly focused.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Showbiz!
    Showbiz! is the young artist’s greatest accomplishment thus far, the product of a passionate, creative journeyman fully making his home in music.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 66 Critic Score
    CAN'T RUSH GREATNESS
    If this is an album about growth and greatness, then it’s the kind you see depicted in charts on an end-of-year earnings report. It is precision engineered to stream big, and all the duller for it.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    The Purple Bird
    There’s a freewheeling spirit to the music they created together, a punchy camaraderie that connects these disparate songs from the agitpolka of “Guns Are for Cowards” to the Celtic dreamfolk of “Downstream,” and from the rambunctious ramble of “Turned to Dust (Rolling On)” to the despairing chorus of “Boise, Idaho” (which contains one of Oldham’s loveliest and most forlorn melodies).
    • 82 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    DÍA
    An album that pushes Minus’ musical vision outward while burrowing deeper inward lyrically.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Mapambazuko
    Listeners who come for the record’s novelty will stay for the class. Seldom do musical fusions sound both so perfectly weighted and utterly irresistible, a cartoon hit of delirious joy.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Salt River
    The contrasts within the songs are more interesting than those between style and source.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lower
    Segal comes from underground hip-hop and Booker from retro-leaning rock’n’roll, but LOWER doesn’t sound like any of those genres’ past collisions. Instead, it takes the basic textures of rap rock—boom-bap beats, Deftones’ icy ambiance, the corroded shredding of “She Watch Channel Zero?!”—and fashions them into a new strain of beat-centric grunge.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    EUSEXUA
    On a fundamental level, the bangers on EUSEXUA bang like once and future bangers.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    The Bad Fire
    For the most part, Congleton doesn’t push Mogwai anywhere they weren’t already heading, but in its home stretch, The Bad Fire proves this band of steely veterans can still disarm you by opening up surprising new dimensions to their sound.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Balloonerism
    Miller was a natural melodicist, a captivating vocalist, and an evocative songwriter, all of which are here on display. It’s a mood piece, and the mood is sweet and sedate.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Weft
    Despite radiating a gentle, unassuming tranquility, Weft rarely bores.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Who Let The Dogs Out
    Recorded with Gilla Band bassist Daniel Fox, Who Let the Dogs Out wisely leans on nosier elements when the subject matter gets earnest.
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