Pitchfork's Scores

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For 12,711 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: 10,448 out of 12711
  2. Mixed: 1,949 out of 12711
  3. Negative: 314 out of 12711
12711 music reviews
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    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Safe In The Hands Of Love
    You get the sense, maybe, that Tumor is carrying around other people’s secrets, and that Safe in the Hands of Love is so cavernous-sounding, in part, to accommodate them. Holding all of this together is a stew of feelings—dread, sensuousness, ecstasy, terror--that melt into a mood so pungent and pervasive that people who grew up inside all kinds of different music will be beckoned towards it. Ambient electronic, dream-pop, experimental noise, ’90s R&B, even late-’90s alt-rock--Tumor’s music is fluid and generous enough to contain it all.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    First Collection 2006-2009 [Box Set]
    The raw-material demos that close out B-Sides and Rarities count as the collection’s greatest revelations, affording a work-in-progress intimacy to the creative gestation behind songs that already feel as familiar as the back of one’s hand.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks [Extended Edition]
    Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks gets a sparkling remaster and almost an album’s worth of okay-to-pretty-good new tracks.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Hit Me Hard and Soft
    HMHAS is just another good record from Billie and Finneas—certainly tasteful, and arresting sometimes, but all the session musicians in the world can’t make it a masterpiece.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Nobody Loves You More
    Her frank storytelling makes “Coast” the most vivid song on Nobody Loves You More, like the account of a beachside outlaw whose levity is its own triumph. The best moments are when Deal slows her pace and stretches out like a daydream, recalling, more than any of her other bands, her sublime cover of Chris Bell’s “You And Your Sister” with This Mortal Coil in 1991.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Miles at the Fillmore - Miles Davis 1970: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 3
    The appeal of the Miles at the Fillmore material is obvious: This is an amazing band and they rip, but they never leave traditional ideas of rhythm and melody behind.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Passage du Désir
    It’s been only three years since Dood & Juanita, but Passage still feels like a comeback. .... On Passage du Desire, he sounds more like himself than he has in ages.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Live at the Fillmore East: October 4th & 5th, 1968 [Box Set]
    This set is the document we've been missing of the onstage Family Stone of legend: the tightly knit extended family that sang and played together, the group that magically united black and white audiences. If it doesn't quite live up to their radiant reputation, it comes pretty close.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Wendy Eisenberg
    The three best songs here—“Another Lifetime Floats Away,” “It’s Here,” and “Will You Dare”—are the most unguarded statements Eisenberg has ever made. Each one, at its core, is a paean, a devotional—a love song.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Coloring Book [Mixtape]
    Coloring Book is one of the strongest rap albums released this year, and is destined to be on year-end lists aplenty. It's a more rewarding listen than Drake's recently released VIEWS; it's nearly as adventurous as The Life of Pablo.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Big Fish Theory
    Big Fish Theory is a compact rap gem for dancing to or simply sitting with, an album that is as innovative as it is accessible; if not a glimpse into the future, then it’s at least an incisive look at the present.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    V​ė​jula
    Each piece on V​ė​jula offers a chance at transcendence, even if only for a small moment. Even the quickest glimpses into the beyond are revelatory. It’s heavy work, but always welcome and necessary.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ignorance
    Every moment feels lush and welcoming, designed to reach as many people as possible.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Fed
    Plush's vision was obviously reaching beyond his abilities when making this album, and though that's commendable--better to try and fail than not try at all--sometimes you acheive less on the road to greatness.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Golden Hour
    Less concerned with outside forces than internal balance, Golden Hour stands as an assured, artful snapshot of a particular rush of feelings, but its wisdom speaks volumes to Musgraves’ ongoing evolution.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Chris
    The resulting album is an electric blend of unforgettable imagery, emotional depth, and lurid, sizzling pop-funk.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Tigers Blood
    Her mind is alive and humming, and her language leaps out at you with its hunger.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Rat Conspiracy [Box Set]
    Fake Train and New Plastic Ideas hold important places in the history of 90s music, not to mention those of punk and indie as a whole. And they set the tone for unimagined Unwound greatness to come (which will be chronicled in subsequent volumes of the box-set series). But those two albums, and the tracks that accompany them on Rat Conspiracy, transcend time, place, attitude, and even the sprawling continuum of influence.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    U
    Half the fun is in discovering where Grey takes them from there. “Innuendo” and “Lovefield” both get blasted into trance hyperspace. .... Beneath its high-gloss surface, every detail on U rewards close scrutiny—even its one-letter title.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    A Seat at the Table
    A Seat at the Table, her third full-length album, is the work of a woman who’s truly grown into herself, and discovered within a clear, exhilarating statement of self and community that’s as robust in its quieter moments as it is in its funkier ones.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    Last Exit
    Greenspan... manages to fold elements of nearly a quarter-century of forward-looking pop into a distinct sound without sounding either conceptual or trading on contradictions or the smoke-and-mirrors of attention-grabbing eclecticism.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Night Reign
    Though actual percussion remains sparse, Night Reign grooves harder than its predecessor, which featured almost no drums. Even when the rhythm instruments sit back, there’s almost always a sense of an insistent pulse.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    When I Get Home
    The album rewards repetition, in listening and in execution.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    We Are Not Your Kind
    For better or for worse, Kind is a Slipknot record, one that has more to offer than expected and is still sometimes frustratingly short-sighted.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Idler Wheel Is Wiser than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More than Ropes Will Ever Do
    "Left Alone" is nothing short of a vocal masterclass. It has the singer going from the verses' rap-like cadence to the hook's curlicue jazz stylings to the operatic long notes of the bridge-- notes that slowly curdle underneath their own exasperated weariness.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 96 Critic Score
    Merriweather Post Pavilion
    It's of the moment and feels new, but it's also striking in its immediacy and comes across as friendly and welcoming.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    False Lankum
    They returned with a successor that takes what worked on their previous album and pushes further in every direction. False Lankum sprawls, dense with ideas.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Songs For The Deaf
    When these guys are on, it truly is the wrath of the righteous. However, Songs for the Deaf vacillates constantly between soaring heights and mind-numbing lows, making for a true hit-or-miss affair.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bright Green Field
    Even amid all these choices, Squid’s spinouts are orchestrated stunts, never heady jam-band accidents. More than a canonized style, it’s their level of control that sets them apart.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    Wearemonster
    We Are Monster has the depth if you have the time. Yep, here's a fun record that's a work-for-it, in-the-details record, too.
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