PopMatters' Scores
- TV
- Music
For 11,090 reviews, this publication has graded:
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43% higher than the average critic
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4% same as the average critic
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53% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.9 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 69
Highest review score: | Funeral for Justice | |
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Lowest review score: | Travistan |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 7,433 out of 11090
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Mixed: 3,399 out of 11090
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Negative: 258 out of 11090
11090
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
For an album that promised to show us the real Jennifer Lopez straight from the heart, it struggles to stand on its own two feet. This Is Me…Now ultimately loses itself in its self-indulgent proclamations of heart and the supposedly greatest love story never told.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 21, 2024
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The players’ energy and Lund’s vocals drive the songs forward. There’s a liveliness throughout the record that never goes away. The album may be dedicated to an “old man”, but the music has plenty of get-up-and-go.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 23, 2024
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They end up sounding sort of like Against Me! home demos where a really good bassist just happened to be on hand.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 21, 2024
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The music is deceptively complex in its simplicity. The individual tracks always carry us to places we didn’t know we were heading.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 20, 2024
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Though Loss of Life is more reserved, on the whole, the conspicuously backloaded record culminates with a run of songs about sleep, love, and death so deeply felt that it doesn’t matter if MGMT are still joking on some level.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 20, 2024
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On their third album, Musow Dance, the lineup shifts again, and the energy is as vital as ever as the group continues to celebrate womanhood over some of their most engaging beats to date.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 14, 2024
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They managed to mask their eclectic influences and occasionally clichéd ideas behind a loud, bold, excessive sound, spectacular visuals, and provocative lyrics about “candle wax melting in my veins”.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 14, 2024
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Her lyrics are sharp and direct, and the band is there to match her, providing tension and release across all 11 songs. While far from poppy, the songs have a hooky rawness that is addictive.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 14, 2024
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With the subdued evolution on their new record and a treasured female feature, Omni continue to carve out a distinct identity (with an exacto knife) and shine among the glut of post-punk revivalist bands. That’s a Souvenir worth savoring, for sure.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 13, 2024
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While TANGK is a mostly successful effort that showcases continued musical growth, it’s hard not to miss the bite that once came with the bark.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 13, 2024
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Walls Have Ears is certainly less valedictory than Live in Brooklyn 2011. Yet, by virtue of this, it gives a stronger sense of how Sonic Youth earned their unimpeachable credentials through a long-standing ethos of contravention that unsettled musical and artistic complacencies of the time.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 12, 2024
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Wolfe is as uncompromising a poet as she has ever been on She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She, and while her disparate choices of canvas give us a bumpy ride, it’s one worth taking in good faith.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 8, 2024
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On Phasor, we are still orbiting and navigating Lange’s particular dreamy sound space with the familiar debris, but this time, there is a stronger emphasis on the power of relational love.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 8, 2024
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One of this year’s most striking releases so far. Add in a killer style, playful energy, impeccable production, incredible performances, and some very important representation, and you’ve got one of the most striking pop records of the last few years.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 7, 2024
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There is nothing weighty going on in the lyrics. Think of Spiel as an instructional audio asking one to listen, turn one’s head, and hear the music again.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 7, 2024
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It’s unlikely this will be a breakthrough to a larger audience, but to the faithful, this is the latest chapter in one of the most consistently rewarding careers in hip-hop.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 6, 2024
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The nine tracks are relatively brisk and generally run about three minutes long. The short(ish) time spans fit the urgency expressed.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 6, 2024
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As a long-time lead vocalist and lead guitarist with an established style, J Mascis can’t seem to escape himself. Unplugged or not, What Do We Do Now epitomizes this cul-de-sac.- PopMatters
- Posted Feb 1, 2024
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Saviors probably won’t bring in a lot of new fans, but it will attract lapsed devotees from the past 30 years to check out the band again. These songs will also fit snugly at these upcoming marathon concerts, fitting in snugly between the full album performances of Dookie and American Idiot without sending thousands of people scurrying to the beer lines en masse.- PopMatters
- Posted Jan 30, 2024
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Despite its reserved, dry, soft, and tranquil harmonies, What an Enormous Room sounds even more poppy and self-confident than its predecessors, with its multilayered, luscious-yet-intimate arrangements and a lot of ringing void.- PopMatters
- Posted Jan 30, 2024
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“The Bell” and “Void” take Ty Segall’s listener on an extensive and restless ride in just the first 12 minutes of this 65-minute whopper. The album smooths out a little after that, settling in for 13 more tracks that don’t stray far from what Segall knows and does best.- PopMatters
- Posted Jan 29, 2024
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Carlisle croons in a clear voice layered with dust. He clearly articulates the words and emphasizes the important ones. The details matter. He also lets the syllables slide into each other to express emotions.- PopMatters
- Posted Jan 26, 2024
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Wall of Eyes comes across as a more cohesive project than its older, wilder sibling. Its pace is unhurried, and its songs favor compositional restraint over sheer energy.- PopMatters
- Posted Jan 26, 2024
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People Who Aren’t There Anymore is that rare album where you might find yourself with the unusual but life-affirming compulsion to dance and quietly sob at the same time.- PopMatters
- Posted Jan 26, 2024
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Even with its taut construction, Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations sags just a bit in the middle. The downside of the renewed focus is that some of the songs sound similar and struggle to assert themselves. .... All of this aside, it is good to hear the Vaccines being a guitar band again—and an excellent one, at that.- PopMatters
- Posted Jan 22, 2024
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Cloudward is a shimmering, deeply satisfying example of a jazz sextet firing on all cylinders. Prepare to be astonished.- PopMatters
- Posted Jan 19, 2024
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It’s good that she kept picking away at that block of ice, as it resulted in what might be her finest album to date.- PopMatters
- Posted Jan 18, 2024
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- PopMatters
- Posted Jan 17, 2024
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Black Dog is the sum of these past strange adventures. The mysterious vibes of The Entiry City, the cold, brutal post-industrial of Unflesh, and the avant-pop musings of Pastoral. It is a work reminiscent of Gazelle Twin but also forges a new path. One that is able not only to merge these disparate aspects but also to surpass them.- PopMatters
- Posted Dec 13, 2023
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Inside the beautiful hot pink mess lies Nicki’s most disciplined and adventurous work to date, one that’s sure to cement her position in a constantly expanding field of female rappers.- PopMatters
- Posted Dec 12, 2023
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