Boston Globe's Scores

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For 2,093 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 66% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 31% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 72
Highest review score: 100 City of Refuge
Lowest review score: 10 Lulu
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,670 out of 2093
  2. Mixed: 412 out of 2093
  3. Negative: 11 out of 2093
2093 music reviews
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    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Older Than My Old Man Now
    This marvelous album will resonate with sons, daughters, parents, spouses or those mindful of their mortality. In other words: everyone.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Little Broken Hearts
    This is a striking changeup.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did on Our Summer Vacation)
    The album finds the group covering some favorite songs and tying them together with its own rootsy flair.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Out of the Game
    Masterful... this new album marks a return to the pop chops and killer hooks that initially made Wainwright so celebrated.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fear Fun
    Tillman had released solo records before joining Fleet Foxes in 2008, but none of them was as vivid as his latest.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Strange Clouds
    B.o.B.'s sophomore record shows he is one of the top hit-makers in contemporary pop.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Strangeland
    Frontman Tom Chaplin continues to imbue it all with freshness and wonder making Strangeland an inviting place.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Unpatterns
    SMD sounds like it's found a handle on its sound.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Words & Music by Saint Etienne
    The dizzying succession of beats per minute paired with thoughtful lyrics about music's role in shaping memories gives Saint Etienne a chance to create a rare entity: Dance music for the thinking person.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Exister
    Hot Water Music nicely balances aggression and craft on Exister.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Choice of Weapon
    The Cult reunites with two former collaborators--producers Bob Rock and Chris Goss--with satisfyingly brawny results.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Magic Hour
    Even with such hitmaking producers as Calvin Harris and Diplo on board, Magic Hour is refreshingly out of step with current tastes in pop music.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nashville, Vol. 1: Tear the Woodpile Down
    Cue up any of the songs on Nashville and you hear the sound of Stuart's mission being fulfilled.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Banga
    [Banga] is a classic Patti Smith album in that it mixes pop panache with punk sensibilities and poetic ruminations.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Americana
    Young reignites melodies and lyrics sadly frozen through years of rote recitation.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Time as We Know It: The Songs of Jerry Jeff Walker
    It's intensely devotional, but intensely satisfying.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Cherry Thing
    For all of the scorching discordance (Gustafsson's ambitious "Sudden Movement"), there are also passages of divine lyricism ("Golden Heart," "What Reason"). A welcome return.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Oceania
    Corgan rebuilt the band with new members and finally marshals them through a solid hour of grandiose guitar rock.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Write Me Back
    He delivers deceptively subtle music that retains all of the singer's seductive charms and inimitable style.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Oshin
    As in most dreams, it seems to make perfect sense when you're hearing it.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rooster Rag
    It's a versatile tour de force with Feat's four singers tackling mostly picaresque themes that would make Helm proud.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Skelethon
    His first solo production, the brooding music on Skelethon is often as intoxicating as the stentorian rhymes.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Confess
    It's rare to find a musical package this self-consciously stylized that isn't designed to cover up for a lack of substance.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Is Your Love Big Enough?
    The pleasures of Is Your Love Big Enough? are unquestionably immediate, but the real excitement is in wondering where her curiosity takes her next.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Life is Good
    Life Is Good, finds him humbled and reflective after his high-profile divorce from Kelis. This doesn't diminish his impact, as these songs mix anger, nostalgia, and insight.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shrines
    Pulling the entire effort back from the precipice of cliché is the immediate charisma of vocalist Megan James, particularly engaging when hurdling over cleverly constructed lines of wordplay.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Never
    Never is frank, fearless, and restless--a 14-song rattle bag of damaged samples, uneasy hooks, intuitive melody, and dry humor.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Channel Orange
    Channel Orange stands strong on its own merits.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Country Funk: 1969-1975
    The sultry singer [Bobbie Gentry], who had a hit with "Ode to Billie Joe," is part of this essential new Light in the Attic compilation that explores a fringe strain of country music.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bear Creek
    Here she flirts with going full-bore on "Rise Again," but otherwise simply continues her ascendance as contemporary pop's most expressive and astonishing singer this side of Adele.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Researching the Blues
    After 34 years of recording, the brothers think it's their best collection yet. Again breaking the artistic rule, they may be right.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Four MF's Playin Tunes
    A tight set of well-slung tunes that show the elements of a classic quartet outing in nice balance.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Election Special
    Cooder is mad as hell, but because he's a virtuoso with a wry sense of humor that balances indignation and despair, the songs stand as songs, not just soapbox speechifying.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    En Yay Sah
    From jaunty opener "Feba" to dense finale "Rotin," the eight songs have distinct identities but share groovy, spacey production and a mystical-futuristic feel.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rebirth
    This is Cliff's first studio album in seven years--and he indeed sounds reborn.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Held
    Held is a haunted forest worth getting lost in, but don't expect to be on your own for long.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tempest
    His most recent albums, however, have been uniformly excellent, and that includes Tempest.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Silver Age
    [Silver Age is] an album not just reminiscent of but worthy of comparison to his best '90s material.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    North
