All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

The Guardian

Studio majesty be darned, this could prove a modern classic regardless.

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Pitchfork

The canniness of Album's production choices and the scuzzy depression of the lyrics and the gut-level songwriting instincts, along with everything else about the record, add up to something elusive and fascinating--maybe even heartbreaking.

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New Musical Express (NME)

Girls are genuine drop-outs, bona-fide freaks who’ve made a record far removed from the predictable cycles of the music industry. Now that’s a real story.

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The New York Times

Album is one of the year’s most bracing pop releases, and one of the best, a devastatingly fresh reframing of the pop songbook.

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musicOMH.com

Created by two genuine outsiders and made with a refreshing lack of irony, Album is a welcome addition to the very best albums of 2009.

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Billboard.com

Girls are poised to take their rightful place as one of the blog-crossover bands of 2009.

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The Onion (A.V. Club)

It’s better to approach Album not as what its title offers, but a collection of singles. These are the new rock ’n’ roll 45s, variations of the same sad pop song shone through the prism of a guy who’s survived his own unique heartache.

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cokemachineglow

Despite having ties to shitgaze, this isn’t a record obsessed with that aesthetic, and this works to its advantage, since these songs clearly aspire to be bigger than that and have very real potential to be.

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Drowned In Sound

Its their frivolous experimentalism and willingness to toy with all aspects of the past that make Girls such an invitingly warm and honest proposition

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Dusted Magazine

What makes Album so good, however, won’t be a consensus opinion on whether or not it’s culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. It’ll be the personal associations brought to it by each person encountering Girls for the first time.

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All Music Guide

Girls' 2009 album (simply titled Album) actually proved itself worthy of the hype upon its release.

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Tiny Mix Tapes

Even if Album doesn’t turn out to be all it’s been made out to be by the reams of hype already bestowed upon it, it’s certainly working at the moment.

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Uncut

Album lurches bizarrely from the heart-rending to the goofy to the simply spaced-out, but what it lacks in polish it makes up for with buckets of charm.

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Lost At Sea

While not as fleshed out as some other remarkable debuts, Album is a fully realized personal vision.

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Mojo

Realised with friend Chet JR White in San Francisco on reel-to-reel tapes, the songs grab from Phil Spector, Beatles, Beach Boys, JAMC and Spiritualized, and are all the more enticing for it. [Jan 2010, p. 103]

Rolling Stone

On Girls' debut, Christopher Owens' made peace with his past and crafted ace tunes to go with his tales of redemption.

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Prefix Magazine

Girls are, at their most basic, a solid band of rock ‘n’ roll reappropriators.

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Observer Music Monthly

Refashioning 60s pop for today's pilled-up generation? Not such a bad idea, as it happens, even if it is a bit Spiritualized.

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Dot Music

What potentially made Album exciting was that it seemed to understand that pop itself doesn't make sense, and that it can still work just as well with all the wrong notes in all the wrong order.

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No Ripcord

Don’t get me wrong, Album’s best songs (Lust for Life, Laura, and Hellhole Ratrace) are utterly essential, but take these out of the equation and there’s really very little to get excited about. Unless you count the band’s back-story, that is.

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Q Magazine

While the songwriting draws heavily on bigwigs such as Elvis Costello, Burt Bacharach and Brian Wilson, albeit ckloaked in layers of woozy production. This is its chief asset, providing a dark undertow. [Oct 2009, p.111]

The Phoenix

Somehow, though, they forgot the crucial dollop of excitement or charisma, so we're left with an earful of directionless heartbreak and failure.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 7.9 (out of 10) based on 35 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jack H gave it a9:
This is simply good music, filled with passion and heartache. Daniel Brockman should have another listen.

Irving Irving gave it a9:
God how I hate The Phoenix. Their drivel amounts to the most compelling argument to read pitchfork, lame as it is.

Oliver Billenness gave it a10:
Excellent. As near to perfect as an album has got in 2009.

Joel gave it a10:
A modern classic.

Lori B. gave it a10:
Cannot stop listening to this album.

Andrew K. gave it a9:
Inexplicably infectious and overflowing with a gorgeous sense of melancholy.

Claire M. gave it a10:
Great!

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