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
    • 75 Critic Score
    Unbreakable
    The low-key approach may not be enough to storm the charts. But the mood suits her.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Forever Turned Around
    The 10 tracks emerge from a web of interlocking melodies, with horns, strings, keyboards and guitar weaving counterpoint lines. It never feels overstuffed, because the rhythm section focuses on subtle swing rather than power.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Life Of Pablo
    Sounds like a work in progress rather than a finished album.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Cupid Deluxe
    It’s an atmosphere soaked in deceptively mellow and melancholy neo-soul, another take on the worlds created by Sade’s whispered regrets and the Weeknd’s decadent obsessions.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Grass Punks
    Grass Punks, from Los Angeles-via-North Dakota singer-songwriter Tom Brosseau, sounds at first like the perfect album for winter shut-ins: a quietly seductive combination of acoustic stringed instruments, serene melodies and pristine vocals. But the songs are too prickly to be reduced to background music for a gray, melancholy afternoon.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Stronger With Each Tear
    Stronger With Each Tear, her ninth studio release, continues a string of releases that play like self-empowerment pep talks garnished by pop assembly-line producers.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Rome
    Rome does one better than conjure nostalgia; it puts those vintage signifiers in service of fine, contemporary songs.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Jade Bird
    With relatively strain-free production that sprinkles orchestral textures across folk-rock arrangements, Bird also shows an affinity for lifting the emotional temperature at lower volume levels.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    When Fish Ride Bicycles
    It makes for a solid if unremarkable follow-up, the kind of release that buys a little more time for the Cool Kids to live up to their original promise.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Mosquito
    The payoff is the trio of reveries that closes the album: “Always,” “Despair” and “Wedding Song” build on the disarming vulnerability of “Maps,” and deepen it.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    OFF!
    The album blurs past in less than 16 minutes and then demands to be played again.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Rated R
    Nothing else on the album can top 'Russian Roulette,' but they certainly complement it, and make its startling conclusion feel sadly inevitable.
    • 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.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Heads Up
    The band has become more adept at bringing its love of body music to the forefront and melding it with experimental impulses.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Master of My Make-Believe
    White's subversive way with a hook and her ability to effortlessly blend dance beats from around the world make "Master of My Make-Believe" a deceptively breezy and enticing summer album.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Dreamer/The Believer
    Between the we-shall-overcome optimism and the get-loose lustiness, Common and No I.D. combine to deliver a knockout track that defines the album.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Teeth Dreams
    Overall, hits outweigh the misses in what adds up as one of the band's darkest albums.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Warpaint
    Even though Warpaint's songs take their time, once they sink in, they stick around.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Slipstream
    The Henry-produced songs are so accomplished, the sonic chemistry so enveloping and hypnotic, that one wishes Raitt had taken the entire album in this direction.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Rave On Buddy Holly
    The performances range wildly in ambition, from straight-forward readings (Justin Townes Earle's "Maybe Baby") to spooky reinventions (Julian Casablancas' electro-shock "Rave On").
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Living Proof
    Amid the album's stolid, sometimes plodding traditionalism, Guy's shrapnel-tossing tone brings some much-needed tension and surprise.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The London Sessions
    The result is her most vital album in years, one that not only carves out a niche for her in contemporary dance music but also digs deeply into her gospel and soul-ballad roots.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Union Town [EP]
    Though Morello's blunt originals don't leave much room for poetry or subtlety, hearing him perform "Union Song" at the Madison rally invokes a certain rabble-rousing spirit that Billy Bragg surely would recognize.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Golden Archipelago
    The details – the drone of a guitar string, the reverberation of a drum mallet, the swoon of a string section --- are reason enough to reward a close listen.
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