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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    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    New Chain
    Small Black proves it isn't merely the finest exemplar of a fleeting trend, but the best possible crew to be on top when the wave (finally) breaks.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Feel That Fire
    On his fourth album, the Arizona-born artist continues to impress on one well-written song after another.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love vs Money
    Unlike his spotty debut, this is a seamless, brilliantly produced affair featuring his unmatched contemporary pop technique and songwriting craftsmanship.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sewn Together
    The appropriately named Sewn Together finds 50-year-old Curt Kirkwood and his 48-year-old brother Cris Kirkwood crafting mongrel music as fine as anything in the band's catalog.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Downtown Church
    Patty Griffin has got religion, or at least the urge to sing about it, on her transcendent new gospel record. When she bends her raspy, gale-force voice to the task, it sounds as if she was born to do it.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    4
    The album is certainly not the obvious follow-up to a smash record meant to redefine her as a bad girl. It exceeds those expectations.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Free Reign
    Thanks, in part, to Sudbury native and co-mixer Daniel Lopatin (lately more well known as vibe-conjuring electronic artist Oneohtrix Point Never), the sound of Free Reign is both fantastically new and classic Clinic.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Good Time
    This is another Alan Jackson record that will stand the test of time.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Heartbeat Radio
    Norwegian songsmith Sondre Lerche has done it again: assembled another batch of perfect pop tunes that manage to be upbeat while wistful, optimistic while nostalgic.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Glitter And Doom Live
    If this is as close as you get to hearing Waits live, it’s an illuminating snapshot of an artist whose concerts are increasingly rare and compelling.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Desired Effect
    The Desired Effect absolutely brims with pop-rock goodness, spanning several styles that are tied together by the singer’s gifts for combining an instantly memorable tune, clever turns of phrase, ace instrumentation, and his airy yet powerful voice.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    FFS
    FFS is more than worth the wait: a stylish, outsized romp that balances Franz Ferdinand’s gentlemanly muscle with Sparks’s adoration for the theatrical.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Light of the Sun
    As with her previous works, Scott makes music on her own terms and she isn't interested in hook/chorus factory-produced songwriting. Intermittently, Scott veers from the warm, intimate keyboard-based sound that has dominated much of her work. When she does, it's inspired.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mr. Misunderstood
    Church had already set the bar high for himself with his watershed 2011 release, “Chief,” and more disparate 2014 album, “The Outsiders.” He vaults over that bar with “Mr. Misunderstood,” in some ways a love letter to music itself and to the ways it can save a soul, a heart, a sense of self.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Under the Covers, Vol. 3
    The whole set is a treat.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Con
    It's a dark, personal record that holds big promises for the future.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Is the Is Are
    The buoyancy at the center of the open-road-ready “Dopamine,” subtly urgent “Yr Not Far,” and chiming “Loose Ends” makes the 17 tracks drift by like a breeze on a particularly carefree spring day.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It's Real
    blast it loud and blast it proud. This is a summer album. It’s as colorful and sweet-tart as a cone melting in the sun, rolled in crunchies and glitter.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ratchet
    n album of movement that reaches toward the sublime.... Ratchet meanders a bit near the end, but its haze also mirrors the slow awakening that marks the end of a night spent reaching for dance-floor ecstasy.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cosmic Hallelujah
    Chesney isn’t one to rest on his laurels, and his 17th album, Cosmic Hallelujah, bears that out.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Take Care
    His second full-length, out today, is a mighty thing, every bit as turbulent and achingly defensive as Kanye West's "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy."
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Simply Grand
    Simply Grand is an album whose charms are too subtle to catch on the first spin or third, but enough listens will make it clear that the album's title is nothing more than a statement of fact.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Yonder Is The Clock
    The band does not so much make this record as keep it from flying apart. The intoxicating sound is matched with incisive word play, with the Felices using quirky laments and dark, urban poetry to bridge hillbilly and hipster.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Monterey
    It’s no slight to say there’s not much here beyond the classic songcraft, the splendor of their high-lonesome harmonies, and the way their guitars entwine and frame the songs so beautifully.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    World Peace Is None of Your Business
    It’s a reminder that no matter how badly you might think he behaves, Morrissey still does not mince words. And his music is vital because of it.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Can't Fly Without Gravity
    His formula-defying sixth record probably won’t provide his breakthrough [in the United States], but it’s an undeniable creative triumph.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dance Mother
    For all its immediately recognizable debts, "Dance Mother" is something fresh.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Boy Who Knew Too Much
    If you prefer your pop preternaturally gleeful, Mika is your man. The Boy Who Knew Too Much, his second kaleidoscopic pile-up, is chock-full of bright, brash anthems.
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