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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    • 70 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Party Store
    On the new Party Store, the band leaps even further into uncharted territory, turning in a full hour of classic Detroit techno covers.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Gardens & Villa
    If the ambiguous quality of their sound sometimes makes it hard to become emotionally invested in Gardens & Villa, in Lynch, they're blessed with a singer who has remarkable presence and poise.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Yoko
    Everything is intricately wrought and calculated, perhaps in an overly accommodating response to fears of linearity. This fashionable awareness lends an almost palpable weight to the sound. It succeeds in adding depth and texture to the album, but sometimes overshoots the mark.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Into The Blue Again
    Despite the Album Leaf's studied textures and buoyant songcraft, there is a crippling lack of tension inherent within Into the Blue Again's careful constructions.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Oracular Spectacular
    On 'Electric Feel,' MGMT pull off lithe, falsetto electro-funk surprisingly well. There's not much to the song aside from a Barry Gibb vocal and limber bassline, but within the context of the rest of Spectacular, it makes perfect sense.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Blood On The Silver Screen
    She commits to pop music’s campiness to convey the way love and heartache magnify even the most fleeting memories into heart-wrenching melodrama. It’s an interesting pivot, but much of the music feels too aimless to effectively deliver these intense emotions.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Loud Like Nature
    All this variety is to be commended, but a lot of the tracks here sound like unfinished sketches.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Fever Dream
    It would have been a lot more of an interesting listen, however, had he decided to really get his hands dirty in feedback and digital fuzz.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Home Acres
    The key to enjoying an Aloha record is to hone in on the sounds and textures as much as the stories. With that in mind, Acres provides plenty of subtle rewards.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Traps
    The result is idiosyncratic pop-rock appealing to geeky outsiders and scene lifers that's perennially in short supply, largely by design.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Damaged
    Damaged is lovely but dull in spots, lacking the fuck-all adventurousness of previous albums.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Real Emotional Trash
    Real Emotional Trash is determinedly unified, even if it isn't always clear to what ends. At its best, the record hints at opening a whole new musical world for Malkmus--one in which his well-worn style is effectively played down in the service of a mighty rock'n'roll band.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Recurring Dream
    Recurring Dream's a slinkier-sounding record than its predecessor: the songs are more spacious, less prone to snarling, and they've lowered the volume on Black Earth's stuck-between-stations fizz.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Toward the Low Sun
    After an iffy start, Toward the Low Sun thankfully picks up a head full of steam in its closing stretch--hopefully, this momentum won't dissipate over another seven-year layoff.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Cry Cry Cry
    Cry Cry Cry can be heard as an equal to At Mount Zoomer or Expo 86: a solid record, throwback indie rock by default, powered less by defiant belief than muted reliability.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Release The Stars
    Such frequent attempts to elevate the banal into the meaningful ultimately keep Release the Stars from achieving any significant momentum and only add weight to the notion that Wainwright's shaky aim-- rather than his lack of talent-- might be his biggest downfall.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Unreal
    Blumberg is a capable, if not particularly distinguished guitarist. He is also a songwriter with an unusual gift for sticky, familiar hooks and the issue here is that Unreal puts far more emphasis on the former.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Waiting on a Song
    While Waiting on a Song is casual in execution, it’s extremely intricate in construction, with each disco-string sweep, brass-section stab, and razor-sharp acoustic strum deployed with push-button precision. At times, the album feels less like a traditional singer/songwriter affair than a business card for Auerbach’s studio.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Blakroc
    Even if the lame parts of BlakRoc are more noticeable than the enjoyable, what really sticks out is how easy this all feels--- not once does anything feel like awkward ambassadorship.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Jassbusters
    A strange, slow fog settles in over the course of the record, which comes to feel like an album-length exercise in torpor, clouding over some unabashedly gorgeous turns by Mockasin.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    I'm Having Fun Now
    The album is also a much more modern-sounding pop project, though it similarly owes its success to the chemistry of its creators.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Bubblegum
    Nevertheless, as much as Bubblegum evidences a lot of thought and effort on the part of the band, it still has the sound of musicians going through the motions and sticking too close to their formulae.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Kill Them With Kindness
    When Kill Them With Kindness works it's because of Fein and Wraight's keen attention to melody and the way their voices complement one another and inject these songs with warmth and emotion.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Collapsed in Sunbeams
    “Violet” is one of a handful of moments where the comforting atmosphere starts to crack—it hints at a more compelling album actively at war with its own themes.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Stand Up and Speak
    Speak isn’t exactly a step forward or a step back, but more to the side, onto a new path with plenty of potential, as well as room for future improvements.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Accelerate
    Accelerate's broad strokes, big riffs, and beefy production (the album was reportedly recorded in "just" nine weeks) are admirable, as is the disc's concision, but its success is still more as a step forward than a slam dunk.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Plays the Songs of Daniel Johnston
    Martsch misses the opportunity to commune with Johnston’s music, or to do anything with it, really. On the 11 songs here, he resists the urge to plug in his distortion pedals and sail away.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Axxa/Abraxas
    It's a charming album from an artist with an obsessive/compulsive love for writing shambolic, vaguely psych-infused rock songs but it doesn’t, distinguish itself from any number of similar records from this sphere over the past few years.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Alphabetical
    There's something admirable about a record that proves it's possible to remove grit from adult contemporary pop.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Shame, Shame
    Portions of Shame, Shame might prove to be just a little too effervescent--certainly not a bad thing for a band with a track record that usually ran contrary. The important thing is that these songs hit more than they miss, occasionally with shimmering resolve and a couple of really big choruses to back it all up, often quite memorably.
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