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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    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Words to the Blind
    Over the course of the next 10 minutes, the recording stirs to life in a slowly mounting atmospheric swirl of eerie guitar squeals, rain-on-tin drum patter, random bass blurts, and frosty-breathed coos, before the two groups find a common ground on a stalking rhythm that eventually yields to a series of seismic, Boredoms-worthy psych-metal eruptions at the halfway point.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    Please Be Honest
    Please Be Honest certainly has its charms. But for the first time in Pollard’s career, Guided by Voices isn’t the main event--which, for the band’s legions of fans, is surely a loss.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 66 Critic Score
    Angel Guts: Red Classroom
    Angel Guts is yet another strong, occasionally frustrating record restrained by Stewart’s consistency.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 64 Critic Score
    Places Like This
    The abbreviated runtime of Places Like This makes it seem as though they could have given their ideas more space to breathe, rather than piling them up like a stack of pancakes.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Don't Climb On And Take The Holy Water
    By and large, the band works well in this context, but the first two pieces on the album absolutely dominate the last three, making them feel essentially superfluous.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Phantom Planet
    A record of overwhelming deconstruction and newly explored territorial demarcation.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Yes New York
    This comp makes one thing perfectly clear: for a host of bands so readily compared to the same tiny stable of influences-- "sounding like a modern-day Gang of Four..."-- there sure is a hell of a lot of diversity between them.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Warnings/Promises
    Songwriting chemistry is a tricky thing, and while having two or three competing voices can push writers to new heights, a group of five here leads to songs that are merely passable.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 52 Critic Score
    Eyes At Half Mast
    On Talkdemonic's third stab, Eyes at Half Mast, the novelty seems to be thining, and O'Connor and Molinaro finally sound limited by their tools.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 71 Critic Score
    Magnolia
    Like much of Magnolia before it, the songs lope along quiet, lazy rhythms in no particular hurry to get where they're going. But while the Wooden Birds never quite arrive anywhere special, that's not to say Kenny isn't pointed that general direction.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Octahedron
    Is Octahedron the band's best album? No, but if you dig on MV's unrepentantly "big" and meandering suite-driven concept-album thing, you won't necessarily be disappointed.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Alive As You Are
    After a supreme early demonstration of pastiche, Alive As You Are's back half reveals a capable pop band writing capable pop songs.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Stage Whisper
    On the whole, Stage Whisper is enjoyable, but the live portion is dispensible, and the new studio tracks, which will likely please anyone taken with IRM, are the real draw.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    What Kind of World
    Largely devoid of lyrical texture and detail, the universe conjured by World often feels bland to a fault.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Lineage
    The fact of the matter is that Lineage isn't the first record to sound like Lineage.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Have Fun with God
    At its best, Have Fun With God works well as an experiment and as a listening puzzle to work through.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    My House From All Angles
    It’s full of capable floor-fillers, but it rarely offers listeners much they haven’t heard many times before.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 66 Critic Score
    My Turn
    He’s trying to tell a story here, but he’s just not much of a storyteller—his bars keep the narrative going, but he doesn’t offer enough arresting imagery to make his scenes come to life.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Painter
    You suspect The Painter may ultimately have been more rewarding to create than it is to listen to. It comes off as a therapeutic act from an artist who, assuming he’s managed his royalties, never really needs to work again, rather than an album that simply had to be made.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Siberia
    If nothing else, Siberia proves McCulloch and Sergeant still have their songwriting craft in good working order, but it's hard to recommend an album on strength of craft alone-- it has to have a little verve, and unfortunately it's lacking.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss
    O’Connor is pushing herself on every song here--maybe not always in the right or most obvious or safest directions, but always with some purpose.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Made In Brooklyn
    With its wealth of stellar collaborations, Brooklyn bodes well for the next full-fledged Wu LP, should it ever come to pass.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    What a Pleasure
    It'll be interesting to see where Beach Fossils go from here, because What a Pleasure is the type of release that shows they're talented, but still have a little work to do fully capitalize on it.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Galore
    There’s pretty of sunlight on Galore, but no heat or friction, as everything from the production to Pepperell’s enunciation is so glassy that all of these somersaulting hooks might as well be gibberish.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 57 Critic Score
    Breakin' Point
    [“Hard Sleep”] stands out as a rare home-run on an album too blandly ambitious to stick in the memory.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 54 Critic Score
    Preliminaires
    By being boring on purpose, Iggy ironically proves himself oddly more compelling than on his many past accidents. If it's not an album for the ages so much as for the aged, at least it's one you may want to hold on to a bit and give another shot when you get closer to where Iggy's at himself right now.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Campfire Songs [Reissue]
    Beyond its canonical interest, Campfire Songs has its own charms. Though rigorously composed, it feels deceptively spontaneous. The atmosphere is both inviting and severe, and startlingly vivid.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    For Screening Purposes Only
    The UK trio is hard, fast, and viciously catchy, but above all scary.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    I Love You, It's Cool
    I Love You, It's Cool is admirable in large part because its ambitions are every bit as subtle and difficult to quantify as its pleasures-- you don't have to call it "adult indie," but it feels like conflicted indie rock for adults.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    American Supreme
    American Supreme, even at its most unlistenable and monotonous, still makes its point.
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