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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    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    This Gift
    There's a maddeningly incremental progression from each Sons and Daughters release to the next, but if the Scottish band is inching slowly toward a breakthrough, at least it has the direction right.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Loyalty To Loyalty
    Loyalty is more low-key than its predecessor and less focused.
    • 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.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Soldier Of Love
    Like its predecessors, it mimics the rhythms of a new relationship - it’s up one minute and down the next, loving in places and wounded in others - and it’s a rich and rewarding album, but only after multiple listens.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dear God, I Hate Myself
    Deliriously drunk in its own eccentricities, “Dear God’’ is unlikely to win over new fans, and Stewart’s unhinged vocal acrobatics can get grating without former band member Caralee McElroy backing him up.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Great Unknown
    Thomas continues briskly down the middle of the road with a collection of jaunty pop ditties, brooding midtempo rockers, and heartfelt piano ballads.
    • 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.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    No Way Down [EP]
    The results are pleasant enough, if you're paying attention, but there appears to be something about Air France's music that inspires a waking form of narcolepsy.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Raw Footage
    Older and wiser doesn't mean played out, and his rhymes are wittier and more tightly coiled than most of his younger peers.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Night Work
    It's hard work keeping track of all the Scissor Sisters' references, but dancing to them certainly won't be.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mala
    For all its detours, this is a record intoxicated by its own grooves--silken, sexy, a little aimless, and a lot of fun.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The MF Life
    The Canadian vocalist Melanie Fiona's second disc is a more fully realized and personal set of songs than her debut.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Silver Wilkinson
    The gentle kisses on Silver are preferable to its contemporary teeth; the thumpy, funky aphasia of “You” harks back to days when Bibio could have been mistaken for a Prefuse 73 knockoff--it just sounds dated.
    • 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.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Begin Again
    It’s an entertaining assortment of Jones unrestrained.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Stand Ins
    Whether The Stand Ins is a sequel to "The Stage Names" album, a companion piece, or a reimagining hardly matters; its pleasures and frustrations are entirely approachable on their own terms.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Showroom of Compassion
    There's more than just the Cake sound here, however, with forays into Beatles-esque day-tripping and mariachi-style border-jumping broadening the sonic scope and serving as a testament to how the band has stayed viable, one-trick pony misnomer to the contrary.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Under The Covers Vol. 2
    Some might fit a little too perfectly, so close to the originals that there doesn’t seem to be much point. But they best serve as reminders about what was so great about them to begin with.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs Of Desire
    It's hard not to wish that there were more remnants of his earlier studio-nerd genius; there's the twist-beat and buzz-bass of 'Lilac Breeze' and the plod of 'Tremendous Dynamite,' but there's no build to them.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    True Romance
    Ultimately, Estelle's fine pop instincts (Time After Time) buoy True Romance through some choppy waters.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mixed Emotions
    For all of their sunset tints, fake congas, and overall indulgence in artifice, the songs neither feel cloyingly ironic or haplessly naïve.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Friend And Foe
    It sounds like a campfire sing-along at the most evil band camp in the underworld.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Libra Scale
    Comic-book-style inspiration notwithstanding, Libra Scale is enjoyable, but doesn't consistently reach the heights of 2008's adventurous "Year of the Gentleman" or the peaks of his own stellar track record as a songwriter-for-hire to folks like Beyonce ("Irreplaceable") and Rihanna ("Take a Bow").
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Anjulie
    Anjulie has a distinctive, somewhat thin voice and it takes a few listens to warm up to it. There’s a slight Europop and world feel to both Anjulie’s vocals and songs but there’s nothing radical going on here.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Blueprint 3
    The music doesn’t disappoint.... [But] The flaws are obvious. The three Timbaland songs feel out of place. Lyrically, Jay-Z works only as hard as he has to.
    • 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.”
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Planet Earth
    Somehow these songs don't beg for a repeat listen.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Flock
    Noonan's lyrics can be cheeky or sweet, and that nicely offsets the sense of yearning and wanderlust. The latter part of the disc dissolves into too many atmospheric textures and loses focus, yet this doesn't obscure the band's musicality and charm.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Declaration Of Dependence
    The band’s determinedly bare-bones instrumentation is undeniably refreshing, with nary a drumset or piece of electronics in sight, but it also lends itself to a mild-mannered monotony that is broken up only intermittently.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Praise & Blame
    Praise & Blame may not inspire much panty-hurling but it might cause open-minded music fans to reappraise Jones's interpretive gifts.
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