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 7.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 Together Through Life
Lowest review score: 10 Folker
Score distribution:
1854 music reviews
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Crimson features enough syrupy string swells, maudlin piano filigrees and layers of production sparkle... to choke an army of purists. But these credibility-destroying effects only enhance the pure pop kick. [Jul 2005, p.114]
    • Blender
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sadly, Sneak Attack also reflects the influence of Professor One's recent ubiquity on the college-lecture circuit; windy speechifying interludes take up a third of the record. Too bad -- when he does rap, he shows twice the gusto of many rappers half his age. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.112]
    • Blender
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    About as insular and pensive a rap record as anyone's ever made. [May 2005, p.120]
    • Blender
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    So diffuse and mechanical, it sounds as if it were recorded by rebellious microchips in a German laboratory. [#13, p.103]
    • Blender
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    So goofy and heartfelt it's endearing. [Apr 2006, p.114]
    • Blender
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Where past albums documented a litany of bummers, cascading melodies now airbrush moments of depression or kinkiness--even the horny groupie of 'Natural Disaster' sounds like a girl you could take home to Mom. Higgenson’s new outlook is surprising.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Isbell’s recitation--defiantly unexciting in its averageness--doesn’t help. But the thing is, the guy can really write.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Labored production isn’t the only problem.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    On their fifth album, they crack the window, slow the motor (except on 'Shopping Bag,' a jazz-punk binge and purge) and take side trips into primeval glades where runic rites are conducted on acoustic guitars.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Superfine pop moments never stifle the underlying Jamaican flavor... even if Beenie sometimes sounds a bit like a guest on his own album. [#10, p.114]
    • Blender
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Feels like surprisingly generic party rap. [May 2004, p.126]
    • Blender
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dry and straightforward disco-soul. [Jul 2005, p.116]
    • Blender
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Without a target for their ire, TBS opt for sheer emo relentlessness. [May 2006, p.111]
    • Blender
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Even the best of these tracks lack the grimy menace of the most thrilling Neptunes beats. [Sep 2006, p.147]
    • Blender
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Even when he tries to make a connection between pickup lines and international tension, in “Made of Codes,” Peñate never forgets that even quasi-protest songs need a good beat.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    They still have plenty of growl left in them. [Aug 2004, p.133]
    • Blender
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This is music for the well-read rock fan and the would-be scoundrel. [Mar 2007, p.134]
    • Blender
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The band’s fourth album turns down the roiling boil of 2004’s What Is This America? to a seductive simmer.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    It's the sound of a 24-year-old accepting death, as imagined by a lifelong misfit aging gracefully. [Nov 2007, p.158
    • Blender
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Garbage machine doesn't always function so pristinely. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.105]
    • Blender
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Odd, ambitious, confounding, and occasionally brilliant -- which is to say it's much like the five Aphex albums that preceded it. [#4, p.114]
    • Blender
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The music's intellectualism obscures as many truths as it unveils. [Mar 2007, p.130]
    • Blender
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    On album two, his focus switches from coke to cash as he booms about his fleet of Maybachs (on the soaring T-Pain synthfest 'The Boss') and prepaying his baby daughter’s college tuition.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Westerberg delivers a hook, an idea and a subtle emotion on nearly every track. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.116]
    • Blender
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    As Clef drops mostly trite lines about green cards, strippers and police harassment, this strategy either succeeds brillantly--or goes haywire. [Nov 2007, p.153]
    • Blender
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Robinson establishes himself as a distinctive singer, his world-weary yet optimistic drawl no longer beholden to the rock larynxes of yore. [#11, p.140]
    • Blender
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lacks some of the cocksure oomph of his debut, though RZA does try to broaden his sonic palette. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.128]
    • Blender
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Too often... Branch expresses loneliness or betrayal or yearning without the precision or detail that would make her sentiments memorable. [#17, p.132]
    • Blender
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Unusually crafty for a stoner-rock record. [May 2006, p.111]
    • Blender
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Its 12 tracks are unusually raucous and raw, as Kravitz finds a comfort zone with turbocharged punk and arena rock. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.111]
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