Pitchfork's Scores

  • Music
Select another publication »
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
view
per page
    • 79 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    DFA Remixes: Chapter 2
    We know that that the DFA can do dynamic mutation as well as anyone, but Chapter Two reveals that it's their quest to become pioneers of the hypnotic groove that is the more seductive.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Gang Of Losers
    The band is, if anything, more confident than ever, but the sound's grandiosity too easily verges on melodrama, a too-bold-to-be-believable misery.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    The Crane Wife
    Winsomely balancing frivolity and gravity, the Decemberists assemble an oddball menagerie of the usual rogues and rascals, soldiers and criminals, lovers and baby butchers-- but they've got a lot more tricks up their sleeves than previous albums had hinted.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Ole! Tarantula
    Olé! Tarantula isn't his best solo record, but it's in the top tier, and after all these years that's certainly something.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Friendly Fire
    Humble and resigned to a fault.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    On Leaving
    After Run to Ruin, it's difficult to hear Nastasia pull back to a songwriter-with-guitar style.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    For Hero: For Fool
    The chemistry has changed, the music is harder, the frustration's more palable, and you can hear that this is some kind of a make-or-break moment. And this time they made it-- just.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 64 Critic Score
    Live A Little
    Listening to Joe endlessly bombard the listener with rejiggered cliches and breathless streams of imagery and other examples of his lyrical craft, it sounds less like skillful, effortless writing and more like showy, over-considered craftwork.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Beach House
    Bands like Mazzy Star, Galaxie 500, Spiritualized, and Slowdive will come to mind, but this is neither pastiche nor homage.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Love And Other Planets
    For the kind of soul-caressing folk bobbins Adem aspires to deliver, go with Grizzly Bear.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    The Lemonheads
    Most listeners with a soft spot for those early-90s Lemonheads records will get a good spin out of The Lemonheads.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Ta-Dah
    Even more streamlined, pop-minded, and high-spirited than their 2004 self-titled debut, it's as if they're single-mindedly attempting to depose the world's problems with a rigorous dance and good times regimen.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain
    Dreamt for Light Years proves less targeted than 2001's It's a Wonderful Life, but this is a check in the plus column: Linkous sounds best when he's warring with structure and sound, when his songs sound unsettled.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Knives Don't Have Your Back
    etric's clunky riffage and hi-hat beats are replaced by simple piano figures and subtle adornments (strings, feedback, breathing organ) that draw out Haines' most stirring vocal performances to date, and the muted milieu highlights her natural, sensuous whisper, lending a sympathetic thrust to these broken-down anthems for a thirtysomething girl.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Human Animal
    When these scientists hit on the right formula of slow-burning anticipation, the bombast that follows has the profundity of a drug-induced epiphany. Previous Wolf Eyes records have struck that magic balance during individual songs or sides, but none have stretched it over an album's length like Human Animal.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Release Therapy
    Release Therapy is probably Luda's best album since Back for the First Time, but it's not like that's saying much.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Okonokos [Live]
    Any live show will inevitably have crests and valleys, but besides these specific performances, Okonokos disappoints on a more general level: It too seldom sounds like an actual live album.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Outsider
    This album should alienate virtually everyone who's ever been a Shadow fan.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 47 Critic Score
    Darkel
    Even when Dunckel stays closer to type, here he usually relies on unremarkable downtempo beats to support unfortunate space-hippie mewlings.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 56 Critic Score
    Awoo
    There's little here that couldn't have been on previous albums; the difference is what's gone missing: the in-your-face homosexuality of Rough Trade debut The Smell of Our Own, the perverse grandiosity of 2004's Mississauga Goddam.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    Ben Kweller
    Most sad sack numbers here wallow in a shallow sense of self-pity.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    The Letting Go
    Unlike Oldham's best work, The Letting Go doesn't pull you into its own emotional world; it doesn't ask much, and you're free to take as much from it as you'd like.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 66 Critic Score
    Nuclear Daydream
    Nuclear Daydream sounds placeless, as if striving for universality. At times the music sounds like it could actually achieve that lofty goal; at times it just sounds blanched, drifting into a kind of anonymity.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Food & Liquor
    Where Fiasco misses classic status is his sonic approach.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Super Extra Gravity
    Super Extra Gravity is too deft to be too dark, though-- there's joy in its catharsis.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Return To Cookie Mountain
    Maybe that's why this album has such an incredible pull: It doesn't make an atmosphere so much as a space to spend time in, and Adebimpe doesn't become a narrator so much as a witness.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 35 Critic Score
    Amputechture
    Synths lap, strings weep soppingly, ham-fisted fingers tap, time signatures flash, and the amphetamine Beat poetry...is amphetamine Beat poetry.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Crazy Itch Radio
    Crazy Itch Radio isn't a bad album by any means; it just doesn't scream "best album of the year" from the moment you put it on.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    So This Is Goodbye
    So This Is Goodbye isn't just an improbable notch above 2004's Last Exit-- it's also among the best records you'll hear all year.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Pieces Of The People We Love
    It's impressive then, that even with this newfound attention to detail, the Rapture still maintain a flailing energy and enthusiasm that most of the other dancepunk bands could only fake.... However, what ultimately makes Pieces a step or three down from Echoes is a drop off in consistency, reflecting a higher percentage of songs that fail to ignite.
Page: