Pitchfork's Scores

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For 12,703 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: 10,440 out of 12703
  2. Mixed: 1,949 out of 12703
  3. Negative: 314 out of 12703
12703 music reviews
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    • 62 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    In Pieces
    Dipping into her lower register, she stuns as a contralto. I found myself rewinding her runs on hymnal parts of “Heart on My Sleeve” and could’ve sworn I was levitating during the awe-inspiring bridge of “Pray It Away” and “Make It Look Easy.” ... The emotionally charged conversational interludes and narrative intros (“Do you ever wonder, like, who else is fucking your man?”) are out of place amid the redundant themes and mind-numbingly online songwriting.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    the record
    Real intimacy is what you find on The Record, the melding of what’s yours and mine—a favorite Joan Didion quote, songs by Iron & Wine and the Cure, passages from Ecclesiastes—until what’s left is something greater than the sum.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    Drag on Girard
    The songwriting lives up to the production value, pleasant but lacking much purpose.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Since I Have a Lover
    To paraphrase the great Roy Kent, real love should make you feel like you’ve been struck by lightning. 6LACK manages some sparks here and there, but the tingles fade fast.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Love in Exile
    Iyer and Ismaily’s hypnotic interplay leaves the listener unmoored in time and space. The grand sweep of Aftab’s voice is a galactic super-wind capable of carrying you off to wondrous new worlds. The force of their collaboration is so much greater than the sum of its simple parts that it borders on the mystical.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    The Art of Forgetting
    The move toward emotional exorcism on The Art of Forgetting is nearly as startling as Rose’s previous stylistic pivots. ... But individual songs, as carefully articulated as they are, tend to get swallowed up by the overarching psychological thrust of The Art of Forgetting: This is a mood piece capturing a specific frame of mind, even a particular era.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 71 Critic Score
    Scaring the Hoes
    Brown meets JPEG’s tempos with alacrity, flashing a singsong flow on “Orange Juice Jones” and mirroring the jittery horn fanfare of “Burfict!” The short bursts don’t provide space for Brown to stretch his limbs, yet he remains a virtuoso in miniature.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    93696
    Liturgy have always brought a proggy, sprawling ambition to their music, but rarely have all the pieces locked into place so elegantly. 93696 can be pulverizing, but it’s also gentle, and amid the brutality lie some of Hunt-Hendrix’s prettiest and most ornate songs yet.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    The Town That Cursed Your Name
    He maintains the foggy tufts of reverb and sing-song melodies of his predecessors, but his lyrics trade unrequited crushes for more practical pining.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Yian
    Chua creates landscapes out of the hollow spaces within her. Each track becomes its own kind of home, or at least a safe harbor.
    • 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.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.
    Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd arrives as a sweeping, confounding work-in-process. It’s full of quiet ruminations and loud interruptions; of visible seams and unhemmed edges.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 71 Critic Score
    Memento Mori
    Memento Mori is not the hooded masterpiece of Music for the Masses or the hits cache of Violator. But it does signal that there are new ways yet for Gahan and Gore to at least approach their old magic.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    With Love From
    Despite their comfortable distance from the industry machine they came up in, Aly & AJ still gravitate toward brightly-colored, big-hearted pop: an old-fashioned stance that dulls the shine of their new direction.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    His Happiness Shall Come First Even Though We Are Suffering
    The final track, “Mukazi,” arrives. It promises the grail, the holy truth behind the fanatical farce, and the reward for this brutal journey into the hellish depths of Mutinta’s psyche. ... It’s left ambiguous whether she can truly bring herself to say these affirmations, whether this is the triumph she has earned. It could be.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Say What You Like
    The contrast between his sound and substance has never been more striking, either. Backed on these 11 tracks by versatile Toronto band Bahamas, Paisley is cool above the country funk of “Say What You Like” and “Make It a Double,” collected over the spartan “Holy Roller” and “Rewrite History.”
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ben
    The struggle of the wealthy and talented white rapper was never especially sympathetic. And on Ben, his trials are mostly internal, the enduring struggle of man to find meaning and leave a legacy. This Macklemore is likely the most honest version we’ve seen to date.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 57 Critic Score
    Songs of Surrender
    Nothing here is unforgettable or in danger of replacing its original. The arrangements are formulaic, regressing back to the stripped-down candlelit era of the original MTV’s Unplugged. At worst, Songs of Surrender is an overindulgence. At best, it’s a pleasant interlude.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 66 Critic Score
    Fantasy
    What Fantasy is missing isn’t any one synth preset, or a cultural reference for the next season of Stranger Things to popularize. It just lacks urgency.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    V
    Absent the verve and pop of UMO’s previous work, V can feel remote and insular without the charm of being coy. There’s just enough shown here to leave you craving a more direct experience of the world Nielson is spinning.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    Praise a Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)
    Purely in sensory terms, it’s difficult to imagine many richer-sounding rock records being released this year. Tumor treats sounds so lovingly they sometimes resemble a director framing and lighting a beloved actor, and every sound on Praise enters the mix with near-visible entrance and exit cues.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    10,000 Gecs
    10,000 gecs is something like astral projection, allowing you to ever-so-briefly shake off the constant doom scroll of life for a hot second of unencumbered fun.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Oh Me Oh My
    Oh Me Oh My manages to be Holley’s most approachable and most ambitious album all at once.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    COOKUP
    Cookup soars when the players’ interpretations converge into new creations, and the source material becomes a portal to a new dimension. The vestiges of old melody may remain, but Gendel’s best reimaginings illuminate subtle resonances and hidden pleasures.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Gumbo
    Gumbo, along with his entire body of work, is evidence that there’s still new ground to be tread and fresh sounds to explore within rap itself. The blend of spices might be Nudy’s own, but the flavor of Gumbo is unmistakably hip-hop.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Sunrise Bang Ur Head Against tha Wall [EP]
    This is an EP about dragging out the night’s short end, and making well-intentioned plans for life’s daylight hours. It’s party music for people beginning to feel the tug of seeing a full Sunday for the first time in a while.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Endless Summer Vacation
    Not the sundazed party record that was promised but an exploration of how it feels when the party’s over.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    UK Grim
    Even if you don’t track all the references, Sleaford Mods’ sense of fatigued resignation resonates. UK GRIM is their most varied album to date, but they don’t want to dull the shitstorm’s stench—they’re just here to blow off the steam.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Milk for Flowers
    “Denver” drags on for six relatively static minutes, while the limp synth pop of “Athens at Night” never quite matches the wooziness of its imagery. Fortunately, Milk for Flowers’ third act is its richest.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    Radical Romantics
    Radical Romantics is essentially a collection of notes on love. Love—whether sexy, overwhelming, or vengeful—links together the recurring motivations of the Fever Ray catalog: curiosity and exploration, family born and chosen, sexual freedom and pleasure.
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