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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    • 57 Metascore
    • 53 Critic Score
    Suite #420
    It's good to hear him still recording, even if he's deeply entrenched himself in his own wheelhouse and barely has a single surprising moment in the album's whole hour. But if the album never existed, nobody's life would be much poorer for it-- possibly even Devin's.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    True Love Cast Out All Evil
    indulge his every whim and mood and which emphasizes his songwriting range. As a result, the album repositions Erickson's psych rock as the foundation for a diverse sound.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Thistled Spring
    So ignore the melodrama and enjoy the littler pleasures that are provided on Thistled Spring-- and there are quite a few.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 43 Critic Score
    Streetlights
    le there are bits of great humor and wordplay scattered throughout (occasionally spat out in dizzying double time), the fogged-over choruses, tough-guy posturing ("In Gotti We Trust"), and spurts of disquieting misogyny ("Scrape") feel like too much padding.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Weathervanes
    Most of Weathervanes is serviceable modern rock, so it will find an appreciative audience despite its egregious derivativeness and a lyricist who seems like he'd use the word "inebriated" to talk about how drunk he got last night.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Congratulations
    Every track here has successful passages, but frustratingly, they too often turn out to be detours or trap doors. In general, the less cluttered and more focused their tracks are, the better they turn out.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 48 Critic Score
    The Dark Leaves
    The project's shortcomings are even more pronounced this time out since The Dark Leaves sounds like it's striving and somewhat succeeding in being the band's most rhythmically vital record.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Wild Hunt
    Matsson is both a romantic and a realist, and on The Wild Hunt, he uses the barest of pop-folk settings to give mundane moments--another break-up, another tour, another change of season, another Dylan comparison--a grandeur so disproportional that it's difficult not to identify and sympathize with him.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    I See The Sign
    Amidon and his cabal of collaborators-- Nico Muhly, Ben Frost, Shahzad Ismaily-- have been merging chamber music with indie rock for awhile now (see also: Sufjan Stevens, Thomas Bartlett, Owen Pallett, Bryce and Aaron Dessner of the National), and their touch is nuanced and, on occasion, delightfully odd.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Tommy
    Dosh has indeed graduated from the sketchbook-like arrangements that marked his earlier work-- but Tommy's occasional tedium is a reminder that there's nothing wrong with doodling in the margins, either.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Fornever
    Most of the songs are toss-offs, but it's plenty of fun to be along for the ride as long as some restraint is issued. Without it, ForNever alternately struggles to keep its head above water with washed-out cautionary tales ("The Problem Is...") or slums it in the shallows with mildly tawdry goofs ("Asian Girl").
    • 74 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Prins Thomas
    It's best to think of Prins Thomas not as a speedbump but as another iteration, slightly undercooked, of his still-developing style.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Raw Power [Reissue]
    This reissue-- available in a 2xCD, budget-priced Legacy Edtion set and as a more elaborate $60 4xCD Deluxe Edition-- doesn't attempt anything quite so ambitious. Instead, the main impetus is bringing a remastered version of the original Bowie mix back to market.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Animal Feelings
    While Animal Feelings has good instincts, it is still too cerebral and impressed with its own production flourishes to actually be fun.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    ...And Then We Saw Land
    No one should begrudge them their cleaner, smoother sound, but straight-laced songwriting has sapped the band's well-worn eccentricities. Tunng have outgrown and outlasted the restrictive genres they were once boxed into, but Saw Land struggles to find its place in a larger context.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    I Speak Because I Can
    Her sophomore effort, I Speak Because I Can, finds Marling, still only 20, shrugging off virtually all traces of girlishness and wide-eyed charm, instead delving into darkly elemental, frequently morbid folk. And yet, astonishingly, the expected growing pains never come.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Go
    Much of Go matches the uplift of Sigur Ros at their most dramatic. There's more sonic density here than ever-- Go's cacophony of flutes, piano, horns, strings, and bird calls beg for a 5.1 mix.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Here Lies Love
    Byrne and Slim never misstep here, but they also never surprise. At best you may wind up distantly admiring their craftsmanship.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Learned The Hard Way
    It all comes together to make an album that stands up as a varied and well-sequenced work, and as a collection of songs you can scatter through a shuffle and dig just as deeply.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Shame, Shame
    Portions of Shame, Shame might prove to be just a little too effervescent--certainly not a bad thing for a band with a track record that usually ran contrary. The important thing is that these songs hit more than they miss, occasionally with shimmering resolve and a couple of really big choruses to back it all up, often quite memorably.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 52 Critic Score
    Fear Is Excruciating But Therein Lies The Answer
    Without fail, The Fear rides that button down to a nub, going so far as to circle back on longer tracks to give the button another unnecessary push.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Hippies
    If Hippies has a flaw, it's only that it overstays its welcome by just a few minutes.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Pumps!
    Growing's approach is uncharacteristically undeveloped here, as the trio never seems to know for what exactly what it's aiming.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    No Mas
    Javelin's best tracks may hold up under professional production in a year where many a group's cassette-tape flaws will likely sabotage similar leaps, but trading in their boombox for a proper stereo isn't necessarily an upgrade.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Steal Your Face
    hey've never been as good or as distinct as they are on Steal Your Face.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    I Will Be
    The result is a more accessible version of Dum Dum Girls, bolstered by terrific harmonies (three of the four girls contribute vocals) and a crisper rhythm section.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh
    Most of the lyrics here dwell on relationships, which Badu handles with a confidence and informality that most of square-ass, tax-filing society just hasn't caught up to and probably never will.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    Outbursts
    Nothing on Outbursts turns out to overblown sonically, but "Sea Change" does signal a straining quality that runs throughout the album.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    Wu-Massacre
    Twenty-five minutes of these three on autopilot still hits more often than not, ultimately making this disc a mixtape-y More Fish-style companion to Cuban Linx II-- hardly necessary, but not inconsequential.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 66 Critic Score
    Non Stop Erotik
    If the younger Black Francis might have transformed a cover of the Flying Burrito Brothers' "Wheels" into a cool surf epic rather than a Velvet Underground-inspired reconstruction, the elder delivers an intriguing mix of vitality and cool detachment. It's easy to take those seemingly at-odds qualities for granted, but here Black Francis sounds not just comfortable with that aesthetic but surprisingly and paradoxically in control of it as well.
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