Boston Globe's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    X
    Trace Adkins's 10th album has the typical components of the rock-bottom-baritone singer's records. There's the usual sonic mix of country, rock, and blues and the usual lyrical viewpoints.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Day & Age
    Along with his bandmates and producer Stuart Price, Flowers makes sure that Day & Age rarely veers from the not insignificant mission of making a record that simply sounds good.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Chinese Democracy
    It's an exhilarating album. Seriously, after finally hearing these 14 tracks in their finished form I was so energized I wanted to climb a mountain.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I Am...Sasha Fierce
    For the most part, it works well and sounds fresh.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dark Horse
    Dark Horse is attractively adorned, but don't expect any sort of wild ride.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Safe Trip Home
    It's taken nine years and two tries, but Dido has finally given her debut the follow-up it deserves.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The BBC Sessions
    This collection of live radio performances from the band's early years is like a letter from an old friend long delayed in the post.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    David Cook
    Indeed, it's hard to distinguish Cook's sound from that of his own idols, like Our Lady Peace and Better Than Ezra.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The New Game
    Mudvayne used to be viewed as somewhat of a joke band with its costumes and makeup, but they're more out front and naked now, with markedly more genuine results.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Thr33 Ringz
    Like Pain's guest spots, the album's all over the place, from forlorn strip-club love numbers to songs that sound like Jodeci slow jams converted to digital.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    David Archuleta
    Happily, in a genre where the urge is to err on the side of overwrought, someone smart decided to stick with tasteful, understated production. Archuleta's delivery is likewise low-key and attractive, if predictably generic.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fearless
    She's 18--wide-eyed, naive, hopeful--and that's how she sounds on Fearless, her superb new album.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Our Bright Future
    What has marked Tracy Chapman's work over the course of her two-decade career is her emotional intensity and clarity of vision, and both are in evidence on this fine new disc, her first in three years.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Renaissance
    The disc is an affirmation that life, and hip-hop, can indeed get better.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Off With Their Heads
    The hurtling, new wave keyboard rush of 'Never Miss a Beat,' the pop-radio swirl of 'Like It Too Much,' and the casually brilliant bass-bounce of 'Good Days Bad Days' prove the band still has more than enough hooks, and brash charm, to get it through even the longest of songwriting winters.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Heart On
    The songs themselves live in the present--and live all over the place.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    4:13 Dream
    Not all this mope-a-dope sounds fresh, but let's hope Smith doesn't find his cure for pain just yet.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Funhouse
    Pink continues to make everything she touches her own. She uses brains and brawn to turn the mainstream into a complicated place.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Evolver
    As the title suggests, Legend is a work-in-progress, and this stage in his evolution is worth hearing.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cardinology
    If only a few of the tracks rise to the greatest heights of which Adams is capable--like the poignant closing salute to sobriety, 'Stop'--the rest remain impressive pictures of craftsmanship.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Fame
    Listen a little closer to the sly, snarky lyrics and glam grooves on this feisty debut and you'll hear that this former downtown New York spice girl has at least a few things on her dirty mind.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Remind Me In 3 Days
    The brothers lack the inspired wit of their predecessors (especially OutKast) and could use tauter rhymes, but most of the album packs a punch.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Call Me Crazy
    Womack retains some of that homespun charm on this quietly contemplative new album out today.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Damn Right Rebel Proud
    Cliché-ridden and full of awkward rhymes and stilted phrasings, his songs are too often fixated on his own bad self, on celebrating his excesses, romanticizing their dark side, and asserting his outlaw bona fides.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black Ice
    In other words, Black Ice is a quintessential, if not exactly essential, AC/DC album.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Perfect Symmetry
    It is a surprise and a thrill to hear that even as the band enters its "artsy" phase--expanding its instrumental palette to include mewling saws and clattering percussion--the songs remain uniformly excellent from stem to stern.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Little Honey
    For an artist whose reputation for painstaking perfectionism and poetic acumen is legendary, Little Honey is too much saccharine and not enough substance.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gossip In The Grain
    The intense and intensely bearded Maine singer-songwriter showcases a lighter side on his superbly crafted third disc.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lucky Old Sun
    It's nice to see Chesney cast in a different hue (and this one's distinctly blue), but eventually Lucky Old Sun recedes into its own down tempo, like waves drawing out to sea.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Everything Is Borrowed
    His delightful sense of narrative is virtually missing, and a lot of the verses meander and build to banal choruses.
Page: