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
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Heroes & Thieves
    The driving finale, 'Home,' finds her asserting, "Let's live in the glory," and hitting a magnificent buoyant piano bridge that says as much.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In Rainbows
    In Rainbows is a wonderful, absorbing album.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Night Falls Over Kortedala
    With such a sweeping sonic palette, it's a pleasant surprise that the record doesn't crumble under its own auspices.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Chrome Dreams II
    The veteran rock 'n' roller manages a few neat tricks on this sprawling head-spinner.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Scene Of The Crime
    An album as lean, mean, and gritty as the cover image of someone behind a steering wheel, peering into the rearview mirror with windshield wipers in motion.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Carnival Ride
    Carnival Dreams, a worthy successor to Underwood's 6-million-selling debut, will surely install the blond belter from Checotah, Okla., on the crossover throne once occupied by Faith Hill and Shania Twain.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Raising Sand
    Raising Sand is the stuff of which music lovers' dreams are made: an unexpected collision of two distinct but complementary worlds that transcend the sum of their parts to create something unique and mesmerizing.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    100 Days, 100 Nights
    The crowning achievement, though, comes with a fantastic slice of raw Southern soul, 'Humble Me,' that sounds like it came straight out of Muscle Shoals circa 1969.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul?
    The results are surprisingly encouraging. Flavor Flav, having been turned by VH1 into even more of a caricature (if possible) than he already was, reminds PE fans that he is still a competent and efficient hypeman, and Chuck D sounds angrier and rawer than he has in years.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In The Vines
    The album's Gothic-tinged Americana is an uneasy road but blazes a trail worth exploring, one that is more about the journey and not so much about the destination.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shocking Pinks
    Throughout, Harte infuses much of the record with the chopped-up high-hat propulsion of DFA-style dance-floor abandon that makes studying your history a lot of fun.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Art of Love and War
    Even though she doesn't get the same kind of attention as some of her peers do, Angie Stone is a supreme talent, and this album really shows it.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Real Thing: Words And Sounds Vol. 3
    The 15 tracks on The Real Thing feature a slew of styles and producers--among them Scott Storch (DMX, 50 Cent), Adam Blackstone (the Roots), Om'Mas Keith (Jay-Z), and Shafiq Husayn (Jurassic 5)--all gathered in pursuit of a mission outlined on the album's gorgeous, abstract opener, a meditation on open-mindedness.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hvarf/Heim
    Together, the EPs form a beautiful post-rock symphony, topped by singer and guitarist Jonsi Birgisson's simultaneously naive and profound singing.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Exclusive
    If there was ever a record created to turn a pop singer into a star, it's Brown's sophomore effort.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    System
    His dance-pop tunes are surprisingly fresh and emotionally meaty, without a hint of complacency.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ire Works
    The band is clearly comfortable with the medium that it occupies between aggressive and technical post-hardcore yet is beginning to tread new territory.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Motown: A Journey Through Hitsville USA
    Save the Four Tops medley there has yet to be a match for Levi Stubbs--the Boyz sound as strong and harmonious as ever.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Big Doe Rehab
    This isn't new territory for Ghostface, and it's something of a marvel that his signature narrative style still feels fresh on his seventh solo outing.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Spirit
    The tracks are impeccably manicured, super-tuneful, and offer lyrics about the various agonies and ecstasies of love that are unremarkable in and of themselves but reach nuclear-threat levels of desperation thanks to Lewis's voice.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Cool
    Fiasco builds on that promise [in "Food & Liquuor"] exponentially with the triumphant Cool, which gets extra style points for bringing back the idea of the headphones hip-hop album.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Distortion
    Distortion isn't an easy listen, with its strict, difficult palette. But it's an endlessly fascinating and provocative one.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Some People Have Real Problems
    Some People Have Real Problems reveals the other Sia: plucky, bubbly, and growling purposefully through assertive pop songs.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Do You Like Rock Music?
    BSP has backed up its postured oddities and idiosyncrasies with a new raison d'être: to deliver the true stuff of rock 'n' roll.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jukebox
    A tender fragility still touches her music, effectively so, but these strong interpretations feel like another step toward strengthening her own foundations.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Brighter Than Creation's Dark
    It is vintage Truckers for the stories it tells: portrayals, in the first person or the third, of lives far too achingly real and imprinted by such forces as crystal meth, the manufacturing recession, and the Iraq war to warrant the distancing moniker Gothic.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Vampire Weekend
    At its best, Vampire Weekend takes the exceedingly familiar template of indie rock and invigorates it with a chiming guitar sound that suggests the band has been spending its downtime browsing afropop.org.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Made In The Dark
    Made in the Dark announces its intent early: it's straight electro, with a naked disdain for the minor key.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lust Lust Lust
    Their fourth record, the stunning Lust Lust Lust, retains the Danish duo’s fetish for early pop harmony and surf guitar, not to mention shoe-gaze buzz in their concise, fuzzy bursts of tragic romance.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Detours
    Crow's strong, eclectic new album, "Detours," is filled with optimism about finding a way to correct her course.
Page: