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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    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Water for Your Soul
    The result is a great effort from a still-striving free spirit.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In Your Dreams
    With help from producers Dave Stewart of Eurythmics - who co-wrote seven songs as well - and Glen Ballard, Nicks sings of big loves and losses and sprinkles them with her enchanted glitter of optimism, melancholy, ecstasy, and regret.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Sun And The Moon
    This easily ranks among the top rock records of the year.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Yes!
    Mraz’s easy charm has, over the course of his decade-plus in the spotlight, aged well.
    • 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.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The R.E.D. Album
    By working with producers like 1500 or Nuthin, Cool & Dre, Boi 1da, and even New York's DJ Premier, The Game shows a willingness to reinvent himself with some beats that are as penetrating and resourceful as his engaging rhymes filled with sports and pop-culture references.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Black Panties
    The culture police might have hemorrhages listening to these uncensored tracks, but anyone with a sense of humor and an appreciation for smartly crafted mainstream R&B will appreciate the singer-songwriter’s return to his wild ways.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Doo-Wops and Hooligans
    While promising, though, the disc reveals little about Mars - other than that he clearly has his eyes on the charts.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Brass Knuckles
    Brass Knuckles is 14 songs long. All of them could be singles. None of them could be hits.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wasted on the Dream
    Wasted on the Dream is tight and snarling, an amalgamation of punk brevity, metal riffs, and garage attitude, tailor-made for blaring from parked cars idling while their passengers figure out how to maximize the night’s fast, cheap, and out of control quotients.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Red Carpet Massacre
    While Simon Le Bon's tenor is still in top form, his lyrical prowess remains hit and miss as do some of the late-in-the-album tracks. But this is one record the diehard Durannies should find room for in their collections.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    First Kiss
    First Kiss picks up where 2012’s “Rebel Soul” left off, with Rock continuing to mix classic rock, country, pop, and, to a far lesser extent, hip-hop to craft odes to parties and the good old days, as well as to parties in the good old days.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Spring Break... Checkin' Out
    The strongest tracks are the greasy acoustic boogie of “Checkin’ Out” and the emotional hangover of “You and the Beach,” which finds a breakup lingering like a bad sunburn.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    ARTPOP
    When Gaga drops the performance shtick on “ARTPOP,” the album really finds its footing. It throbs with joy and sex and freedom, none of which Gaga has truly embodied since her debut.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Every Man Should Know
    The album closes masterfully with “Time to Go,” a look at an older musician and the indignities he’s facing as an opening act far from his peak. It is one of several tracks making this an album that every Harry Connick Jr. fan should own.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Timez Are Weird These Days
    The disc comes off as a finely crafted pop pastiche rather than an innovative breakthrough.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rokstarr
    This is an agreeable, singles-going-steady kind of collection that should make for endless radio fodder.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    World From the Side of the Moon
    Phillips may be an artist of just a few ideas, but he believes in them. And he's not afraid to use them over and over.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tim Robbins and the Rogues Gallery Band
    Working from a songbook he's been crafting over many years, Robbins wears his influences with pride.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Prism
    It is Perry 101: heart-on-sleeve ballads, bouncy party anthems, and brawny odes to respecting yourself.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The 20/20 Experience 2 of 2
    Although he still goes on a bit long in places, with help from producer buddies like Timbaland, Timberlake--channeling his usual suspects from Michael Jackson to Prince--nails a more cohesive vibe on this follow-up.
    • 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.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz
    Her latest has a surplus of them [uniformly great songs]. It suggests Cyrus, at 22, has figured out how to present her views in a way that’s still powerful but also musically interesting and cohesive.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Long Road Out Of Eden
    It is an auspicious beginning for a double album so strong it's almost irritating that it took so long to release it.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Gavin DeGraw
    While there is a darker sensibility thanks to a larger quotient of guitars than pianos this time out, there are also fewer immediate standouts.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Y Not
    At this point, Starr’s limitations as a vocalist and a songwriter are well known. But if you’ve been on the Starr trip thus far, Y Not shouldn’t jostle you off.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sheezus
    Allen has been out of the game for a while, at least by pop standards, but she knows how to get back in the ring.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    In a World Like This
    Whether it’s literally providing oxygen like some kind of romantic scuba mask on “Breathe” or helping get the party started on Euro-disco throbbers like “Permanent Stain,” it is taking care of business.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Smoke + Mirrors
    Evocations of everyone from Coldplay to Peter Gabriel to Queen remain intact, with that first band’s specter looming largest over the moody, dirge-y, electro-tweaked proceedings. The album hits its most interesting and feverish spike with the furtive yelps and rhythms of “Friction.”
    • 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.
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