Chicago Tribune's Scores

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For 566 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 51% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 46% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.3 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 73
Highest review score: 100 I Like to Keep Myself in Pain
Lowest review score: 25 Graffiti
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 456 out of 566
  2. Mixed: 97 out of 566
  3. Negative: 13 out of 566
566 music reviews
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    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Swanlights
    On Swanlights, Hegarty's fourth album under the Antony and the Johnsons moniker, the darkness lifts, and the singer sounds almost buoyant.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Le Noise
    The album is full of those kind of unexpected juxtapositions, a stunning statement from an artist who shows no signs of slowing down.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hemingway's Whiskey
    He's a troubadour for the suburbs, a guy who sings about middle-class life with a plainspoken mixture of wistfulness and humor.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Lonely Avenue
    The pianist has a malleable voice, capable of swinging from poignance to sarcasm, though sometimes Hornby's dense wordplay can't help but sound awkward in making the transition from the page to the speakers.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Wake Up!
    This well-intentioned collection never surpasses the strong originals from which it draws. But in pointing young listeners back to the work of fine if mostly forgotten artists such as Baby Huey and Prince Lincoln, Wake Up! serves a worthy purpose.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Hurley
    The song's stitched-together feel is also emblematic of an album that feels a bit rushed.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Band of Joy
    If Plant does nothing more on this album than draw attention to that Duluth, Minn., trio's music, he deserves praise.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    False Priest
    The hooks are more pronounced and the bottom end beefed up, which gives Barnes' R&B leanings a lot more dancefloor appeal and makes songs such as the buttery Solange duet "Sex Karma" sound better than anything Prince has come up with in years. But the affectations remain troubling.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Grinderman 2
    Cave dials down the fiercely vivid imagery for a stark meditation on sex and death that leaves almost everything to the listener's imagination, accompanied by little more than the crackle of static.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Wilderness Heart
    Previous albums saw the band go for a murkier, more spaced-out vibe, but this time it's more about concision and songs.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Dream Attic
    Coincidental or not, the [live] setting opens things up considerably for Thompson the guitarist, his songs gaining an immediacy and intensity that sometimes gets refined away in his sometimes too-careful studio recordings.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Hawk
    It's a rich, insinuating sound, and there's plenty more of it on Hawk. But there are also several twists that make this much more than just a rehash of a proven formula.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Teenage Dream
    With music as rigidly formulaic as this, no wonder the teens in her songs want to party until they blank out.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    No Better Than This
    Whatever you think of Mellencamp, this is the kind of record that will compel a re-evaluation, an out-of-leftfield shot that mostly works because of its modesty, shagginess and humor--qualities not normally associated with the singer in the past.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Come And Get It!
    Reed's second major-label album, Come and Get It! (Capitol), is loaded with terse, catchy pop-soul songs outfitted with sharp horn riffs, taut guitar fills and bouncy bass lines. It's all done well enough. But when he slows down and attempts a ballad such as "Pick Your Battles," Reed's gusto is no longer enough to mask his limitations as a singer.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
    Like the similarly star-studded (but bland) "Twilight" and (insufferably twee) "Juno" soundtracks, Scott Pilgrim is something less than the sum of its parts.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Suburbs
    Even more so than its two predecessors, The Suburbs is an Arcade Fire album designed to be heard as a whole in a specific sequence.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Praise & Blame
    With Praise & Blame, Jones dials down the camp and tries to act his age--he turned 70 in June. So what we get is a more refined, more serious Jones, and that's no fun at all.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    MAYA
    Arulpragasam is trying to negotiate a middle ground between her status as an underground rebel and rising pop celebrity.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dark Night Of The Soul
    Unfortunately, the ambitious concept proves too unwieldy to work as a consistent album.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
    It's full of surface charm, the type of music that is designed to sound big in a club, the soundtrack for a night of excess. But there's very little conventional about these beats and the way Big Boi nimbly spreads his living-large imagery over them.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    How To Destroy Angels
    It adds up to more of a transitional work than a reinvention, a placeholder until Reznor's next major move.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Expo 86
    It has the feel of something assembled at a factory with Wolf Parade parts left over from previous albums. It consolidates strengths rather than taking any bold steps forward.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Street Songs of Love
    What makes it work is the sheer exuberance of the performances, the roar coming from the speakers. This is an album about the heart, but it hits below the belt--it wants to make you move.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    How I Got Over
    The first half of the Roots' ninth studio album, How I Got Over, sounds like a hangover, a brooding meditation on a world teetering toward anarchy.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Recovery
    For an artist who has sold 30 million albums, his latest release is brutally short on hooks and, most of all, fun. The subversive humor is long gone, and his cultural references (David Cook? Austin Powers? Yet another dis of Mariah Carey?) remain dated.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Mojo
    These aren’t classic Petty songs, but they are sturdy vehicles for a terrific, if frequently underrated band.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Thank Me Later
    So Drake isn't the hip-hop savior he was hyped to be. Instead, as he drifts through what should have been his boisterous coming-out party, he comes off as muted and rueful, missing the days when he was 19 and it was just about him and his girlfriend in a college dorm room.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Bionic
    It would've been fascinating to see how far a full-blown collaboration might've taken her, but Aguilera spreads out the songwriting and production credits in search of more hits, most of which come off as flimsy gimmicks.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Destroyer Of The Void
    Things get more interesting when the band loosens up a bit on the multi-part title track; layered harmonies, elegant harpsichord and celestial synthesizers give way to a flamboyant mid-section with some unusually strident, glam-rock guitar.
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