Pitchfork's Scores

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For 12,704 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: 10,441 out of 12704
  2. Mixed: 1,949 out of 12704
  3. Negative: 314 out of 12704
12704 music reviews
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    • 75 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It
    When you sleep... has a much more distinct and iconoclastic character than their slick debut, drawing from the effervescent, percolating polish of early '80s Hot 100 pop that they flirted with on "Heart Out.".... That doesn't mean that When you sleep is consistent by any stretch. It's 75 minutes long, which could mostly be solved by trimming the four (!) lengthy ambient tracks on the record.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Going Down in History
    Going Down in History may not mark a sea change for Langford and company, but between the humor, the honky-tonk, and the affable, full-bodied sound, it’s an awesome chance to catch up.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    George Fest: A Night to Celebrate the Music of George Harrison [Live]
    As an act of low-impact celebration, George Fest is a fine affair.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    How to Dance
    How to Dance is most invigorating when it sweeps the band’s easy-rolling tunes off of the front porch and drops them at the roadhouse.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    99 Cents
    The album is presented as a consumerist critique, intentionally blurring the line between artist and product, but the quality of the songs varies too widely to pull off an actual concept album.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Christine and the Queens
    Her music is bold and fully formed.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Traditional Synthesizer Music
    Traditional Synthesizer Music feels not so much traditional as a refresh: a suite of music that is crafted and ferociously complex, but at its root a pure and primal thing, high on its own chaos.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Love Yes
    That impulse to complicate is thankfully mediated more thoroughly and evenly on Love Yes than on previous efforts, only poking through here and there. It is also striking that this very complex album was recorded entirely live; the music seethes with precarious energy.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Void Beats/Invocation Trex
    It was sometimes unclear when Stereolab's mid-century references were meant as kitsch, but here, Gane & co.'s retro-futurist flashback feels optimistic, as though convinced that the key to fulfilling the promise of a new era were just one perfect rhythm away.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Demain Est une Autre Nuit
    Demain Est Une Autre Nuit feels not just a good fit for the label's vintage-modern aesthetic, but a culmination of something. Perhaps it's simply that this weird, mannered synth music is no throwback, but merely a style ahead of its time, and one that only now is coming of age.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    DJ-Kicks
    With his first officially licensed mix CD, for the 51st entry in the DJ-Kicks series, one might expect a set of dusty disco and deep house, but Dixon confounds expectations throughout, detouring at peak moments, going left where he might build momentum, all of it leading to luminous results.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Jesu/Sun Kil Moon
    Kozelek's more recent output has obviously been vulnerable, but he feels especially open here--he’s not just making fun of himself, but also deeply dissecting why he makes fun of himself, and the sadness that’s hidden within a punchline.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Heretic's Bargain
    The Heretic’s Bargain [is] their most cohesive record to date, and suggests that it will likely be bested on that count by the next one.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Need Your Light
    On Need Your Light, they finally hit the sweet spot.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    Life of Pause
    Tonally and instrumentally, the album is a change in style, but there is no moment of surprise; it still feels very predictable.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 56 Critic Score
    Phase
    Marketing aside, Phase doesn't sound unpleasant, just generic.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Livin' on a High Note
    High Note complements rather than contradicts those bleaker depictions of 21st century America and casually argues for Staples’ legacy as an agitgospel singer.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Ultimate Care II
    Ultimate Care II is a daydream of domesticity, a chore ignored. Call it the revolutions of everyday life.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Begin
    So far they don’t have those hits, of course, but they’ve come up with enough passable facsimiles to fill a pretty likeable album.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Daze
    Part of the success of Daze is how fully Brood Ma commits to his sonic palette without committing to a singular musical style.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Stand Up and Speak
    Speak isn’t exactly a step forward or a step back, but more to the side, onto a new path with plenty of potential, as well as room for future improvements.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Painting With
    In the absence of a less effable genius, there's always elbow grease. Painting With feels, more than anything, like a kind of construction project: Each sound meticulously built and only faintly familiar, each second crammed with doodads, as though the band was worried either they or their audience might get bored.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Neo
    So Pitted sound like they move as a unit. This is where their true energy derives--from their internal communication. You don't hear the gears grinding or see the wires--you only see the bull in all its terrifying, joyful glory and the destruction it causes.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Né So
    Most of the textural differences from song to song on Né So are slight, so they tend to bleed into one another.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Basar
    With Basar, they have assembled a vast glossary of fresh sounds, considerably enriching the language of contemporary dance music in the process.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Life Of Pablo
    A madcap sense of humor animates all his best work, and The Life of Pablo has a freewheeling energy that is infectious and unique to his discography. Somehow, it comes off as both his most labored-over and unfinished album, full of asterisks and corrections and footnotes.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Still in a Dream: A Story of Shoegaze
    Overall Still in a Dream is a job well done: an accurate portrait of an era that, while it can’t really be described as a lost golden age for rock, nonetheless provided sorely needed radiance and refuge during a particularly grim period.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 51 Critic Score
    Khalifa
    It delves as far as it can without hitting government-name territory, and for that the true fans will embrace it. But how many times can you retell the same story?
    • 72 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Opus
    Opus oscillates between two poles. On the one side are entrancing progressive house numbers like the bookending "Liam" and "Opus."... At the other end of the spectrum are songs informed by Prydz’s pop instincts, and these can be more of a mixed bag.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Man Made Object
    Man Made Object is tailor-made for laid-back enjoyment, to be consumed at a moderate volume without much fuss. It marks a nice step forward for a group that lives comfortably beyond artistic restraints.
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