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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    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Collapse into Now
    What better band to cover R.E.M. than R.E.M.? That's exactly what the longtime Athens, Ga., trio sounds like it's doing on its 15th studio album, Collapse Into Now.
    • 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.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Born to Die
    After all the hub-bub of recent weeks, one of Lee's greatest songs sums up Del Rey's grand entrance: "Is That All There Is?"
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wrecking Ball
    He's written some resonant songs. But he lost his nerve as a coproducer, going for stadium bombast instead of the unadorned grit these stories of hard times demand.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Contra
    The musical detail is impressive, if not quite adding up to as many catchy songs as on the debut. A greater concern is that after two albums, it's pretty apparent that Vampire Weekend doesn't really have a whole lot to say.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Live It Up
    With the relentlessly bland Live It Up, he becomes the latest in a long line of folk-pop singers air-brushed to melt into the pack, not rise above it.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Mylo Xyloto
    Coldplay has a formula, and formula prevails on Mylo Xyloto despite Eno's presence.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sonic Highways
    Twenty years deep into its career, Foo Fighters could've used a bit of a shake-up, if not a makeover, to re-energize its music. But Sonic Highways provides little more than window-dressing on business as usual.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    What We Saw from the Cheap Seats
    Most of the songs are so flat that the singer sounds constrained.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Winter Of Mixed Drinks
    The problem is that the songs all have a similar arch, with instrumental grandeur substituting for the previous album’s emotional punch and tears-of-rage specifics.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Femme Fatale
    Over a clipped backdrop that at times sounds like white-noise static, bell-like notes accent an airy, almost vaporous vocal. The voice belongs to Spears, but it could be anyone's – an anonymous ghost in the dance machine.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Thanks for the Dance
    Overall, though, the songs don’t measure up. ... And it’s clear why. The master songwriter simply ran out of time.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Depression Cherry
    Many of the songs address the notion of transition and change, of leaving one part of life behind and moving into another, and Depression Cherry sounds like the work of a tentative band working through its own transition, unsure of its next move.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Michael
    It's not that Michael is embarrassing, it's just below par, a warehouse for songs that languished in the vaults for decades because they didn't quite measure up.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Biophilia
    Only "Virus" connects in the way Bjork's best work can, uniting the fundamental optimism and wonder underlining this project with music that sounds otherworldly yet welcoming.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Everyday Robots
    The album's attempts at shaking up the down-tempo, down-hearted mood fall short.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Life Of Pablo
    Sounds like a work in progress rather than a finished album.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Girl on Fire
    Despite being hyped as her most "personal" album, Girl on Fire is really just more of the same.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Blood
    Rather than a personal statement, the music becomes an exercise in smoothness. Even La Havas' vocal power plays don't translate as an emotional imperative so much as a pop formula.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Terror
    It sounds like it was made by the last survivor on a dying planet, a final transmission from an underground bunker.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Glastonbury 2000 [Live]
    Bowie at his best was both a crowd-pleaser and provocateur, a pop visionary and an avant-garde subversive. The crowd-pleaser is on full-force display at Glastonbury 2000, but the facets of his stage persona that made him the most unsettling of rock stars are nowhere to be found.
    • 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.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    ARTPOP
    For all that firepower, the music is catchy but tame--she's cozying up to chart-topping formulas rather than disrupting them.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Party Ain't Over
    Her voice often sounds overly pinched, and the horns come off as gimmicky.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Junk
    Junk, M83's seventh studio album, sounds chintzy--a bubble-gum snyth-pop album that indulges Gonzalez's love of decades-old TV soundtracks, hair-metal guitar solos and kitschy pop songs.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    I Am Easy to Find
    The arrangements only rarely bring out the drama in these interactions. The intimacy becomes wearying, with spoken-word interludes, interstitial pieces and hushed vocals stretching the 16 songs to 64 minutes, an experiment in search of a direction. The most radical album of the National’s career is also its most disappointing.
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