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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    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Turning Wheel
    While The Turning Wheel was originally planned for release in September of last year, its whimsical presentation and urgent, socially conscious lyrics give it a timeless feeling.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    Call Me If You Get Lost
    It grants him the freedom to play with tone, to write personally or use his gravelly voice as texture, to treat the harshest raps and the most delicate hooks as mad experiments gone wrong.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Escapades
    Escapades is entirely in line with this gleeful approach, guilelessly reaching beyond musical norms to seek out ecstasy in the patently absurd.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    I Know I'm Funny Haha
    I Know I’m Funny haha is full of this delicious texture. It might come off a little shallow, but it reveals its great depth at its own unconcerned pace. It’s probably one of the best records of the year.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Planet Her
    Planet Her is a kaleidoscope of pop versatility that benefits greatly from a market that currently values eclecticism. It feels both premeditated and casual, well-crafted yet trenchantly frivolous.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Home Video
    Home Video is a bold statement, a powerful post-adolescent text in its own right.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Back Of My Mind
    Ballads were a staple of H.E.R.’s initial five EPs, and she again uses them frequently on Back of My Mind, for better or worse. Nearly all of them are simple and pretty. ... The choices she makes—from the glossy R&B production to favoring vocal riffing over a good hook—feel altogether safe, like she’s protecting a legacy she was born into.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Pray for Haiti
    Pray for Haiti is his most ambitious, definitive project since his 2016 masterpiece Haitian Body Odor, a collage rendered in full.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Broken Hearts and Beauty Sleep
    Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep is the latest chapter in the chaotic yet deliberate evolution of a no-holds-barred performer who’s only now reaching their apex.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Mother Nature
    Kidjo’s music flows most easily, and the messages land with the greatest impact, when she’s not proselytizing, as she does on the Sampa the Great-assisted “Free and Equal” and the album’s title track.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Peace or Love
    The follow-up to 2009’s Declaration of Dependence, makes languid, pleasant pop seem deceptively effortless; the album is so smooth that its seams are barely visible. The record’s 11 tracks are a Quaalude dream, a set of gossamer songs so refined that they take on sedative properties.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Black Metal 2
    It is the clearest Dean Blunt has ever sounded and one of his most thrilling releases to date.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Blue Weekend
    Blue Weekend always nails the vibe, they nail everything, but often in a way that sounds micromanaged.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 66 Critic Score
    Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land
    Everything is delicate, but nothing is muted. This aesthetic certainly isn’t for everybody, but after her ambivalent pop experiments, Marina no longer needs her albums to be. It’s a beacon out for the highly emotional people of the world, of whom she clearly is one; it’s for her.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Islomania
    Just a few left-field twists could have gone a long way toward breaking up this very conventional set. Thorburn’s best albums sound like nobody else could have made them. A lot of acts have already made ones like Islomania.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 47 Critic Score
    Jordi
    Jordi bounces between smeary electropop haze, wobbles of tropical house, a forgettable Stevie Nicks appearance. It’s too cluttered to sink into, too limp for catharsis.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Culture III
    Like its predecessor, Culture III can become a slog, and at times seems shoddily constructed, its commercial ambitions ill-considered and to the album’s detriment. It’s also girded by songs that recall the Migos’ inspired peak—and a couple that rank among their best.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Path of Wellness
    Sleater-Kinney has made heart-stopping, philosophically challenging rock music. Path of Wellness takes a more pacifist stance, content to let life happen around it.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 71 Critic Score
    The Voice of the Heroes
    Lil Baby and Durk’s new joint album, The Voice of the Heroes, is not quite a marquee work for either artist, though it is reliably consistent and casts them as a natural pair—near-ideal complements to one another in writing and execution.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    No Gods No Masters
    Faster and friskier than expected, No Gods, No Masters is their strongest album since Version 2.0.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Butterfly 3000
    It’s a reminder that King Gizzard usually peak when wandering far beyond a clear-cut path. The coming of their most concise and carefree release truly could not have been better timed.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 66 Critic Score
    Kommunity Service
    While Kommunity Service only hints at what a true synthesis of those artists could be, at times the implication is enough.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 71 Critic Score
    Doomin' Sun
    Kempner grounds Duterte’s dreamy abstraction in gritty reality, creating a dissonance that works best when it mirrors the album’s treatment of the darker edges of relationships. At times, though, the collaboration limits these artists’ strengths.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Reflection
    The album’s best and most revealing tracks are those where James herself takes the mic, though she’s careful never to give away too much.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Jubilee
    Listeners love Japanese Breakfast because she gives you everything: a buffet of sub-genres, blunt confessions, larger concepts, and on-point orchestration, led by someone with undeniable charisma. Listening to Michelle Zauner go all in on Jubilee provides every bit of the joy she intended.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Soberish
    Soberish succeeds largely because Phair is no longer asking for tolerance. She is simply, fully, being herself.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Live in Stuttgart 1975
    Sure, 90 minutes of free-flowing instrumental workouts may seem daunting to more casual Can fans who prefer their kosmische musik spiked with more digestible doses of “Vitamin C.” But devoted heads who surrender to the tide will no doubt emerge from Live in Stuttgart 1975 with another Can maxim in mind: I want more.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Changephobia
    Even on an album so concerned with fluidity and risk-taking, Rostam mostly stays in his comfort zone. At its best, Changephobia frames the experience of giving in to doubt and ambiguity as a kind of empowerment. Other times, it just feels like giving in.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Penelope Three
    Perhaps some lo-fi charm has been lost along the way, but these are proper songs, and Trappes has centered herself in the narrative while solidifying a sound that was already spellbinding to begin with.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    The Waves Pt. 1
    When Kele’s familiar voice leaps all over the limits of its range, songs like “The One Who Held You Up” take on a stagey quality. But overall, The Waves, Pt. 1 is a mid-career detour worth indulging. The left-of-center UK rock veteran sounds better here than he has at least since the best songs on 2017’s folksy Fatherland, his previous no-frills record. But this time Kele also sounds free.
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