Pitchfork's Scores

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For 12,715 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: 10,452 out of 12715
  2. Mixed: 1,949 out of 12715
  3. Negative: 314 out of 12715
12715 music reviews
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    • 69 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Western Xterminator
    But if this introduction presents a retreat from the heavy metal parking lot, the rest of Western Xterminator returns to the usual spot and sets up a permanent trailer-home in it, with the 70s-Stones sleaze of Herrema's former band all but vanquished for a full-on 80s headbanger's ball pitched halfway between Sunset Strip flash and New Wave of British Heavy Metal thrash.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 53 Critic Score
    Black Pompadour
    The brooding mid-mid-tempo pacing and smoky classic-rock guitar grandeur set a table for some serious moping.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    Ten New Messages
    With keen observations and piles of swagger tucked away somewhere for the time being, the Rakes could still be the soundtrack to plenty of lives-- or at the very least, daily commutes-- if only they could find the strength to muster a smirk.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Hats Off To The Buskers
    Like so many debuts, Hats Off to the Buskers is ultimately a document of a band searching for their own voice in those of others.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 64 Critic Score
    Back To Black
    Fortunately, Winehouse has been blessed by a brassy voice that can transform even mundane sentiments into powerful statements.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    Costello Music
    [The] Fratellis aren't so much the sound of young Britain as the sound of dad's old record collection.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    These Friends Of Mine
    Full of the kind of basic strum-alongs and diaristic musings that yield showers of Starbucks praise.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Yours To Keep
    Hammond's solo outing is a spry if unexceptional pop charmer, less supercilious than Is This It or Room on Fire but almost as cool.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Myth Takes
    No longer experimenting for experimentation's sake, every beat-breaking decision on Myth Takes serves to reinforce the monumental rhythms.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 66 Critic Score
    Pocket Symphony
    Pocket Symphony winds up feeling strangely transient, accomplished and genuinely likeable but also forgettable.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    Neon Bible
    Although they've expanded their sound, the Arcade Fire's transition into extroversion isn't always smooth or graceful. Neon Bible is full of clunky lyrics, revealing Butler's tendency to overstate and sensationalize.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Candylion
    Where his solo debut, Yr Atal Genhedlaeth, was a relatively subdued, Welsh-only affair, its successor takes unseriousness as seriously as any official Furries effort.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    National Anthem Of Nowhere
    Where Folkloric Feel opted for cobwebby murk, National Anthem of Nowhere dovetails in bright, tidy corners. It's at once straight-laced and funky in the way that only indie rock can be.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    The Weirdness
    An album that hideously disgraces the band's original work.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Make Another World
    A lot of Make Another World doesn't stick the way good guitar pop should.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    The Third Hand
    It sadly turns out to be an unsettling piece of evidence that he's lost without someone else's pre-existing sounds to extrapolate from and transform.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 47 Critic Score
    Lynn Teeter Flower
    Whether she's giving the rhythm section a cigarette break, trying to approximate the sound of an anesthetized New Pornographers, or adding the same sort of pseudo-dancey Casio flourishes that have colored her work since the first Azure Ray album, Taylor never fails to instill the same sense of inescapable inertia throughout.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Foley Room
    In the end, what makes The Foley Room Tobin's best album in seven years is the way his bent for organized chaos manifests as a deft control of every sound that surrounds him: Anything's a beat, everything's a break, and the difference between sound and music is entirely contextual.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 52 Critic Score
    Vessels
    That the songs are essentially interchangeable 8-cylinder rawk is one thing; that they begin to clearly resemble the long-forgotten, acid-coated Eastern-revivalists Kula Shaker is something more distressing altogether.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Back Numbers
    Track by track, the disc's a sweet thing, but as a whole it's about as light and wispy.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    You, You're A History In Rust
    Despite all the haunting vibes, woodwinds, and honeyed strings, rock music's guitar/bass/drums dynamic is dominant on Rust; it hovers between the rambunctious clatter of Broken Social Scene (which shares two members with DMST) and the elegant contortions of Jaga Jazzist.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Abandoned Language
    If Dälek didn't have all this discordant float working for them, they'd be one of the most irritating rap groups in history.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Brand New By Tomorrow
    A loose, warm, and human-scale record that sounds pretty nice right out of the gate.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    We All Belong
    Hold it by its edges and the experience of this album suffers––the rocky center is where we find personal truths writ well.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
    All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone is the musical equivalent of a late Woody Allen film (possibly a good or bad thing, depending on your temperament): The action unfolds predictably, but the dramatic effect can also be increased by your fondness for and familiarity with the idiom.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    Atlantis: Hymns For Disco
    Atlantis strives for a patchwork cohesiveness, with equal parts neo-soul, reggae, rap, and rock, bound by a vaguely spiritual message and partially elaborated water-related extended metaphor.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Return To Form Black Majick Party
    An admirably cocksure debut on which Levi makes like a 21st century T. Rex-- which, our current retro-obsessed rock culture notwithstanding, is not an easy thing to pull off.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 52 Critic Score
    The Cost
    While there's nothing wrong with a predictable approach when deployed with expertise, it's disappointing from a band like the Frames.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Strength In Numbers
    Much of Numbers feels melancholy-by-numbers, so melodies seem recycled, riffs feel tedious, and the emotional register dampens.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sex Change
    It's an interesting middle ground the band reach here, touching upon many previous bases while not favoring entirely the guitar tomfoolery or the smirking electro-rock.
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