Pitchfork's Scores

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For 12,724 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: 10,460 out of 12724
  2. Mixed: 1,950 out of 12724
  3. Negative: 314 out of 12724
12724 music reviews
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    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    King Of Jeans
    King of Jeans successfully consolidates these two strengths, harnessing the earlier record's sometimes directionless fire-extinguisher splatter into shake-appealing rock action, and cohering Korvette's ramblings into a more complete picture of wage-slave misanthropy and alpha-male inadequacy.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Luminous Night
    Luminous Night doesn't challenge "School of the Flower" or "The Sun Awakens" for Six Organs' best albums, but it is a solid addition to a big catalog that gets more interesting all the time.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Wind's Poem
    Phil has moved well beyond the often formless experiments of the early Microphones releases--this is still by no means a record to be digested lightly. And thank goodness for that.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 44 Critic Score
    You Can't Take It With You
    As overblown as You Can't Take It With You is musically, Nigro's not one to be upstaged by guitar pedals.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Intuit
    They're like a combination of Where the Wild Things Are, a fever dream, a pagan woodland ceremony, and a notebook doodle. The music is worth taking in, too, over and over again.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bay Of Pigs [EP]
    I'd assume Bay of Pigs' disco diversion to be just that in the long run, but after the relatively wagon-gathering summary of "Trouble in Dreams," this certainly feels like a break and, perhaps, the first blush of something new. Cheers to that.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Season Dreaming
    Season Dreaming is the sort of record that could, in the wrong hands, easily drift off into formless bedlam, but the group's employment of simple melodies and tunefulness when needed keeps that from happening.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Alien In A Garbage Dump
    It's chewing up something familiar and making it weird again. Life gives you lemons, so you make Alien in a Garbage Dump.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Broken
    Too often its soundtrack atmosphere is too thick, its arrangements as obvious as a painted backdrop.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 56 Critic Score
    Solo Electric Bass 1 [Live]
    It creates an album weighed toward showcasing masterful execution that leaves a pretty muted general impression. Unless you're predisposed toward technical prowess and solo bass recordings, it's probably going to come off as more of a clinic than a collection of great songs.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    The Bachelor
    The Bachelor most damningly lacks the charm attendant with any of those character descriptions, continuing Wolf's ability to please one's inner music critic, but too often ignoring any sort of pleasure principle.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Braveface
    Pop singers certainly don't need to reinvent music production to be gripping, but Esser's debut doesn't strain or stretch creative boundaries or hit that perfect balance between playful and experimental in the same way that contemporaries like Micachu and the Shapes do.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 52 Critic Score
    Woodstock--40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
    There are other moments of inspiration--maybe about a CD's worth, all told.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 71 Critic Score
    Elephant Jokes
    Elephant Jokes just has a good feeling about it, as if Pollard really liked this batch, so that's why he deigned to play an instrument on it, maybe, and why he slips a little intro in and closes it out with the very final-sounding 'Architectural Nightmare Man.'
    • 77 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Waxing Gibbous
    Waxing Gibbous is a good, if occasionally overdone, album that proves that his musical imagination is still a fertile one.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Destination Tokyo
    Nisennenmondai maintain grooves until they reach a sort of anxious frenzy, then move to the next buildup. For all the repetitious melodies and rhythms that form the core of the record, they don't sacrifice subtlety or surprise.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Love And Curses
    Love and Curses sounds as much a product of the present as of the past, and the new songs attack with goblin force but vampire sophistication, thanks to another new line-up.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 54 Critic Score
    Alice And Friends
    Alice and Friends doesn't produce often in that department [solid hooks], relying instead on the kind of raw energy that fuels a good house party.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Snow Blindness Is Crystal Antz
    Snow Blindness isn't essential listening for anyone but VanGaalen's most dedicated fans, but it is an enjoyable, occasionally even great record.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    Slaughterhouse
    Slaughterhouse­'s biggest weakness is what brought us here in the first place--for a record that's supposed to be so lyrically godbody that aspiring rapsters will retreat to a lifetime of Auto-Tune in fear, the lyrics display no real wit or inspirational spark.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Post-Nothing
    This is terminally catchy music played with punk's enthusiasm and velocity, and maybe it's the fact that there's only two dudes in this band that makes you feel like joining in to bash along.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    See Mystery Lights
    It's a feel-good album for an era that could use a little happiness, a sweaty collection of heady, hedonistic tunes just in time for the hottest days of the year.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Julian Plenti Is... Skyscraper
    I don't know what exactly it says about Paul Banks, but the most borderline-embarrassing tracks on Skyscraper are, in fact, the strongest--it's the safe, formulaic moments that fall flat and, unfortunately, make up a substantial portion of the record.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    No One's First, And You're Next
    Given its years-spanning tracklist, No One's First obviously has a retrospective flavor, but it also seems to point the way ahead for Modest Mouse, if only to suggest that the band will continue moving in opposite directions--backwards and forwards--all at once.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Tribute To [EP]
    It's not that Tribute To isn't on some level deeply felt, but it's just not deeply considered, and while it's nice to hear James focused and playing to his strengths after the scattered "Evil Urges," his tribute eventually loses the one thread it sets out to carry on its cover.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    I Love You
    A few good hooks, in fact, would go a considerable way toward redeeming Blank's largely forgettable debut, I Love You.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Ruminant Band
    All this means that Fruit Bats, like their contemporaries, could unfortunately be passed over due to sheer familiarity. That'd be a shame, because The Ruminant Band only gets more rewarding as it settles in.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Creaturesque
    Creaturesque is an easy enough listen with a few moments that stand at attention, but even the best bits can't compare to Moonbeams', and the lesser stuff's far lesser indeed.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Troubled, Shaken Etc.
    Ultimately this is a question of taste--and plenty of folks like their music slow-moving and somber--but the general avoidance of rhythm on some of these cuts poses a problem for me.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Infinite Light
    Infinite Light is solid. And its overall quality owes more than a small debt to the fact that Webber and Wells have the good taste and modesty to keep it at 10 songs.
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