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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    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    case/lang/veirs
    The work is what counts, and it's the songs and their organic presentation that make case/lang/veirs resonate.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Stranger to Stranger
    On Stranger to Stranger (Concord), his 13th solo album, he blends the custom-made, fancifully titled cloud-chamber bowls and chromelodeons of maverick composer Harry Partch with an army of globe-spanning musicians into off-kilter pop songs.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Fallen Angels
    As mood pieces go, Fallen Angels is a notch or two below its predecessor.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    2
    2 picks up where the debut left off, with trace elements of Southern swampiness mingling with sun-kissed West Coast mellowness.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Coloring Book [Mixtape]
    What made "Surf" and now "Coloring Book" compelling is his ability to let his personality seep into the broad canvases on which he and his collaborators paint.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    A Moon Shaped Pool
    A casual listen or two might consign A Moon Shaped Pool to the latest in a series of Radiohead releases post-“Kid A” (2000) that are more about texture and arty experimentation than guitar rock or pop structure. But as with most Radiohead releases, there’s something more going on.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Ship
    An album that has few direct antecedents in his vast discography and arrives as a late-career landmark.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Lemonade
    It’ll take a while to absorb everything that Beyonce has poured into her sixth studio album--a dozen songs plus a 60-minute movie that is more than just a mere advertisement for the music, but an essential companion that provides context and deepens understanding. But it’s apparent already that Lemonade is the artist’s most accomplished and cohesive work yet.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Hope Six Demolition Project
    It all builds masterfully to a powerful, closing one-two punch.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Patch the Sky
    Patch the Sky is something of a darker twin to the 2014 "Beauty and Ruin," itself an album filled with grief and reckoning. But the music, in contrast to the often bleak, edge-of-despair lyrics, is cleansing.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Post Pop Depression
    For all of Pop's well-earned reputation as a bare-chested banshee in concert, he has an expressive, even sonorous baritone voice, and a pithiness as a lyricist. His words brim with battle-scarred imagery and humor.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    untitled unmastered.
    Untitled, Unmastered is presented as an unfinished work, though it rarely sounds like one.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    God Don't Never Change: The Songs of Blind Willie Johnson
    An understandable reverence prevails over most of these primarily straight-forward interpretations, but a handful dig a level deeper.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Dig in Deep
    Dig in Deep prompts a fresh perspective on Raitt herself and a five-decade musical career that is still unfolding and revealing new facets.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Love Yes
    In trying to break away from synth-pop cliche, the quartet sometimes ends up simply overdoing the songs. Yet the band's mastery of contrasting textures remains impressive (versatile rhythm section, a chameleon-like keyboardist), and Teeny Lieberson's voice meets every challenge.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Scheherazade
    Fortunately, the music and, above all, the voices of the two singers fight through the darkness. The voices complement, converse and contradict, like sisters finishing or amplifying each other's sentences.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Catastrophist
    They're best when dabbling in the exotic, the offbeat, the slightly unsettling. Smooth surfaces are never quite what they seem in the best Tortoise songs.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Adore Life
    On the follow-up, Adore Life (Matador), the fight in this band is still audible. But there's something else too--desire, cutting humor, vulnerability.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Blackstar
    Mood frequently trumps melody, but the music is rarely flat or monochrome.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Ties That Bind: The River Collection [Box Set]
    It's an iconic if flawed album. But the overflow of songs presented on The Ties That Bind makes for a great argument-starter. Did Springsteen assemble the best version of The River? This boxed set provides evidence for piecing together an even better one.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Art Angels
    The first half of the album follows one knockout punch with another, with guitar-centric melodies underpinned by glitchy electronics that have more in common with 1980s post-punk and early industrial music than they do the pop mainstream.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    25
    She sprinkles just enough specifics amid the cliches to identify the songs as her story, rather than a cut-and-paste factory job assembled by a committee of songwriters. But the music itself sticks to a formula centered on piano ballads and churchy hymns.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Silver Bullets
    There are no throwaways on this album.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Divers
    Newsom can still be a daunting listen, and Divers requires time and attention to fully embrace. Those who do invest in it will find an artist whose highly personal art is edging toward the universal.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Agent Intellect
    The album (and the Detroit quartet's career so far) peaks near the end with two brilliant songs, in which the humanity that underpins this bleak, bracing music finally becomes undeniable.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Unbreakable
    The low-key approach may not be enough to storm the charts. But the mood suits her.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Crosseyed Heart
    The guy who wrote "Angie," "Wild Horses," and "Ruby Tuesday" sprinkles the album with ballads, though the only one that has a pulse is Gregory Isaacs' reggae lament "Love Overdue." The other slow ones wobble.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Imani, Vol. 1
    The tracks brim with sing-along choruses, strutting horns and bright melodies that evoke the heyday of Philly soul, the mystic optimism of Earth Wind & Fire and the "Car Wash" soundtrack.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Ones and Sixes
    Returning to some of the stylistic inroads made on its 2007 album Drums and Guns, Low builds a framework out of electronic static and subterranean feedback.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Beauty Behind the Madness
    He's aiming for harder truths, creating pop that also works as a commentary on choice and consequence.
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