Pitchfork's Scores

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For 12,729 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: 10,465 out of 12729
  2. Mixed: 1,950 out of 12729
  3. Negative: 314 out of 12729
12729 music reviews
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    • 73 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Believer
    The passionate vocals stand out from the rest of Believer, with its glassine pop-R&B delivery. Smerz’s usual brooding, dead-eyed vacancy, punctuated with mumbled interjections, has a magnetic pull in concentrated blasts, but it can also feel like a slight crutch when songs like “Flashing” and the album’s interludes prove they can go in different, evocative directions at a whim.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Anti
    ANTI is a rich and conflicted pop record, at its most interesting when it’s at its most idiosyncratic.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Tripper
    The only problem is that Johnson's tales aren't all that hooky. At least, not enough to buoy Tripper's soft and moody music.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    proVISIONS
    proVISIONS is no exception, its array of peyote rock, twilight ballads, space cowboy soundtracks, and spooky sidetracks off the beaten path on par with the band's best work.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    W
    As a whole, the record doesn't quite gel. The songs generally sound better out of context.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Volume Two
    What makes the album so distinctive isn't just the sound of her voice, the quality of her songwriting, or even the resourcefulness of his arrangements, but their joint insistence that these old sounds have as much to say nowadays as they ever did.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 53 Critic Score
    Making a New World
    There’s a familiar, overriding sense of a couple of guys reading something about history and having a lot to report. If you don’t mind the idea of These New Puritans as your dad after a Ken Burns binge, you’ll find signs of life and creativity within Making a New World’s overall confusion. If not, no one could blame you for moving on.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Let's Rock
    “Let’s Rock” is upfront about its meat-and-potatoes aspirations. This is an album by the Black Keys called “Let’s Rock.” It does.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Ride
    It's the first good 2002 album I've heard.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Too Late To Die Young
    The album is about a quarter filler, but the songs that hit on Too Late to Die Young make the tedium worth sitting out.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Final Straw
    The pristine quality of Snow Patrol's music and Garret Lee's production, however, belies the rawness of Lightbody's words, and too often, the songs suffer from the contrast.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    The Neptunes Present... Clones
    When the Neptunes step out of their accepted hip-hop box, they find their greatest success.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    The Young Machines
    The Young Machines will rank among your favorite albums if you're someone's mortifyingly jaded ex, but if you come to it craving electronic vocal-pop keeping pace with anything north of Jimmy Tamborello's shoulders, you'll end up frustrated by the simple and repetitive violin bits that drive the big retro beats.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Weezer [2001]
    Average from beginning to end.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Meek Warrior
    The Akrons' striking group harmonies are at a greater premium here than before, but the grainy, more intimate production retains a sense of communal participation.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Overgrown Path
    Cohen might have made the album for himself as a keepsake, an antidote to the rest of life's pressing noise. It works that way for us, as well.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Syndrome Syndrome
    Syndrome Syndrome offers some rewards, but it may have been a fraction too soon for them to make their first move.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    The Next Four Years
    Taken as a whole, The Next Four Years moves like a piece of fine engineering—all curved lines, no wind resistance.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    The Diary
    The Diary is notable for presenting an official release to his intended debut. And, just like any diamond unearthed after many years, The Diary is flawed, but still precious.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    OUÏ
    It’s a shame there’s no such thing as a subtitled listening experience because OUÏ is rich with brilliant, funny ideas about conception, nurture, and identity.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rocket Power
    Listening to him navigate those raw emotions while staying the diamond-encrusted course makes for some of his messiest and most mature music yet.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sub Verses
    Sub Verses proves we shouldn't take Akron/Family for granted; their restlessness is rare.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 57 Critic Score
    Falling Off the Sky
    Falling Off the Sky misses the opportunity to explore that fear of obsolescence too deeply.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    III
    It doesn’t always reach the level of spiritual purity it could, but there’s a touch of steel and a sense of pacing that was missing from Föllakzoid’s prior work, positioning III as a gateway for a much a deeper dive into altered states.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Folk Set Apart
    A Folk Set Apart is scattered by nature but it has some of these moments, too--moments in which some line or turn that at first sounds unnatural becomes a signal both of McCombs' quiet confidence and of his casual rebellion against the idea of how songs are supposed to go.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Crazy Itch Radio
    Crazy Itch Radio isn't a bad album by any means; it just doesn't scream "best album of the year" from the moment you put it on.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Rolling Blackouts
    Hopefully, Rolling Blackouts marks the moment in the Go! Team's career where the idea of moving forward becomes less of a literal concept and more an artistic one.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Life Among the Savages
    The record is an easy, pleasant listen, but it's not particularly compelling as a whole, occasionally falling into a pattern of contented stuffiness.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Sistahs
    The debut Big Joanie LP, Sistahs, is an impressively woven tapestry of affirmational lyrics, girl-group chants, and deep, slashing guitars that would have sounded very at home on Kill Rock Stars in the 2000s.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Second Language
    Thanks to smart sequencing that balances bangers with pensive interludes, it feels less like a collection of club tracks than a suite broken into 10 interlocking movements.
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