    Frontman Rob Thomas has not lost his fastball as a craftsman. Listeners will be humming several songs off "North" before the second chorus even begins, whether they like it or not.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Theatre Is Evil
    The record is the most unvarnished rock music Palmer's ever created, leaning heavily on '80s goth and the oddball New Wave of folks like Lene Lovich.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mirage Rock
    Ben Bridwell's voice remains a beguiling instrument in both high and low registers, and there are moments of stark beauty.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shields
    Grizzly Bear has learned not to stress over its craft, and Shields feels all the more fresh as a result.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    3 Pears
    It's nothing more--or less--than the latest chapter in his extraordinary, funhouse-mirror version of honky-tonk traditionalism.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Babel
    The London quartet's hallmarks--plucky banjo, hard-driving acoustic guitar--are in place, but the songs are bigger and bolder, right down to Marcus Mumford's exuberant wails that now grind with more grit.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The 2nd Law
    A concept album based on the second law of thermodynamics would likely be awful if done by Radiohead or Coldplay, but Muse nails it on The 2nd Law, creating a tale about survival within an imploding society.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sing the Delta
    Her patience has rewarded us with a work of rare, unvarnished grace and power.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jiaolong
    Snaith has made himself at home on the dancefloor, but he's never come more off the grid.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Twins
    In exciting displays of versatility throughout the album, Segall grimes it up then unplugs, freaks out then holds back, wails then moans--all in utter confidence.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pour Une Âme Souveraine: A Dedication to Nina Simone
    A steely take on "Four Women" renders the song virtually unrecognizable. Simone would never have recorded it that way, and that's the point of this illuminating album.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Release Me
    What is evident is the astonishing consistency of Streisand's tone, her sometimes goose-bump-inducing interpretative gifts, and her stunning power over 45 years.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Come Home To Mama
    Having gotten an Édith Piaf tribute (and a baby) out of her system since, she reorients herself admirably with Come Home to Mama.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Two Eleven
    With her producers subtly augmenting her vocals with lush harmonies, Brandy executes these songs with confidence.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Local Business
    The magnificence here comes when a gang of Jersey punks try something big, while acknowledging how small they are.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blak and Blu
    Blak and Blu pays off; it's not a perfect album, but it is bold and exciting.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Luxury Problems
    Stott doesn't just produce these tracks, he haunts their halls.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tinsel And Lights
    The Everything But the Girl gal follows up her superb 2010 solo album, "Love and Its Opposite," with this gently lovely seasonal release.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    R.E.D.
    Ultimately, it's the love songs that make the biggest impression on this nicely balanced disc.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Free Reign
    Thanks, in part, to Sudbury native and co-mixer Daniel Lopatin (lately more well known as vibe-conjuring electronic artist Oneohtrix Point Never), the sound of Free Reign is both fantastically new and classic Clinic.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dos!
    Twenty years on from "Kerplunk," Green Day couldn't possibly replicate its early urgency, but the band can manage to keep its sound nicely unhinged.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Girl on Fire
    Keys has rarely ever sounded so at ease, so downright sensual, as she does as her latest.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    True [EP]
    This isn't pop music in her sister's obvious, melismatic, and melodramatic mold; rather it's pop music for people who didn't know they were looking for pop music.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Live from Alabama
    The results might qualify Live From Alabama as something more than a way station between Isbell's last studio record and his next one.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Evil Empire of Everything
    While it's naive to think PE will ever have the same impact it did back then, there's still too many strong moments on Evil Empire to dismiss it.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors
    Big Boi goes a long way in carving out an individual identity while still waving the Outkast flag.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Feeling Mortal
    Kristofferson’s voice, which is front and center and unvarnished, is something to behold here: craggy but beautiful and forged with wisdom that comes to a lion in winter.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nocturne
    The sophomore LP from Virginia dream-pop project Wild Nothing, bandleader Jack Tatum at times seems fixated on darkness. But that doesn't stop the songs from glistening with a melancholy polish.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Berberian Sound Studio
    Berberian Sound Studio is like a notebook filled with a lost love's handwriting.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Signed and Sealed in Blood
    The Boston-accented mash-up of Irish folk and punk is still infectious.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Elements of Light
    While each movement works on its own, Elements is best experienced in one long pass.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Buddy and Jim
    Sometimes things sound more Jimmy ("I Lost My Job of Loving You"), sometimes more Buddy ("It Hurts Me," a searing ballad written by Miller's wife, Julie), but as with every good duets record, their combined voices have produced something greater than the sum of its parts.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Manifestra
    Just about every note and lyric on Erin McKeown's Manifestra is a step away from the norm. Yet the songs are so beguiling you can't help but follow.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hummingbird
    Produced by Aaron Dessner of the National, the Brooklyn, N.Y., indie rockers who once took Local Natives on the road as the opening act, the album feels like a pronouncement, as if to highlight how much the quartet has grown since its last outing.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    True North
    Bad Religion shaves its anti-establishment messages down to bare essentials and sounds practically feral.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My True Story
    What sets this collection of doo-wop and early rock era tunes apart from the jaded pack is Neville's peerless voice and crystal clear passion for the material.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Almanac
    At first it sounds like scratchy old vinyl, but actually it's the crackle of fire that leads off the warm and sumptuous new album from Brooklyn's Widowspeak.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Get Up!
