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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    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Belle and Sebastian Write About Love
    It was a promising evolution, but four years later the Scottish band's new album, Write About Love, sounds like old news.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Black Panties
    Kelly is best when he is at his most absurd, comical and over-the-top.... Sometimes, the jokes go too far.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Here Lies Love
    Both Byrne and Fatboy Slim have built careers on beats, the imperative of activating the hips as much as the brain, and they touch on everything from salsa to Philadelphia soul on Here Lies Love. But too often the needs of the narrative supersede the music, and too much of "Here Lies Love" falls into midtempo blandness.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Anthem of the Peaceful Army
    Greta Van Fleet now adds its name to the list of Zep disciples who have made albums that sound kinda, sorta and sometimes exactly like its primary influence. If nothing else, the quartet has demonstrated that guitar-rock can still be popular with a young audience that either hasn’t heard of Led Zeppelin, or prefers Greta’s version to their grandparents’ original.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Blues Funeral
    Lanegan remains a master of mood, his baritone croon one of rock's most inviting instruments. But even that voice can't patch over the weak spots on this inconsistent album.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    King Animal
    They sound more like singer-songwriter leftovers from his solo albums than the stuff of which big rock-band comebacks are made.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Untitled
    Strings, guitars and keyboards add color in carefully measured doses. The songs never develop much beyond their initial verse and chorus and rarely bother with contrasting bridge sections, but that’s the point: No jarring changes to throw off the mood.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ye
    About half the album has West as a role player on tracks that suggest a theater scene, with a handful of voices playing characters (quite possibly all living inside West’s brain). The album moves from spoken-word monologues to more expansive musical settings that try to “take the top off (and) let the sun come in.”
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    I'm with You
    [The] Los Angeles' funk jesters sound like they're treading water.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Before I Self Destruct
    His rhyme battle with Eminem on 'Psycho' has zero redeeming value, but the two old pros fire away with glee trying to out-psychopath each other. But about halfway through the album, 50 Cent detours from the street to the bedroom.
    • 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.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Talk That Talk
    "Talk That Talk" sounds like a rush job designed to keep Rihanna rolling through the holidays.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Twilight Saga: New Moon [OST]
    Much of the rest is mid-level and middle-brow, from respected artists who have done better work elsewhere.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Perfectamundo
    A number of songs feel underdeveloped, little more than chants fitted with a groove that has neither the fire of first-tier Latin music or the witty blues crunch of prime ZZ Top.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    High Hopes
    Little wonder the two finest moments ["Hunter of Invisible Game" and "The Wall"] on this otherwise ho-hum Springsteen album are by a considerable margin its most understated.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook
    The album definitely could’ve used a little more friskiness; as it is, a horn-spackled version of Derek and the Dominoes’ “Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad” and a brisk run-through of the Beatles “The Word” are the only moments where LaVette busts loose from her always heart-felt, but sometimes overly earnest, introspection.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Songs of Innocence
    Songs of Innocence comes off as flat and strangely complacent, even as it pays lip service to youthful inspiration, notably the punk and post-punk of the late '70s.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    You and I
    You and I is more a raw sketch than a fully formed portrait of a 26-year-old artist still coming to terms with what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Scratch My Back
    Gabriel’s decision to pay homage to the core essentials underpinning these songs is a noble one, he also sacrifices many essential ingredients: rhythmic drive, dynamic surprise, harmonic and textural variety. As experiments go, Scratch My Back ranks as a well-intentioned dud.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Watch the Throne
    In many ways, West and Jay-Z are saying something similar on their new album. But their approach is not to shine a spotlight on their community. Instead, they urge listeners to "watch the throne," and gaze in awe on their good fortune.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wrote a Song for Everyone
    It's almost impossible to screw up Fogerty's sturdiest numbers, but some of his collaborators sound like they're trying too hard to put their thumbprints all over them.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Western Stars
    The large-scale orchestrations rarely complement the mood. Instead, they barge in, a river of syrup that drowns the sense of betrayal in “Stones,” gushes through “The Wayfarer” and inspires some of Springsteen’s most egregious Gene Pitney-style over-emoting in “Sundown” and the disastrously overdone “There Goes My Miracle.”
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Welcome Oblivion
    Much of Welcome to Oblivion feels like a 65-minute placeholder akin to a remix album rather than a major new direction for Reznor to pursue.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Magna Carta Holy Grail
    Mostly, this overstuffed album is about Jay-Z and the self-congratulation of his high-powered friends.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Babel
    The real issue with Mumford & Sons is its pedestrian songwriting and predictable delivery.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Blurred Lines
    It’s an album that discourages sitting still. Too bad the icky lyrics ruin the mood.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fortune
    Chris Brown's fifth studio album, Fortune, is a pure-pop candy cane, meant to be enjoyed, consumed and forgotten.
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