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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    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Everything Now
    ["Creature Comfort" is] one of the album's strongest moments, matched by "Electric Blue," in which Regine Chassagne's delicate voice floats over a wistful yet hypnotic electro groove. Much of the rest struggles to stay buoyant.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Nothing Is Quick In The Desert
    Nothing is Quick in the Desert--its 14th studio recording--flexes the group's stadium-rap muscle. This was an album specifically designed to be played live, and some of the subtlety and nuance that informs Chuck D's most incisive raps is missing.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Crack-Up
    Most of the songs are not nearly as immediate [as "On Another Ocean (January/June)" and "If You Need to, Keep Time on Me"], with elaborate and often pretty arrangements that hold the listener at arm's length with too-similar tempos and sparing hooks. Pecknold clearly has a lot on his mind, but he pays a price for stuffing all his ideas into suites.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Melodrama
    This is a personal singer-songwriter album outfitted in pop colors. Strings swoop, backing vocals become percussion beds, keyboards are smudged and distorted with dance club grime, beats ascend and then dissolve.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    CHUCK
    The singer goes on autopilot for "Jamaica Moon," a thin rewrite of his Caribbean-flavored '50s composition, "Havana Moon," and "She Still Loves You," a cousin to his forlorn "Memphis." When Berry wanders outside his songwriting safety zone, stranger sides of his personality emerge.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Witness
    Booker soundtracks his anxiety with music that feels more textured and spacious than any he has made previously.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Sacred
    The bulk of the 14-track album is more than just a rehash of past glories. Notably, this latest incarnation of the Obsessed benefits from the cleanest production on just about any Wino-related project.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Dirty Pictures, Pt. 1
    Dirty Pictures (Part 1) (Contender) comes close enough often enough to qualify as a worthy substitute for one of the Philadelphia quintet's bar-room blowouts.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Harry Styles
    As debuts by boy-group alums go, Harry Styles goes bolder than expected. It establishes that Styles can pull off a more mature sound and style, but it lacks the hooks and pop appeal of One Direction's big hits.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Humanz
    Amid a series of electronic soundscapes that incorporate club, dance hall, R&B and hip-hop rhythms and textures, Albarn packs the album with songs that speak to the instability of uncertain times.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    DAMN.
    Damn. strips down the rhythms to their essence, flavored with the occasional cameo (notably Rihanna and U2). Lamar’s voice does most of the heavy lifting, playing multiple roles and characters. His supple singing complements a variety of rap tones and textures.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Robyn Hitchcock
    ather than reinventing himself, Hitchcock has made an album that underlines his strengths.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Mental Illness
    This is a solid addition to Mann's estimable discography, the kind of record that sets a mood and sustains it for 39 craftsmanlike minutes.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Hot Thoughts
    This is not a dilettantish push into the unknown. Spoon has been heading in this direction for years, and in many ways Hot Thoughts is the payoff.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Heartworms
    After a decade-plus in which they've evolved from cult heroes to respected major-label denizens, the Shins still prove capable of delivering a few surprises.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Drunk
    Each of his solo albums reflects that musical range, and Drunk (Brainfeeder) crams 23 songs and snippets into 51 minutes that evoke the sumptuous jazz-infused R&B of the '70s, filtered through catchy melodies, undergirded by virtuoso musicianship and salted with conflicting emotions.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    In Between
    The band doesn't need to say much, because that message is there in the music.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Drogas Light
    It falters beneath its own cynicism. Rather than continuing to forge his own sound in tandem with longtime producer Soundtrakk, he chooses to co-opt mainstream currency--the gangsta tropes of trap music, the club rhythms of EDM--and delivers a mix of parody and second-rate would-be radio singles.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Nothing Feels Natural
    It sounds fully formed and wickedly confident, the work of four people who had to get a few things off their chest.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Hey Mr Ferryman
    In a sparser framework, the singer and his songs flourish. Eitzel's spite and self-deprecating humor rub shoulders on "The Road" and "In my Role as Professional Singer and Ham."
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Ty Segall (2017)
    If you're looking for a relatively concise 10-track, 36-minute introduction into the best of Segall's music, this is it.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Near to the Wild Heart of Life
    At its best, "Wild Heart of Life" approaches that recording's [2012's "Celebration Rock"] peak moments, but it too often undercuts them by trying to pull the duo out of its minimalist arena-punk corner.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Run the Jewels 3
    The tracks tumble out in short three- and four-minute bursts with barely a pause. The density of the wordplay heightens the dizzying momentum.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Peace Trail
    Young remains a treasure because he refuses to bow to convention, and his inherent distrust of studio sugarcoating or polishing has led to some of the rawest, most powerful music of our time. But it can also lead to slapdash projects such as this one.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Redemption
    A few songs fail to blossom beyond an initial intriguing burst of color. But the album's ambitions reward long-haul, continuous listening.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Blue and Lonesome
    The Jagger on Blue & Lonesome is 73, three years older than Waters was when he died in 1983, and Richards is 72, Watts 75 and guitarist Ronnie Wood 69. In a sense, the Stones have become their elders, and their seasoning as a first-rate blues band is evident.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hardwired...To Self-Destruct
    It's an album that would be far improved if it were chopped in half.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Long Live the Angels
    Subtlety isn't a typical pop virtue, but it suits Sande.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Black America Again
    One of the year's most potent protest albums. ... The album sags midway through with a handful of lightweight love songs, but finishes with some of its most emotionally resounding tracks: the "Glory"-like plea for redemption "Rain" with Legend, the celebration of family that is "Little Chicago Boy," and the staggering "Letter to the Free."
    • 92 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    You Want It Darker
    This is not one of those waiting-at-death's-door late-career farewells that have become a cottage industry since Johnny Cash closed his career with a series of acoustic albums recorded by producer Rick Rubin. It instead presents an artist still near the height of his considerable powers
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