- Critic score
- Publication
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There seems to be a hollowness, a lack of soul, an empty Big Mac carton where this album's heart should be.
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Musically, it's a mess.
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The Vines earn real damnation as Winning Days comes to a close. However boring and harmlessly vapid the first ten tracks are, "F.T.W." obliterates any possibility of forgiving them.
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Accomplished and full of bluster but ontologically completely hollow; this is The Vines.
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This anonymous tone leaves an emotional void at the center of the album.
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Winning Days is a noisy triumph -- as good as their 2002 debut, Highly Evolved, and in some ways a leap forward in style and frenzy.
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Ultimately, Winning Days is an highly frustrating listen.
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The disc's highlight, "TV Pro," ably blends the band's two moods and adds some promise to an otherwise bland and vacant offering.
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[They've] hit difficult-third-album syndrome one album early.
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This album tends to lean more toward the psychedelic ballads, which slows down the action a little too much.
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Inferior to not just Nirvana but Oasis.
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A diverse and highly enjoyable ride.
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I don't consider them rock saviors, but is it asking too much of a band to show a little musical growth?
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Winning Days is still more interesting than any album by obvious progenitors Oasis because the good parts come up at the most random moments--spontaneous solo here, appealing harmony there.
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BlenderThere's something about the precision of the gear changes and the crisp efficiency of Rob Schnapf's production that hits the spot, however derivatively. [Apr 2004, p.134]
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As unremarkable and average a comeback as humanly possible.
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MojoThe Vines are mostly surface and scratch, a vessel of strangely useless beauty. [Apr 2004, p.114]
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UncutIt's hard to fight the feeling this is average songwriting buffed into something near-palatable by the amount of money spent on it. [Apr 2004, p.101]
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Q MagazineAbout as personality-free as rock music gets. [Apr 2004, p.115]
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Alternative PressThere's not much left for the Vines' frontman other than his music, which on Winning Days seems more like an afterthought--if not the work of an unbearably bad Oasis record. [Apr 2004, p.98]
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FilterThe formula seems tired, or at least stretched too thin to be effective. [#9, p.101]
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Entertainment WeeklyIt's Winning Days softer songs that bubble up to replay themselves in your head. [26 Mar 2004, p.71]
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The A.V. ClubThe album's midsection--in other words, just about everything between the first song and the last song--sags under the weight of midtempo, middle-of-the-road throwaways. [31 Mar 2004]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 43 out of 56
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Mixed: 5 out of 56
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Negative: 8 out of 56
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Apr 3, 2019
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Jun 7, 2011
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YanG.Apr 29, 2008