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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    • 74 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    East Atlanta Love Letter
    The purest pop song is “Switch,” the one track that can pass for uptempo and boasts a hook that sticks. A few more fun moments like this would have helped keep the record moving.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Map of the Soul: Persona
    The arrangements on PERSONA are busy and convoluted, and many lyrical highlights are buried in meta, self-referential schlock rock. ... PERSONA is not a failure, but it’s tough to call it a triumph.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Duper Sessions
    His soft Ben Gibbard geekiness is an odd, if timely, fit for the swinging material, and flourishes of Jeff Buckley throat rattles don't help.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Fight Softly
    It's a true departure in sound and method; this is not a lazy or complacent record. McPhun, though, never settles into these new sounds, and Fight Softly retains very little of the ease and abandon that, to date, had marked the Ruby Suns.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    The Diver
    It doesn't advance much on their debut and, like that record, it only intermittently allows their latent promise to creep to the fore.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors
    Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors is on the one hand a genre-busting statement of artistic restlessness but it's also a mess.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Whenever You're Ready
    After forty minutes of two-chord strumming, the band's unique approach becomes exhausting.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Buck The World
    The problem with Buck the World is that it's largely inconsistent. There are 15 producers over 17 tracks. Sometimes it clicks, but other times it feels forced.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Woptober 2
    Like most of his recent records, it’s another collection of mostly very good Gucci Mane songs, marred by occasional awkward bits.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    The Idol, Vol. 1 [Music From the HBO Original Series]
    It [Mike Dean's "The Lure"], too, deserved a better show, and sets the tone for the songs to come, all sexual synth tracks that deploy dramatic minor chords to hint at a seamy undertone.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Dusty Trails
    If few of these tracks could be called great, there aren't any terrible ones either-- the entire thing floats along nicely on a snug bed of cotton.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Directions To See A Ghost
    If you isolate any random 45 seconds of Directions to See a Ghost's 70 minutes, you'll definitely be compelled to listen for another few minutes--after which time you'll probably start waiting for a solo or a shift in tone that might not even come.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Odd Blood
    It's hard to miss the pressure the band was under to deliver here--it's nearly palpable in their overfed production and search for direction, and as a result, Odd Blood is a bit too much of not enough.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    They!Live
    It'd be much easier to love, as opposed to merely like, They!Live's glistening, long-form tech-house soundscapes if there were more bombs and curveballs hidden amongst its lovingly pruned forest glades.
    • 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.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Gotham!
    It's not a bad album by most standards-- in fact it's pretty good at points-- but in the end slides into a mire of adequacy after generating high expectations early on.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    La Llama
    A good deal more Lange and a good deal less Muns would have brought out the best in Scott Herren.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Nuthin' 2 Prove
    [“Everything Good, Everything Right” is] a high point on an otherwise confused album that knows what it’s good at and what it’s not, and yet still chugs on anyway.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Twirligig
    It is a bit ephemeral, but not quite as music to relax to--more like music to be bewildered by.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Standing On Top Of Utopia
    Bjorke is clearly an artist-producer who likes to put his finger in lots of different pies, and he should be commended for such restlessness and flexibility. Still, it would be nice to see him pursue some of these avenues a bit more thoroughly as opposed to cramming so many detours into one 48-minute trip.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Distant Relatives
    Too often on Distant Relatives, Nas and Marley fall into a sort of middlebrow funk, kicking overripe platitudes over sunny session-musician lopes and letting their self-importance suffocate their personalities.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Comedown Machine
    The deeply uncool Comedown Machine smacks of effort.... Still, the limitations of Comedown Machine's protracted diversity all come back to Casablancas, a man with wide range as a listener and extremely narrow range as a musician.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Kids Aflame
    Goldstein's voice could use a little shaking up. Even in the first-person stories Goldstein feels like an observer, albeit one with a negative bias. Still, ARMS makes for an interesting contrast to Harlem Shakes' eternal optimism.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Rabbit Fur Coat
    On repeated listens, the songwriting makes the album lukewarm.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Rocket Juice & the Moon
    Rocket Juice & the Moon feels like a decent record, but an unfocused, meandering one.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Too Much Information
    As a literary exercise, it’s convincing; as a listening one, it’s mixed.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Hal
    Full of serious songs with sunny, heavily polished arrangements.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Dusty
    What mostly comes through on Dusty is what he’s already communicated, over and over again—he’s a technically accomplished rapper, and...well, that’s about it. If you’re looking for someone who will cram words like “hypotenuse” into verses, this is the album for you.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Prequelle
    “Rats” and “Witch Image” get their strength from smoldering licks and stacked harmonies plucked from the Ozzy Osbourne playbook, providing metalheads with a welcome break from all the mid-tempo durdling. Given the unremarkable tracks that follow it--particularly “Helvetesfönster,” an ostentatious, baroque instrumental reminiscent of Medieval Times muzak--the latter might as well be the record’s closer.
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