Pitchfork's Scores

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For 12,726 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: 10,462 out of 12726
  2. Mixed: 1,950 out of 12726
  3. Negative: 314 out of 12726
12726 music reviews
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    • 69 Metascore
    • 47 Critic Score
    Music for Dogs
    Gardens & Villa’s self-conscious, spindling attempts at regression and societal contemplation are admirable and occasionally catchy, but there are so many other albums--Reflektor, Kid A, even the oft-maligned, ahead-of-its-time Metal Machine Music--that navigate the intricacies of technology and society more compellingly and less heavy-handedly that you can’t help but write it off as another brick in the firewall.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Hermits on Holiday
    Most of Hermits on Holiday is pretty spontaneous and free-form, but it rarely lapses into the stuff of jam-band nightmares.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Expanding Flower Planet
    The Expanding Flower Planet feels like an album full of trap doors, where a single, unexpected sound can deposit you into new worlds.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 44 Critic Score
    Everybody's Coming Down
    While Kasher’s platitudes are presented as hard truths forged from experience, most of the time, it just sounds secondhand, scripts written by someone whose worldview has been shaped mostly by Cursive records.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    M3LL155X [EP]
    M3LL155X (pronounced 'Melissa') builds on her previous work, exploring ideas of dominance and submission and drilling down almost completely into the self. Instead of obfuscating her soft voice with layers of effects or singing in that cartoonishly frail and breathy falsetto, twigs prowls confidently over M3LL155X.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    High
    Royal Headache have taken steps forward since their last album--they’ve cleaned up their production and diversified their songwriting. Ultimately, though, the important bits are intact: the passion, the power, and the hooks that demand being shouted joyfully.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    Depression Cherry
    In every other sense it’s another impeccably measured step forward.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Today Is the Day That They Take Me Away
    This affectionate tribute reveals an artist who managed--amazingly enough--to remake rock'n'roll in his own image.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dry Food
    Kempner has a knack for these odd little about-turns that elevate Dry Food above the usual plainspoken acoustic indie fare.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    E-MO-TION
    E•MO•TION is as solid and spotless a pop album as you're likely to hear this year, the result of several years working alongside a storied list of contributors.... but E•MO•TION fails to tell us who Jepsen is or wants to be.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Risveglio
    Despite the noise and murk, it's easy to listen to—once you're a minute into one of Risveglio's songs, you pretty much know what it is and where it's going. It's music that is alien and strange, but also familiar.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Sounding Lines
    At its best moments, Sounding Lines drifts in an intriguingly ambiguous space where each member invokes the genres they’re best known for playing while bending generously to accommodate their partners.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    #AndSeeThatsTheThing [EP]
    Though Dej's talent is walking both sides of that divide, she's a strong enough singer and rapper that it's great hearing her not stuck on instrumentals that straddle the genre fence.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    All Around Us
    Marela’s lyrics sometimes lack craft and thoughtfulness, like words plucked from a diary and dropped into a song without regard to word choice or rhythm. It’s a fine line between childlike and childish, and too many songs tend toward the latter.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 71 Critic Score
    Duskland
    Squint into the haze, however, and you'll discern moving parts in these simple and rootsy songs that help them resonate.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Persuasion [EP]
    Much like the techno of yore, Persuasion serves its primary purpose as dance music, but is also intelligent, experimental, and above all, fun--all qualifiers that many of Blondes' compatriots could learn a thing or two about.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Secret History, Vol. 1
    All of these songs were available as part of the 2002 Slanted & Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe 2XCD. Right, all of them. Even the liner notes included here.... If you're looking for silver linings, it’s the first time 25 of the 30 songs have appeared on vinyl--purists, there’s that. And, of course, the music itself is mostly great.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Morning World
    Jamison's most captivating and personal album yet.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Live at the 12 Bar [Reissue]
    Live at the 12 Bar, unlike much of Jansch’s catalogue, isn’t perfect. You hear mistakes, clumsy knocks at the microphone stand, and even his breath as he plays. But mostly, you hear this master traversing a musical map of his life, hard times and all.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Faded Gloryville
    Ultimately, she makes Faded Gloryville sound not so much like a place of diminished opportunity, but endless possibility.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Compton
    Knowing that this is Dre's finale, there's a pleasant melancholy that frames Compton, and with the music in our ears, acknowledging that maybe that's for the best.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Jessie Jones
    Jessie Jones is a well-rounded introduction, one that holds little back.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Body Complex
    Fortunately, Body Complex never gets bogged down by ambient music's wallpaper associations. This isn't music for living rooms; it's music for living in.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Love Is Free [EP]
    What Love Is Free does so well, and so simply, is hone in on just the beauty of finally letting go, physically and mentally.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Pain
    It’s evident that Deaf Wish can adopt just about any sound or style that they want to, and that’s what they seemingly tried to do on Pain. For many other bands, that approach could muddy the waters or create a convoluted listening experience, but this doesn’t happen here. They choose to be themselves--each one of them--and it works.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Works for Tomorrow
    Works is a crisp, punchy-sounding record, not far from the unfussy, live-in-a-room feel of early triumphs like Prairie School Freakout.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Abyss
    The songs are long and dynamic, pushing their boundaries to the limit while maintaining spaciousness.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 32 Critic Score
    Ivywild
    More deadening than the suffocating arrangements and production or the nonexistent hooks is a tiresome perspective that goes beyond the Weeknd and connects to a celebrated lineage of male authors who assume an inherent profundity in treating a psychosexual crisis of mid-twenties masculinity as miserably as possible.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    I Am All Your Own
    Some may find that the new transparency makes his work a bit pedestrian, the work of another guy with a guitar and a few chords sharing simple sadness. But Ahmed’s senses of song and arrangement remain highly idiosyncratic, where verses spill into choruses and solos in unpredictable fashion.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    River
    River runs so well as a unit that, unless you’re able to spot the tunes or sleuth the liner notes, you likely won’t detect that Bachman didn’t even write two of these numbers.
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