Pitchfork's Scores

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For 12,720 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: 10,456 out of 12720
  2. Mixed: 1,950 out of 12720
  3. Negative: 314 out of 12720
12720 music reviews
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    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Everyday Is Christmas
    There’s plenty Sia could do with an album entirely of Christmas originals, but too many are underwritten; there’s more consistency in the art direction than the songwriting.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Good Intentions
    There are hints of this fledgling growth throughout Good Intentions. ... The most fun moments on the album are the ones where Nav gets out of the way.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Fall
    Despite the emphasis on atmosphere that pervades the album and that seems like a necessary byproduct of its creative technology, The Fall may be the most earthbound Gorillaz album yet--and at times, therefore, the most banal.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Nausea
    While nearly every track on Nausea finds Vallesteros trying to grapple with these issues [feeling displaced and connected at the same time], he rarely wrenches out any insight or personal detail.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Tim
    On a purely sonic level, TIM is an easy listen to a fault, but taking in this final artistic statement is more difficult when focusing on the lyrics. ... The effect of these [guest] contributors effectively recasting his personal sentiments over once-unfinished music is haunting in all the wrong ways.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Trust Now
    Frustratingly, Trust Now doesn't advance on the better ideas from Shadow Temple, particularly the elements of dance music that occasionally surfaced.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Strays
    Strays lacks what what made the band great in the first place: believable songs and lyrics.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Mama's Boy
    As bizarre as LANY’s pivot to country pop is, they still manage to infuse it with enough charm where it doesn’t fall flat.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Prairie Wind
    Young's music is so rooted in the past, specifically the spirit of the 60s, that his stabs at contemporary relevance sound awkward and even curmudgeonly.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Terrible Human Beings
    Terrible Human Beings can still be cherry-picked for catchy singles bound for algorithmic playlists, but it’s impossible to overlook how much of the Orwells’ appeal is bundled into their persona as enfants terribles.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Felt 3: A Tribute To Rosie Perez
    With Aesop Rock on production, Felt becomes a triangulation that canvasses almost the entirety of U.S. undie rap in terms of geography and affiliation. So why is this thing kind of a bummer?
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Little Heart's Ease
    Too often, the new record substitutes weighty, Biblical language for true heft.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Assume Form
    Assume Form is aggressively pastel and suffocatingly serious. He has lost the playful sense of surprise that guided his falsetto’s agile twists and turns on his debut.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Mixing Colours
    The album is too inoffensive to leave much lasting impression. Over 18 songs, its initially appealing tastefulness becomes cloying and monotonous. Instead of the dynamism of mixing colors, the album mostly yields just a uniform pastel wash.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Kurr
    Indeed, when the strings are given the spotlight, the strongest songs are created; ditherings with Theremin, xylophone, and scuttling drum machine are less impressive.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Chixtape 5 [Mixtape]
    At over an hour long, the album suffers from sag and bloat. Each song loses momentum after the first minute, despite the endless parade of guest stars – Lil Wayne, Ludacris, Mario — popping by. Still, there are moments where the experiment almost works.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Or Give Me Death
    Aqueduct's most relaxed numbers are the strongest, where guitar, piano, and synth fuse in rare harmony.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    I Got Issues
    A YG album should have a higher success rate, which just isn’t the case on I Got Issues. It’s frustrating because the worthwhile moments are obvious.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Too Old To Die Young
    Now, uneven or not, the songs seem to breathe on their own, benefiting from a shot of rhythm and a healthy sweat.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Volta
    Where even her most divisive albums have managed to push her artistic boundaries, Volta feels limp and strangely empty-- almost unfinished.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Chief
    In his efforts to break out of one-hit-wonder-dom and demonstrate a wide range on his debut album The Chief, Jidenna sometimes comes off as shapeless.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Django Unchained [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
    Django is perhaps the first Tarantino soundtrack that feels, uncharacteristically, a little too nail-on-the-head.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Blame Confusion
    The hard-driving Blame Confusion, in too big a hurry to stop and take in the scenery, simply lets too much whoosh by in the periphery.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    From Every Sphere
    To be fair, there is redemption embedded within, a few genuinely interesting bits wedged between stacks and stacks of gooey piano ballads.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Welcome 2 Collegrove
    The songs on Welcome 2 Collegrove too often resemble the tenth pass on ideas no one loved in the first place, tweaked and rearranged until they’re perfectly fine.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    You Are There
    After an hour of getting your heartstrings tugged with such intense proficiency, You Are There starts to feel no less egregiously manipulative than hearing Celine belt out "My Heart Will Go On" for the thousandth time in a Vegas ballroom.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    All Visible Objects
    These songs tend towards fuzzy sentiments—the words “love,” “life,” “light,” and “feel” are staples. Many of the musical ideas—tinkling pianos, plasticky strings and emotion-squeezing chord progression—have been part of Moby’s toolkit since the word “Go.”
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Kila Kila Kila
    Most of Kila Kila Kila is heavy in all the wrong ways and strangely earthbound.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    God Don't Never Change: The Songs of Blind Willie Johnson
    A collection that leaves so much on the table in terms of possibility. Many of these selections are too on-the-nose, kowtowing to Johnson’s legacy as though kneeling before his corpse at a wake.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    If Not Winter
    Lu’s vocal delivery hovers between a coo and a stage whisper, though it rarely delivers the sort of blissful incoherence that shoegaze and dream pop are known for. The softness makes sense on a raw acoustic ballad like “All i need,” but it feels more like rote theatrics on “Black swan,” where the raging noise practically begs her to snap out of her feathery stupor.
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