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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    • 76 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Vol. 2
    You'd be forgiven for expecting little more than fan-bait out of a release that gathers the band's between-album singles and rarities. But the big draw of Wooden Shjips is the way they go about streamlining multiple strains of psychedelic rock with the single-mindedness of a band more interested in refinement than experimentation, and there's plenty of refined material on Vol. 2.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Black Tambourine
    That Complete Recordings has long gone out of print makes Black Tambourine an essential acquisition for current In the Red, Woodsist, and Slumberland loyalists. And even for old-school adherents, the bonus tracks included warrant a repurchase.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 56 Critic Score
    Sweet Sister [EP]
    The lyrics' yearning for something tangible and substantial ultimately feels at odds with what Sweet Sister, promising surface and all, actually brings to the table.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Option Paralysis
    2004's Miss Machine and 2007's Ire Works offered an ever-broadening sound that kinda-sorta skirted crossover-friendliness, a sometimes awkward mash of traditional, melodic rock and hideous shrieking and bashing. Option Paralysis continues in that vein for better or worse.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 64 Critic Score
    Coconut
    Coconut seems to be a "transition album": A sometimes-exhilarating, sometimes-WTF layover between a possibly played-out formula and exciting new sounds on the horizon.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Volume Two
    What makes the album so distinctive isn't just the sound of her voice, the quality of her songwriting, or even the resourcefulness of his arrangements, but their joint insistence that these old sounds have as much to say nowadays as they ever did.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Two Thousand And Ten Injuries
    Two Thousand and Ten Injuries buzzes with joy.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 66 Critic Score
    Head First
    There's plenty of highly stylized fun to be had here. Just don't expect to remember many of the details when it's all over.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Oversteps
    Oversteps finds them working in a comparatively less rigid fashion, almost organic compared to something like Confield. Focusing on creating tension and release within their compositions, they're still incorporating new designs, not merely repackaging the previous products.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Illustrated Garden
    The "Americana" tag sticks thanks to the general country-rock tropes and all the natural imagery, but as usual the group excels at blurring the edges of an already blurry genre with spacey (but never indulgent) psych leanings, controls set for the heart of the sun but anchored comfortably down to earth.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    High Places Vs. Mankind
    Instead of the earlier sample-heavy style, Barber incorporates more live instrumentation, and as a result High Places feel more like a band.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 64 Critic Score
    S-M 2: Abyss in B Minor
    As on that album ["Loveless"], the songs feel like they're whirling so far into the stratosphere that they might fly apart any second.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    In The Court Of The Wrestling Let's
    The tension between those two poles--refusing to grow up and yearning to move on-- is the emotional engine that drives the band and its impressively confident record.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    The Wondershow Of The World
    This is arguably Oldham's most austere record to date, but there's much to dig into.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 52 Critic Score
    Manifesto
    As Manifesto runs through its forbidding 20-track playlist, it unsurprisingly falters when it chases Hot 97 spins that are laughably out of reach.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Rough Travel For A Rare Thing [Live]
    Callahan's work seems of its time and makes you aware of the artist behind it. And Rough Travel, though ultimately only for established fans, turns out to be a very good snapshot of where that artist's music stood at the end of the last decade.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    The Big To-Do
    The Truckers demonstrated with 2008's Brighter Than Creation's Dark that they don't need non-stop yuks and grotesqueries to reach greatness, but the best moments of The Big To-Do nonetheless offer tantalizing proof that these guys still possess fascinatingly warped minds when they feel like showing 'em off.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 36 Critic Score
    In The Dark
    While the songs certainly do the Whigs no favors, the production and mixing on Dark are downright unconscionable, making one long for the relative restraint of Don Gilmore or Andy Wallace.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Under Great White Northern Lights [Live]
    The album sounds ridiculously heavy, with many songs-- including the gurgling "I'm Slowly Turning Into You" and the Dusty Springfield cover "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself"-- easily trumping their studio counterparts.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Standing On Top Of Utopia
    Bjorke is clearly an artist-producer who likes to put his finger in lots of different pies, and he should be commended for such restlessness and flexibility. Still, it would be nice to see him pursue some of these avenues a bit more thoroughly as opposed to cramming so many detours into one 48-minute trip.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 56 Critic Score
    Jet Lag
    Lyrically, Wolf is convincing when sticking to the grief-stricken script. It's when he goes off-book that things start to get awkward.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Rush To Relax
    At their best, Rush to Relax's songs maintain a firm grip even when they meander.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Happy Birthday
    Thomas glues the pretty (Garbus' vocals) and ugly (his own screeching, see also: his work singing in Witch) together with fantastic melodies, at times so plentiful they bury one another.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Liquid Love
    For Shy Child, synth-pop short-circuits the space between unreality and truth, the artificiality of its expanses allowing a sort of wide-eyed honesty that naturalism forecloses. That bittersweet sincerity sticks much harder than Liquid Love's sleek surfaces would ever suggest.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Plastic Beach
    The one-time Blur frontman has transcended some of the post-modern artifice of this project, and created the group's most affecting and uniquely inviting album. Joke's over, Gorillaz are real.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Sisterworld
    Admittedly, some parts are easier to admire than they are to enjoy. But stick with Sisterworld as it builds, let it seep into your brain while you wait for its bulging seams to burst, and you might find yourself unable to turn your ears away. Eventually, Liars' commitment to their own creepy cause proves contagious.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Broken Bells
    Unlike its creators' best prior accomplishments, Broken Bells doesn't seem prepared, or even attempting, to cross over. Nor does it feel like a new direction or outlet for either artist-- it's more of a nice detour.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 66 Critic Score
    The Winter Of Mixed Drinks
    "Midnight Organ Fight" announced with its title that its underlying concern was sex (not getting it, not getting it from who you want, being unfulfilled by it), and the songs on this new album, though more lyrically complex, seem neutered by comparison.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Tomorrow, In A Year
    This is deeply un-portable music: It either demands your complete attention or invites you to shut it off. Once through that opening stretch, your attention will frequently be rewarded. There is powerfully evocative, richly imagined music to be found here.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The Monitor
    Catharsis is Stickles' fuel, and The Monitor is a 65-minute endorsement of angst and opposition as the best way to present that combustible sorrow.
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