Pretty Much Amazing's Scores

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For 761 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 59% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 38% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.5 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 73
Highest review score: 100 The Life Of Pablo
Lowest review score: 0 Xscape
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 582 out of 761
  2. Mixed: 156 out of 761
  3. Negative: 23 out of 761
761 music reviews
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    • 67 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Rennen
    It’s well-produced, clean and unobjectionable. Rennen fits this bill nicely, if that’s what you’re looking for. But regardless of whether it’s something you want, it’s nothing you need.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    I Decided.
    On his fourth studio album I Decided, he positions himself as hip-hop’s poster-boy for all of these qualities [hard work, sacrifice, persistence, gratitude], but in rapping about such unassailable ideas, he comes away with uninteresting results.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Future
    In striving for consistency, he sacrifices discretion and intention.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Joanne
    Joanne still represents a striking course correction for Lady Gaga. By abandoning the dance club for the dive bar, she may have tossed aside her status as a pop star once and for all. But Gaga has emerged as something better and truer.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Yung Rich Nation
    Throughout, tracks will leave you with a noticeably bittersweet aftertaste--although it isn’t exactly lacking in flavor. It’s as though the album is missing a secret ingredient, or doesn’t ever find the right blend.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Fade Away [EP]
    Where Fade Away really falls flat is how it lethargically, circularly insists upon the hopelessness of Consentino’s problems without elaboration. Instead, it fumbles for anecdotes that undersell what should be highly relatable emotions.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse
    She needs great material and she needs star power. But this album doesn’t have great songs, and the only thing that’s changed shape more than an R&B hit in recent years is the definition of star power.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Darlings
    Darlings is very listenable and mostly fun--just don’t overthink it and keep the BSS comparisons to a minimum.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Crime Cutz [EP]
    On Dynamics, Frankel and Millhiser made an unnatural-yet-understandable misstep, but on Crime Cutz, they’re hoping to regain their footing and play off their awkward slip by reverting back to what worked for them in the first place. It’s fun hearing it work for them again.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    The Day Is My Enemy
    This LP is as sterilized and recycled as the pop gunk that the band profess to loathe.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Scorpion
    His flow has gotten really same-y over the years: “Sandra’s Rose” occasionally recalls “Weston Road Flows” and the following “Talk Up” brings “Gyalchester” to mind. It’s also weird that the R&B disc comes with so little hooks, something we used to be able to count on Drake for. It doesn’t help that Drake really likes his minimalistic beats.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    This Is Acting
    Whether we like her or not, Sia might be authoring the most iconic pop music of our generation. For this reason alone, This is Acting is worth at least one listen.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Outside
    While the rest of Outside may not deliver in such a manner [as “A Forest at Night”], it still showcases one of North America’s more unique and talented producers on his own terms.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Kintsugi
    Discarding the albums actually awesome opener, “No Room in Frame”,--which briefly had me hoping for some tangible musical progress from the band--Kintsugi is more or less 45 minutes of boy-next-door, paint-by-number indie pop
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Amnesty (I)
    The first product from Crystal Castles 2.0 is a mixed bag of nostalgia, proficiency, and carefully staged continuity.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Taiga
    Taiga is better-produced and differently arranged than 2010’s “Poor Animal,” but it’s no more or less “pop.”
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Magpie and the Dandelion
    But for the most part, Magpie provides us with another bundle of easygoing tunes from a band that seems to have a limitless supply.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 0 Critic Score
    Xscape
    Though the revamps are distractingly overwrought (this project could have been called The 20/20 Xperience), Jackson’s voice, pure and fierce as ever, cuts straight through Timbaland and company’s more-is-more fireworks display.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Everything Now
    Whereas previous shifts in sound were organic, the product of natural growth, this one comes off as obligatory and cheap, as if there were nowhere else to go. For the first time in their career, Arcade Fire haven’t made a record; they’ve manufactured one.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Z [EP]
    The main downfall of Z is a lack of strong lyricism. In the rare moments that the murk clears or the light becomes too bright, what lies behind is less graceful than what it seemed.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    White Women
    They didn’t just retain relevance; they released the best album of their entire career.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Collegrove
    Throughout ColleGrove, the dominant statement that seems to be made is one of discordancy and dullness. Wherever these two succeed, there is always an antithesis to mute the momentum.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Junk
    Muppets In Space album cover aside, Gonzalez has still left plenty on Junk for his merry usual band of misfits--the lovers, the dreamers, and him.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dirty Gold
    [Angel Haze is] disappointing, misguided, flaccid.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Please Be Honest
    The songs on Please Be Honest are in keeping with the constant state of evolution and experimentation of most GBV albums. Which is to say, the songs are hit or miss.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Have Fun with God
    Have Fun With God has greatest potential as nap music on long bus rides, but is otherwise only listenable in the context of its source material.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Super Slimey [Mixtape]
    There’s just too many wasted opportunities, like the peculiar absence of Zaytoven (would it not have been nice to hear Thugger over Zay’s keys?) and Metro Boomin (who has produced beats for both); the usually reliable Mike Will Made It hands in a severely underutilized vocal sample on “Mink Flow” and collects his paycheck.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    V
    It’s all bolder, fuller, and, well, better.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Tyranny
    An unexpectedly weird, inventive and invigorating album that sounds absolutely nothing like The Strokes, and for that reason alone you should be really excited, and maybe even a little hopeful, to give this record a spin.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Still Striving [Mixtape]
    Sophomore album Always Strive and Prosper had ASAP Ferg striving to expand his lyrical and sonic palette and prospering less than half of the time. Still Striving then, perhaps self-consciously titled, course-corrects by dropping pretense and delivering what we came to Ferg for in the first place: banging beats, fire flows. Some of the time, anyway. 11 out of 14 of these tracks have guest features, and a high percentage of them don’t leave much impression.
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