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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    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Rite of Spring
    It’s a tour de force. The work’s relentless, odd-accented, propulsive rhythms are a perfect fit for this band.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tha Carter III
    That said, it's not an instant classic, but it is the best rap album since Kanye West dropped "Graduation" last year.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Emma Jean
    Fields showcases a burnished voice that quakes and quivers with the wisdom only age and experience can afford.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Freedom's Goblin
    Freedom’s Goblin gives Segall room to play with a dizzying array of styles and genres, yet his excellent taste and melodic sensibility ensure that the whole wild endeavor stays firmly on the rails.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Vieux Farka Toure
    He enjoys modern arrangements and judicious cross-genre excursions that edge up on reggae and rock, and when he lets go, his guitar lines possess the playful muscularity of a tussle among rambunctious friends.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Don't Do Anything
    Anyone who rues the scarcity of smart, serious pop music for grown-ups should snap up the entire Sam Phillips catalog. On second thought, skip "Omnipop." But don't miss Phillips's splendid new effort, Don't Do Anything, a collection that dances in her signature mystery space between darkness and light with strange grace, emotional candor, and winsome hooks.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Mosaic Project
    It's strong, supple stuff by a strong bunch of women.
    • 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.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    What Goes Around
    All told, the LP stands as a convincing counterargument against those who claim hip-hop’s ’90s golden era can’t come back again.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Break Stuff
    Like the pianist and composer’s other trio records, it makes for a satisfying, portable Iyer.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bad Plus Joshua Redman
    The knotty, gleaming structures often have hooky pop appeal (bassist Reid Anderson’s “Dirty Blonde,”), and the band can deliver an affecting ballad with brushes.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh
    "My Love" are the first two words you hear on Erykah Badu’s beguiling new album, and they set the tone for the entire set. Unlike the politically charged mix of funk and hip-hop of New Amerykah Part One (Third World War), this chapter is a warmer, more sensuous blend of organic R&B and jazzy pop.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Patch the Sky
    Patch the Sky might not be saying much, but Mould’s putting his all into saying it.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Turn Out the Lights
    Aching, vulnerable, and unsparing in detail, her creations invite you to listen with your whole self and feel along.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bright Mississippi
    The results are coolly sophisticated, an unfussy, mostly instrumental set of slink-and-slide joints shot through with a harmonic imagination that turns even a traditional hymn into an after-hours swing.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Real Animal
    Taken as a whole, Real Animal shows a man content with the life he has lived, even as the rest of us hope that his final statement is still some ways off.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Old
    What unifies the album is the superb production, which marries indie-rock values to street-rap style.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pawn Shop
    The 11 tracks, all co-written by the Osbornes, expertly capture TJ’s beguiling baritone and John’s nimble fretwork, with fewer concessions to pop-country trends than might be expected from a major-label act.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tempest
    His most recent albums, however, have been uniformly excellent, and that includes Tempest.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love Is The Answer
    At 67, Streisand’s gorgeous tones and powers of interpretation are utterly intact, and also front-and-center thanks to producer Diana Krall’s class-conscious pairing of her own understated quartet with Johnny Mandel’s velvety orchestrations.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blunderbuss
    The album is brimming with fabulously skewed turns of phrase that make sense from different angles, as White's protagonists wrestle with what it means to be alternately besotted and gutted.
    • 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.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pain Killer
    The aptly named album is all killer, no filler.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Foil Deer
    The echoes among unhinged riffs on “Good Neck,” “Raising the Skate” and “My Dead Girl” speak to the unity of Speedy Ortiz’s vision, as well as its limitations; the spikiness that gives the music its appeal also turns it abrasive over the long haul.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Still Brazy
    Here, it’s less about what Y.G. does than how he does it; digging deeper into vintage G-funk flavors with a blend of personal, party, and political tracks, the young Compton rapper takes a sizzling step forward.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2
    Rapping about how well you rap is both stubbornly old school and totally meta. It's also a form of hip-hop Darwinism, as the Beastie Boys, now in their mid-40s and still one step ahead of trash-talking competitors, demonstrate to the fullest on their eighth studio album.
    • 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.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wine Dark Sea
    This is Holland in full bloom: singular and wild-eyed.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Very Last Day
    An unusual but rewarding album.
    • 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.
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