Pitchfork's Scores

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For 12,752 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: 10,487 out of 12752
  2. Mixed: 1,951 out of 12752
  3. Negative: 314 out of 12752
12752 music reviews
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    • 76 Metascore
    • 64 Critic Score
    Blood Pressures
    The new album feels at once a return to the Kills' beatbox-blues origins as well an attempt to broaden their palette with more sensitive, intimate turns.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Two Matchsticks
    Patient, generous, and smart, the song proves that while Kenny does well to maintain the Wooden Birds' solitary core, he does well to expand it occasionally, too.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Move in Spectrums
    Dramatic and driving, it never quite escapes the upper atmosphere, though thick loopy synth shapes provide an ample climax, showing how this band can go bigger without forsaking its cloistered center.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Do It Again
    If Do It Again is the physical artifact of Robyn and Röyksopp's union, it's extravagant and left of center, but it's above all generous.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Neon
    The Neon nestles the duo back into their musical comfort zone when they’re exceedingly capable of more.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In Stormy Nights
    And though In Stormy Nights-- with its numerous false leads, over-the-top presentation and undisguised self-indulgence-- can hardly be said to be a perfect work, one has to admire and celebrate Ghost's determination never to step in the same river twice.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    Reunion Tour
    It's to the Weakerthans' credit that their lyric-driven songs can be, in a way, useful, at least by helping reassure the sentimental souls with whom Samson's deftly told stories resonate. Still, they're rarely as striking here as on the groups' previous albums.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 71 Critic Score
    Slime & Reason
    While Manuva's unorthodox style is a unique pleasure, too often his flow can be laconic to the point of being subliminal--a good portion of Slime & Reason's midsection demands attention, but doesn't necessarily deserve it, not when the beats that support his rhymes are just-below-scale like the budget g-funk of "Kick Up Ya Foot".
    • 76 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    The New Life
    For now, Cully's another voice in the crowd in that regard, but his promising talent displayed elsewhere on The New Life suggests that he's one to keep your ears perked up for nonetheless.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Seer
    Golden Retriever has carved a niche that’s not strictly indebted to post-Berlin School ambient or to the more organic work of new age composers but rather snags details from both aesthetics.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Microclimate
    Because Remiddi also sustains an ear-pleasing flow between those songs, it may take a few listens to recognize and appreciate what an artistic success Microclimate actually is.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    Love in the Time of Lexapro [EP]
    After the maze-like worlds conjured by Age Of and Garden of Delete, Love in the Time of Lexapro plays it disappointingly straight.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Calypso
    It’s a leisurely paced album with a lot of repetition. Each piece is full of slowly sighing synth passages and languorous piano melodies that mimic the strange way time dilates when you remove yourself from the rhythms of the city, the way an afternoon alone at the beach can feel like a beautiful eternity.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    Fate & Alcohol
    On Fate & Alcohol, Japandroids deliver the conviction that made their early records so great, but cannot overcome the palpable mismatch between their current lives and the characters their newest songs portray.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Principe del Norte
    Principe del Norte across as genial, charmingly rumpled, and totally unflappable.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    Bright Penny
    He doesn't exactly break free on Bright Penny, but typical of Hayes, it's not for lack of trying.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Everyday Robots
    Robots is decidedly lowercase music, more a piece of his puzzle than a picture on its own.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lost Time
    At its best, it feels like an opportunity for two daring drummers to explore with and without their kits.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 43 Critic Score
    Lustre
    When it isn't a high school poetry recital, Lustre often feels like a disappearing act-- an attempt to put on a few musical disguises to see if anyone likes them better than the musician beneath.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Heaven Is Whenever
    Despite the confidence of that opening track, Heaven Is Whenever sounds like a transitional album, hopefully paving the way for something stronger, more cohesive, more specific.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Answers
    Sparse without feeling empty, clear without being awkwardly straightforward, Ui can remind even the most jaded of guitar gods that what Mingus (or Mike Watt or Peter Hook) did wasn't a fluke-- the bass doesn't have to be supplementary.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ten New Songs
    [Robinson's] kind of soft rock-- closer to "I Want to Know What Love Is" by Foreigner than I'm comfortable with-- probably isn't going to score many points with the indie crowd, but it's not going to throw off your concentration for very long.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Forever Today
    What's ultimately confounding about the album is how one-note its euphoria can be. The songs are almost interchangeable; the lyrics rarely stray beyond the easy cliche,
    • 76 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    ilp.
    Kwes’s gentle songwriting sensibilities are unable to keep up with his exploratory beat making and the result is too often a mismatch that ends up leaving the listner at a loss.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Seek Warmer Climes
    The occasional sense of compositional confusion makes sense: even if it doesn't always result in a thrilling listen, Seek Warmer Climes captures a promising band in transition.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Book of Changes
    Book of Changes is refreshingly exposed and intimate, as if Blakeslee has found a lingua franca for writing when it really matters.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    In Mind
    Unlike the effortless Atlas, In Mind exposes a trace of tension between form and content. For all Courtney’s synchronicity with his home environment, he sometimes sounds like he’s spinning his wheels rather than exploring the new contours of the recalibrated band.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    What Do You Think About the Car?
    His message loses strength, in part, because he doesn’t fully commit to it.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    III
    Without the hooks of their previous albums, never mind those of their better-known bands, the songs on III take a while to sink in. In return for the slow approach, Bad Books offer a serious body of work that can stand on its own, a testament to the friendship that brought them together in the first place.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 71 Critic Score
    Skullcrusher [EP]
    Skullcrusher is just a sketch. The EP is less than 15 minutes long; you could grab a glass of water and make your bed and have made it most of the way through these four songs. But “Trace,” a song that feels like the final embrace at the end of a relationship far past its sell-by date, shows Ballentine inching towards something more fleshed out.
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