    The album is a beguiling mix of acoustic and electric blues, with harmonica legend Musselwhite weaving in and out like a roadhouse virtuoso.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Two Lanes of Freedom
    While there is a handful of tracks that will pass airplay muster--the inane but catchy “Truck Yeah,” the breezy Swift and Keith Urban-assisted “Highway Don’t Care”--it’s more interesting when McGraw goes either a little sideways or steps back into contemplative mode.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    M B V
    While the sound of mbv is reassuringly familiar--openers “she found now” and “only tomorrow” tread melodic paths that seem strangely familiar even as they wander--its newness is remarkable.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Messenger
    The Messenger, his second solo album, is a bracing reminder of his talents as a sonic architect.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Amok
    AMOK is heady dance music, in love with its jittery rhythms but never content to give over to them completely.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Push the Sky Away
    Sometimes his baritone carries lyrics that are blunt and tart, and others opaque and blurry, but never lacking bite.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ex Tropical
    Lost Animal is the project of Australian musician Jarrod Quarrell, whose hypnotic songs sound utterly suspended in time and free of genre.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Miracle Mile
    This album was written collaboratively with the entire band’s input, so there’s a lot of ground covered on these 15 songs, and plenty of room to get lost.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Somewhere Else
    Sally Shapiro has beguiled fans at the intersection of electronic dance music and twee indie-pop with its near-perfect time capsules of ’80s synth-pop. The format hasn’t strayed much on this third full-length album, although the landscape has.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Next Day
    The Next Day offers many sides of a multifaceted artist and almost all of them mesmerizing, as the songs grow richer with each listen.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Deathfix
    [A] rich, dark collection of songs.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Woman
    The debut from the once-anonymous LA duo of Rhye--Danish electro-soul producer Robin Hannibal and Canadian vocalist-producer Mike Milosh--floats with ease on this wave [of R&B experiments].
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    People, Hell and Angels
    The Hendrix estate, along with Newton-based archivist John McDermott and producer Eddie Kramer, have done themselves proud here.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Invisible Way
    The Invisible Way is as spare, heavy, and lovely as anything Low’s ever done, but it feels essential; there’s an extra beauty to the bleakness of these songs.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Beast in Its Tracks
    As personal as it feels, The Beast in Its Tracks, like the great breakup records before it (Beck’s “Sea Change” comes to mind), is universal in its scope.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Honky Tonk
    As the age-old debate of what constitutes country music continues in some quarters, Son Volt leader Jay Farrar quietly, and compellingly, makes a case for the classic sounds on the beguiling Honky Tonk.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Muchacho
    Phosphorescent’s Muchacho is the kind of album that will take two listens to decide you hate it and then another three to realize how much you actually love it.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bloodsports
    Decade-long hiatus or no decade-long hiatus, Bloodsports finds Suede in exactly its element.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Adrian Younge Presents the Delfonics
    Younge rarely puts a note wrong in his arrangements; his stripped-down approach echoes the Delfonics’ influence on artists like RZA and El Michels Affair without sounding derivative.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ripely Pine
    Over the slack strum of guitar, Spaltro tells a spectral tale that feels like a hazy dream until a violent outburst yanks you elsewhere. That’s precisely where Spaltro likes to keep you: on edge.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Amygdala
    The number of guests (including Matthew Dear, Apparat, and Caribou’s Dan Snaith) and the songs’ lengths, depths, and varying textures make it easy to get spun.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wolf
    If you’ve made your peace with his artistry, the rewards are considerable.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Victim of Love
    You hear him at the peak of his powers on the title track, whose acoustic soul reels in the band and lets Bradley tell his story, one wounded sentiment at a time.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shaking the Habitual
    Easy listening this is not, but Shaking the Habitual is at least bold and brash, the work of a band hungry to explore strange sonic textures.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bankrupt!
    As on 2009’s “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix,” the elite pedigree of these bright, well-mannered Frenchmen shows in their impressive aural plumage.
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