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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    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bullets in the Gun
    Keith is nothing if not competent, but seems to have held back from letting fly.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Easy Wonderful
    The Tufts-bred pop rock quartet is still interested in layering varied instrumentation- banjos and synthesizers, warped electric guitars and clanging bells--to achieve different textures, Easy just feels a bit cleaner and less symphonically ambitious. But that doesn't mean it's less diverse.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Everything in Between
    Everything in Between is a triumphant leap forward from an already solid foundation, and one that cements the duo as one of this era's incontestably exceptional indie-rock acts.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Le Noise
    It builds a rich sonic arch around Young's voice and guitar, bottling the essence of what makes him such a compelling singer-songwriter at 64.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lonely Avenue
    Lonely Avenue is musical nirvana for lovers of the deft balance of sassy snark and sincere sentiment.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hemingway's Whiskey
    While there's little here that's new, Hemingway's Whiskey is another well-wrought articulation of Chesney's musical world that will doubtless make its presence felt when he returns to selling out stadiums next summer.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Halcyon Digest
    Halcyon Digest is as comforting in its familiar feel as it is startling for its sonic variety.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Clapton
    The music throughout is sequenced brilliantly, with a cohesion that almost defies logic.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hands All Over
    Really this is lead singer Adam Levine's show. Thus, the band's success lives and dies with his delivery. That delivery remains technically sound, though as a whole, the band underwhelms here.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wake Up!
    In the end, even if it's only a brief aside, both the Roots and Legend expand through experimentation.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    You Get What You Give
    He has a great voice, but most songs on this follow-up release fall into the sugary commercial country column.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    No Gravity
    This follow-up for the Bajan singer-songwriter drops all Caribbean influences and leans toward club tracks mixed with canny pop and emotional, hook-laden ballads.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hurley
    Weezer remains dedicated to amped up guitars, catchy melodies, and the idea that love, humor, and pain are what make great memories and wrinkles.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Solo
    Solo is Iyer's grand statement, and with it he has fulfilled his promise.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Flamingo
    Flowers feverishly blows up the songs as if they're helium balloons bound for the stratosphere. Any sense of restraint - which, granted, has never been the Killers' specialty - is steamrolled by one bombastic chorus after another.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lisbon
    Lisbon is the New York quintet's sixth album, and it hinges on a precision that wasn't there previously.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Band of Joy
    Co-produced by Plant and critically revered singer-songwriter-guitarist Buddy Miller, Joy is a mostly covers grab bag stitched together by Plant's sweetly urgent croon and finely crafted layers of sepia-toned instrumentation and vocals.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Grinderman 2
    Profane, lecherous, loaded with head-trip tape loops and guitars that sound like power tools melting in the sun, this is late-night, howl-at-the-moon-outside-the-punk-club stuff.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    You Are Not Alone
    The entire set speaks directly to the struggles and fears of an America desperately searching for some meaning and uplift. Staples and Tweedy have crafted a record with heart and grace, but also some toughness--all of them necessary if the goal is transcending troubled times.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Penny Sparkle
    The exploration of yet another new form on Penny Sparkle shows how exquisitely Blonde Redhead can continue to add cogs to an amorphous musical wheel without tripping up.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Majesty Shredding
    The volleying guitars of "My Gap Feels Weird" and friendly ferocity of "Rope Light" signal a group with the same playful spirit that made its best work roar (see: 1994's "Foolish"), but with refreshed energy from a nine-year nap.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Guitar Song
    The Guitar Song comes grouped in two parts, a "Black Album" and a "White Album," structured, according to Johnson, as a progressive movement from a dark and sordid beginning to a reassuring and redemptive end. That structure isn't always discernable in listening. What is immediately evident, though, is that this is a phenomenal collection of country music.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Body Talk, Pt. 2
    Danceable, downtrodden songs buoyed by a hint of self-willed confidence are Robyn's specialty
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Interpol
    Intentional or not, some of that transition seeps into the music, giving songs room to ramble but nothing resembling a core.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Personal Life
    Like their other albums, it's a collection of spirited, guitar-forward tunes that remain upbeat, even when it seems like everything is falling apart.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dream Attic
    Thompson's playing is as fierce as ever, and his band (which includes multi-instrumentalist Pete Zorn) are tight and focused in this setting. Too bad, then, that the songs feel more like Thompson treading water, snipping bits and pieces of past favorites--a guitar solo here, a vocal sneer there--into new songs that lack personality.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Familial
    You get the sense that Familial, with all of its good intentions, might have made a better gift to a girlfriend than a serious petition to come out from behind the kit.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Strange Weather, Isn't It?
    Ten-plus years and four records later, their raw, post-punk-colored-funk attack still sounds as compelling as it did at the start.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Back to Me
    Throughout "Back to Me,'' Fantasia appears to be an artist reborn - or maybe just in love.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hawk
    At times it feels like this music will rise above simple pleasure, to something more fearsome or fearless, something unquantifiable and haunted--for now, however, the dichotomy between male and female will have to do.
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