Pitchfork's Scores

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For 12,713 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: 10,450 out of 12713
  2. Mixed: 1,949 out of 12713
  3. Negative: 314 out of 12713
12713 music reviews
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    • 58 Metascore
    • 57 Critic Score
    One of Wun
    He’s making songs that sound like catchy Gunna songs of the past—he’s still able to float on these laid-back, skittering ATL trap variants while reading straight off his SSENSE receipt—but they don’t feel like them.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Nasir
    The writing is so meandering and mechanical that little here feels intentional, even the gaps. And strangely, that’s the bittersweet takeaway: Nas the meticulous observer has been supplanted by Nas the nervous rambler. It doesn’t feel like an accident.
    • 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.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    For Years
    Despite its clever syntheses, there are times when it's not much more than pretty. But the good is not only good, it's promising.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 51 Critic Score
    Love Frequency
    Love Frequency isn’t a complete disaster, if only because the new, chastised, and chaste Klaxons aren’t really capable of doing anything that could inspire that sort of animus. At their best, Klaxons dredge up the kind of sounds that keep the Coachella Sahara Tent bumping all weekend, composed to be aggressive and participatory, yet strangely ambient and easy to ignore.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    The Vision
    The Vision seems to be exactly what Joker wants: UK pop R&B of the vainest and most vacuous possible variety.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Bundles
    Fans of Lewis or Dawson aren't gonna care much that this isn't holy grail stuff; if you've been following either, you're used to a little unevenness. But the true superfans have likely heard the best of these tunes before, on the AFNY comp.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 47 Critic Score
    Younger Now
    Younger Now blends pop-rock and pablum country fare that is so restrained, so thinly produced, it seems like her lovably goofy personality was hobbled throughout the recording process.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    The Fountain
    Ultimately, The Fountain is an echo of an echo, inessential to all but the band's most devoted followers.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Tight Connection
    The detached, semi-ironic delivery doesn't play well with the perky club beats.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Kpt.Michi.Gan
    He contorts both his simplistic pop urges and his more obtuse soundscaping, and makes good on neither.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 22 Critic Score
    Charmed & Strange
    Yoav goes about his expecting some sort of kneejerk praise for rolling dolo, but thanks to a total lack of depth, sonic or otherwise, all I see is the gimmicks, the wack lyrics.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Autumn, Again
    It is more concise (conveniently, coincidentally, half as long as Ashes Grammar) and less wily than its predecessor, often relying on comparatively sturdy and rock band-y arrangements.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    Let the People Speak
    Let the People Speak feels utterly passionless and perfunctory.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Cinematic Orchestra presents In Motion #1
    The seven songs on In Motion #1 were commissioned as alternate scores to seven short avant-garde films, and without those inspirations unspooling in front of the listener, there's a strange incompleteness to most of them.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    For Professional Use Only [Mixtape]
    Araab's willingness to stretch keeps For Professional Use Only engaging throughout, which is no easy task; it's 67 minutes long, about 15 minutes longer than a typical festival set and probably 15 minutes more AraabMuzik than anyone needs in one sitting.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Drowners
    Drowners can’t inspire too much ill will or really any kind of strong reaction and that’s fair enough: it doesn’t deal in hot, dirty sex or catastrophic breakups, mostly drunken hookups and easy letdowns.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 57 Critic Score
    Smile
    Smile asks less of us. The confessions on this album feel like calculated dodges, every tepid disclosure immediately followed by triumph. ... Despite all her garbled platitudes, she remains a master at executing proven chart-topping formulas.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 56 Critic Score
    Scenic Drive (The Tape)
    Scenic Drive feels like a detour because it is: Khalid announced his next studio album, Everything Is Changing, last summer. For now, though, he seems content to take a step back, sounding like he’s singing and shrugging at the same time.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The World is Yours
    It sounds good--Brown's detached, wispy/gritty voice is pleasing as ever, and I like a pop string arrangement as much as the next guy--but it doesn't add up to much in the end.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Moon Music
    That unpredictable quality control makes Coldplay frustrating to defend or dismiss—for every questionable choice, there’s a 6-minute nu-jazz vamp or classical prog-pop opus waiting around the corner.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 35 Critic Score
    Scab Dates
    Given which songs are chosen and when this is being released, Scab Dates is a neither a concession nor a step forward, revealing inclinations that feel half as indulgent as they should when following a record like Frances the Mute, and about half as interesting to listen to.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Harmonies For The Haunted
    Harmonies for the Haunted seems as familiar as Stellastarr*'s 2003 debut, and that's at once its chief cincher and problem.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 52 Critic Score
    Alter Ego
    If Alter Ego presents LISA as the most generic embodiment of a pop star, then it is no surprise that its best songs rely on tried-and-true formulas.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 54 Critic Score
    Altogether
    Even when Turnover try spicing things up with congas, a violin, and a couple of ill-fitting saxophone features, Altogether tastes incredibly vanilla, like a playlist of department store slow jams.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 51 Critic Score
    I've Tortured You Long Enough
    I’ve Tortured You never lets up on its fist-in-the-air rock eruptions. No small acoustic numbers punctuate the record; there is no time to regroup. Even within songs, Heroux and Zambri follow safe, predictable progressions.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Indicud
    Indicud has the sheen of a cinematic blockbuster.... Unfortunately, it also has no substance.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 48 Critic Score
    Fallen Empires
    You get the sense they're shooting for something epic, something that would sound just as big as the pop bangers on radio, but the results are goofy.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 46 Critic Score
    Live: Uurop VIII-XII/Places in Sun & Winter, Son
    It’s got the feel of a bootleg--the recording is at times horribly thin, and the occasional snatches of audience chatter make it sound like the work of someone staggering drunkenly through the crowd with a barely concealed mic.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    You and I
    A good 80% of You and I, the latest album of the lot, consists of covers, many already released in some format.... The new material includes a version of "Grace" that is basically a fully formed demo, while "Dream of You and I" is barely even that; the title is literal, Buckley thinking aloud about a dream he had about a band’s "space jam," which inspired him to write what’d eventually become "You and I."
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