Blender's Scores

  • Music
For 1,854 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 39% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 58% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 7.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 65
Highest review score:
Critic Score 100
Lowest review score:
Critic Score 10
Score distribution:
1,854 music reviews
    • Metascore: 75
    • Critic Score 80
    Taking sound collage to seamless, organic perfection, Tobin arranges his samples like he's conducting a living orchestra. [#11, p.144]
    • Metascore: 62
    • Critic Score 80
    Sad, pretty, funny and touching. [#14, p.137]
    • Metascore: 64
    • Critic Score 80
    Their tightest, bounciest album. [#11, p.125]
    • Metascore: 71
    • Critic Score 80
    They've toughened up considerably. [#12, p.154]
    • Metascore: 80
    • Critic Score 80
    They've made a great record of choogling and--surprisingly for the wonky Malkmus--tender tunes. [Apr 2003, p.125]
    • Metascore: 76
    • Critic Score 80
    Far from the usual collision of greatest hits and "Hello, Cleveland"-type bluster. [#4, p.122]
    • Metascore: 73
    • Critic Score 80
    The songs on Cuttin' Heads are his strongest since 1993's Human Wheels. [#4, p.120]
    • Metascore: 73
    • Critic Score 80
    Calla's tension-filled deliberations are similar to the calibrated push-and-pull of SIgur Ros, but not nearly as pristine. [#14, p.133]
    • Metascore: 81
    • Critic Score 80
    Quiet pleasures, but worth seeking out. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.130]
    • Metascore: 88
    • Critic Score 80
    Convincingly lovely through and through. [#17, p.140]
    • Metascore: 60
    • Critic Score 80
    He's a full-fledged alternative auteur, skipping effortlessly from hypnotic electronics to refracted torch songs to balls-out alt-rock. [Aug 2003, p.134]
    • Metascore: 54
    • Critic Score 80
    Young sounds fresher here than he has in nearly a decade. [Apr/May 2002, p.110]
    • Metascore: 72
    • Critic Score 80
    Offers a twisted melancholy David Lynch would applaud. [May 2003, p.120]
    • Metascore: 71
    • Critic Score 80
    A conceptual bacchanal of sweat-drenched lust. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.104]
    • Metascore: 82
    • Critic Score 80
    And if he occasionally errs on the side of self-indulgence... so be it; for every moment of youthful overreach, there's another that shows a promising new talent in first bloom. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.121]
    • Metascore: 70
    • Critic Score 80
    Miller ups the melodic ante, staking his claim to becoming his generation's answer to Nick Lowe or Marshall Crenshaw. [#10, p.123]
    • Metascore: 77
    • Critic Score 80
    On
    Imperial Teen deploy the familiar language of pop-rock, then subvert it with strange, chewy tales, making music that wraps arsenic in a candy coating. [Apr/May 2002, p.114]
    • Metascore: 75
    • Critic Score 80
    Tuneful, kinky and deeply rooted in groove--a combination that evokes the best of both Prince and Macy Gray. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.112]
    • Metascore: 69
    • Critic Score 80
    The Clan's lyricists remain as aggressively word-drunk as ever, balancing the music's pop conciseness with oblique rhymes that compel repeated listening. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.116]
    • Metascore: 70
    • Critic Score 80
    May be the best CD of his career. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.112]
    • Metascore: 68
    • Critic Score 80
    It's the group's continued synchronicity that makes puns like "Kissing Asphalt" both chat-room hip and roller-rink authentic. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.110]
    • Metascore: 81
    • Critic Score 80
    With innovative, funk-influenced beats and engaging rhymes, Lif brilliantly avoids the pitfalls of vacuous bling-drones and 'real hip-hop" whiners alike. [#10, p.124]
    • Metascore: 76
    • Critic Score 80
    Unashamed candor often spells dreary self-indulgence. In Germano's insightful hands, it's fascinating and strangely exhilarating. [May 2003, p.119]
    • Metascore: 75
    • Critic Score 80
    If this collection has a coherent theme, it's the cautious joy of a man making his emotional recovery. [#4, p.119]
    • Metascore: 74
    • Critic Score 80
    The music makes her giddiness contagious. [#16, p.114]
    • Metascore: 63
    • Critic Score 80
    Aside from disposable ballads and the sappy "Perfect Man," Survivor blasts haters, child molesters, and "been-around-the-block-females," keeping the blood up as they whup ass. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.108]
    • Metascore: 74
    • Critic Score 80
    Dear Heather is top Cohen. [Nov 2004, p.131]
    • Metascore: 79
    • Critic Score 80
    i
    At times, i turns dangerously slow and arty.... But for the first time, [Merritt's] lethargic croak also emits a few degrees of human warmth. [May 2004, p.124]
    • Metascore: 68
    • Critic Score 80
    Lavigne splices the angst of Alanis Morissette and the snarl of Courtney Love into a debut full of sunny guitar pop. [#8, p.115]
    • Metascore: 60
    • Critic Score 80
    Immediately transforms VHS or Beta from disco revivalists into one of rock's best new bands. [Oct 2004, p.130]