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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    • 67 Metascore
    • 52 Critic Score
    Miracle Mile
    It's possible that the cumulative deadening effect of Miracle Mile is intentional, or that the contrast between the vacuous music and the spiritual ennui of the lyrics is supposed to be ironic. But Miracle Mile doesn't seem smart enough, musically or lyrically, for that to be the case.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Clash the Truth
    A passive-aggressive album like Clash the Truth, which just sounds kind of confused.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    No World
    inc. is both faithful to its source material and clever enough to twist it into new shapes, but at least for the time being, no world is unlikely to bring the Ageds out of the shadows.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    You're Nothing
    Iceage write brilliant songs; on You're Nothing, they've found a way to clarify these compositional skills without stripping away their power.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Songs for Imaginative People
    Smith comes across similarly disenchanted and tempted by the prospect on Songs for Imaginative People, where he's torn between celebrating and bemoaning commercial excess.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Push the Sky Away
    For all the album's wandering spirit, the first eight tracks on Push the Sky Away are neatly structured into two complementary, four-song halves that mirror one another.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    D.A.I.S.Y. Rage [EP]
    It walks the line between naive and savvy, between earnest and winking, confessional and oversharing, bratty and bold, experimental and inexperienced.
    • 99 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Rumours [35th Anniversary Deluxe Edition]
    As one of classic rock's foundational albums, it holds up better than any other commercial smash of that ilk.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Out of Touch, In the Wild
    The fragmented texture of the songs doesn't allow it to slip into bland slickness, but it's clean, theatrical, and kookily conservatorial in a pretty satisfying fashion, if occasionally a little too keen to change tacks within a single song.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Off/On
    Off/On is a solid record that thrives on the idea of possibility and hedged optimism.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 39 Critic Score
    Pillowfight
    Pillowfight is technically flawless but thoroughly unexciting.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    No Elephants
    The samples and some of the lyrics feel a little too controlled, on-message, and conceptual, which is unusual since her songs often tease out the dark emotion in mundane, everyday moments. As a result, No Elephants often feels hermetic and occasionally impenetrably austere.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Waiting for Something to Happen
    Taken apart from the high expectations set by their debut, Waiting is another strong collection of guitar pop gems from a band quickly proving itself to be a better, more elusive quantity than any easy genre tag might suggest.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Holy Fire
    Like Total Life Forever, Holy Fire threatens greatness, and whatever disappointment comes from missing the mark is mitigated by its scope: A bomb needs to be operational more than it needs to be accurate.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    No Beginning No End
    With previous releases, he's earned his heroic acclaim in the tough, tried-and-trusted lanes of contemporary jazz. With No Beginning No End, he's built his own road out.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Vertikal
    Had Cult of Luna attempted to make the same record six times during the last decade, maybe they would have condensed it into a tight 30 minutes by now. That would be neither captivating nor interesting, though, and Vertikal is quite often both.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Honeys
    The cartoonish brutality of the music is fun as hell, and since Korvette is most often mocking himself during Honeys, it doesn't come off as hectoring.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 43 Critic Score
    A Long Way to Fall
    Fall's worst moments are queasy and charmless.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 57 Critic Score
    Us Alone
    Even with fewer hands playing fewer instruments, the songs nevertheless sound leaden, ponderous, drowsy. Still, there are some inspired flourishes.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    News from Nowhere
    Setting aside the occasional meandering instrumental break, there are enough genuinely charming and well-crafted songs here that you can sort of understand what they're aiming at.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    The Jazz Age
    It may not be an extreme reworking of song forms or a sudden return to action, perhaps simply another chapter in the various indulgences he enjoys, but in numerous ways, The Jazz Age is Ferry's most radical work yet.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Pedestrian Verse
    The precise ecstasy of the production buoys the record through its few sluggish patches.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Live in Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 2
    It's a real trove, and not just because this lineup is relatively obscure.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Wraetlic
    There's room for Smoke to grow into this new guise, but Wraetlic is too satisfied with its own dissatisfaction to serve as anything more than comfort food for those predisposed to melancholia.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    M B V
    You get lost in it, and if you're wired a certain way that mixture of desire and confusion is easy to map on to the wider world. For 22 years, the only way to get there was through Loveless and its associated EPs; now there's another path, one many of us never expected to find.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Country Sleep
    In a lot of ways, Country Sleep delivers while still making you feel like it's playing on your vulnerability.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Out of View
    Taken for what it is--a fluffy, animated unicorn flying joyfully to college-rock Pleasure Town--Out of View is a nice 40-minute respite from reality.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Man Who Died in His Boat
    When it really hits, as it often does here, the music of Grouper creates a feeling that can only be defined as awe, an uncanny mixture of wonder and dread that nobody does better.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    II
    When II is truly on, it's proof that great albums aren't the sole measure of a great band, a subtle advance that puts Unknown Mortal Orchestra right back where they started: something of a mystery, but one that will certainly be interesting going forward.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    We the Common
    We the Common's best songs are its most dynamic.
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