AllMusic's Scores

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For 17,267 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 64% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 31% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.4 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 74
Highest review score: 100 The Marshall Mathers LP
Lowest review score: 20 Graffiti
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14,384 out of 17267
  2. Mixed: 2,861 out of 17267
  3. Negative: 22 out of 17267
17267 music reviews
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    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Golden D
    Whereas the first solo effort was somewhat lo-fi and reminiscent of Lou Barlow, Golden D, which is named after the musical chord, focuses on rock -- the hard and fast variety -- and suggests Sonic Youth and Sex Pistols.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Art Official Intelligence (Mosaic Thump)
    It's clear that despite laudable ambitions, comeback albums should be focused and lean, not as flabby as this one.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Behind The Sun
    When he isn't heating up the dance floor with unlikely guests, Bracegirdle constructs spacy ambient tracks that cool things down.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Fragments of Freedom
    Unfortunately, their third album Fragments of Freedom scraps most of their signature sound for half-baked experiments in R&B, acid jazz, and hip-hop.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Horrorscope
    It's another conventional rock record, thrashing guitar hooks and throbbing bass lines are in place, but frontman Max Collins has lyrically improved.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I'm Lonely (And I Love It) [EP]
    This is much more melodic and poppy than most dance fodder sharing similar beats...
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    2000 BC
    His authoritative vocals demand immediate attention and his brutal array of battle rhymes are utterly breathtaking.... While the pugilistic MC shows growth as an artist, Canibus' vast potential remains largely unrealized thanks to bland production.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Invincible Summer
    If there is a fault to this album, it is that it is too smooth; while the listener is surfing these waves of happiness and cushiony pop, an occasional desire for edges and bones surfaces.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Faith and Courage
    She sounds lonely and afraid in songs like "Jealous" and "Dancing Lessons," yet her fierce confidence overpowers such insecurity on the pinch-hitting "No Man's Woman."
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Pop Trash
    Some of the smooth, spacey ballads that were characteristic of their 1993 self-titled release show up here, but more often than not LeBon is lost in a swamp of over-production.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Puzzle
    France's Tahiti 80 seem so enamoured with their musical idols that they can barely voice a personal touch of their own.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant
    The problem is that the album is perhaps too subtle for its own good, and even after repeated listens, it fails to connect on any meaningful level
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Killing Puritans
    Harking back to the glory days of late-'80s acid-house, it's heavy on dark club jams that work around a simplistic sample with diva theatrics and rapper freestyles. As such, most of these tracks work much better on the dancefloor than the living room.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mermaid Avenue Vol. II
    As on the first, the Bragg-written and sung music is the most convincing, since he captures the cadences and spirit of Guthrie's music. They sound like classic, weathered folk songs whereas Wilco's numbers are modern inventions, splicing music that is clearly theirs with Guthrie's words.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Communicate
    Rather than moving through a broad palette of sounds, moods, tempos, and styles, the two British DJs choose to remain consistent, signaling the development of a signature style and a certain sense of confidence.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wasp Star (Apple Venus, Pt. 2)
    This record is really nothing more than a collection of sharp, witty, well-constructed pop songs.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    First of the Microbe Hunters
    The first recording that the hardcore Stereolab fans need not own.... What was once endearing has mutated into the irritating, as the chanted vocals, simple organ runs and endless, pulsating rhythmic drones alienate listeners instead of mesmerizing them.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    nyc ghosts & flowers
    The album lacks the visceral, immediate impact of the best beat poetry and frequently seems fueled by self-consciousness instead of stream-of-consciousness.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Juliana's Pony: Total System Failure
    Messy, noisy, directionless, and painfully shy on both tunes and purpose... and winds up sounding a bit like a parody.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Wishville
    You can't tell if Wishville is the sound of a band losing steam or just being too self-conscious.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Geometrid
    The album has a more polished feel than its predecessor Up a Tree, as well as more of an electronica vibe...
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    White Pepper
    Their most accessible album to date, lacking the flights of fancy and exuberant bizarreness that have marked each of their albums.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Silver & Gold
    A pleasant sound, to be sure, but not exactly what Young followers were expecting.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ecstasy
    Reed genuinely seems to be stretching towards new lyrical and musical ground here, but while some of his experiments work, several pointedly do not?
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    MDFMK
    MDFMK charts the same breakbeat industrial-thrash that has long been a staple of any KMFDM album, complete with ranting vocals, aggressive songwriting, heavy-metal chords that sound vaguely familiar, and solid programming that reveals a surprising pop sense.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Gung Ho
    Another handsome, shaded, and satisfying work from an artist that has reconnected with her muse.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Winners Never Quit
    An interesting album, spooky in spots, but other than the terrific "Slow and Steady," this one's a curiosity.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Broken By Whispers
    This is music to listen to when you're either very depressed, in order to feel the camraderie, or when you're very happy, in order to mellow out.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    NakedSelf
    A hit-and-miss affair.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Original Motion Picture Score for The Virgin Suicides
    Contemplative electronic mood-music in a minor key-
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    MACHINA/the machines of God
    Overall, MACHINA meanders due to a combination of amorphous songs and precisely detailed production.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pieces In A Modern Style
    No matter whose music he was reformulating, however, Orbit worked gently, creating an album that, if it technically belonged beside Wendy Carlos' Switched-On Bach, actually was more reminiscent of Brian Eno's Discreet Music.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bloodflowers
    Bloodflowers boasts all of the Cure's signatures: stately tempos, languid melodies, spacious arrangements, cavernous echoes, morose lyrics, keening vocals, long running times. If you want something transcendent, you're out of luck, since the album falls short of the mark, largely because it sounds too self-conscious.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Nixon
    This will still strike most as a mighty odd record, though. Ostensibly much of this record was inspired by former president Richard Nixon (there is even a suggested reading list of Nixon-related books on the sleeve). But there are no direct references to him, and even any indirect ones are so oblique that you'd never make the connection if the record had a different title...
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Night
    Whereas many of the songs on their previous album sounded unfinished and rushed, The Night sounds like a fully realized work.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Disco and The Half Way To Discontent
    Though it's starkly rhythmic where Cornershop songs like "Brimful of Asha" are lush and trippy, Singh's appealing vocals and the duo's accessible songwriting provide the link between their two projects.... however, too many of these good ideas drag on for too long without progressing.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Music For Imaginary Films
    It comes off a little too sweet, much like running through an ice cream shop and sampling all the flavors rather than eating a proper dinner.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Midnite Vultures
    Musically, Midnite Vultures is filled with wonderful little quirks, but these are undercut by the sneaking suspicion that for all the ingenuity, it's just a hipster joke.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    One Part Lullaby
    Parts of One Part Lullaby work very well, but it's also curiously flat. The modern rock production feels two years out of date -- shiny and commercial for 1996-1997, but an anomaly in 1999. ... That's not to say One Part Lullaby is a failure -- when Barlow and Davis pull it all together, the results are as strong as anything else the duo has recorded. As a whole, however, it winds up being strangely unengaging.
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