For 566 reviews, this publication has graded:
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51% higher than the average critic
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3% same as the average critic
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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: | I Like to Keep Myself in Pain | |
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Lowest review score: | Graffiti |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 456 out of 566
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Mixed: 97 out of 566
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Negative: 13 out of 566
566
music
reviews
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- Critic Score
Rhye’s debut album, Woman, is a beautifully sequenced song cycle of soul music with the flame turned low. It’s sexy, but not overheated- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Mar 5, 2013
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- Critic Score
The lyrics flirt with turmoil--there are lots of songs about holding on or jumping into the fire, and so forth--but don’t really say much of anything.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Oct 8, 2013
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- Critic Score
The second disc is lower key, a less varied collection of music than Disc 1. Though it might have made sense for tonal variety to distribute the acoustic pieces more evenly between the two albums, they work together in creating a sustained mood piece.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Sep 19, 2014
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"Playful" isn't often the first word that comes to mind when listening to music with this kind of cerebral veneer, but it's a perfectly apt description of Battles' subversive and frequently delightful brand of avant-pop.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Jun 6, 2011
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It's a unified album, in which sound is every bit as crucial as craft. Despite the formidable solo careers involved, The Both improbably sounds like the work of a band.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Apr 8, 2014
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- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Oct 27, 2015
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An album where the filler and the nuggets struggle for supremacy. ... Yet even those indifferent to Swift’s charms since she emerged as a teen-pop hitmaker in 2006 would probably acknowledge that she’s got a knack for writing hooks, and there are plenty of them on “Lover.”- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Aug 23, 2019
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“Dream Attic” was looser and rougher than the guitarist had been in quite some time, a timely reminder that Thompson could still let it rip, and Electric follows suit.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Feb 5, 2013
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Booker soundtracks his anxiety with music that feels more textured and spacious than any he has made previously.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Jun 5, 2017
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The best of it affirms that Drake is shaping a pop persona with staying power.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Nov 14, 2011
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It's all competently done, but none of it matches the invention of Grohl's drumming in the last decade with Queens of the Stone Age, Probot or Them Crooked Vultures.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Apr 11, 2011
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Whatever you think of Mellencamp, this is the kind of record that will compel a re-evaluation, an out-of-leftfield shot that mostly works because of its modesty, shagginess and humor--qualities not normally associated with the singer in the past.- Chicago Tribune
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The collision of the abstract and the beautiful on Toward the Low Sun affirms the Dirty Three's enduring vitality.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Feb 27, 2012
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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.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Mar 5, 2012
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Recording over five days with his hand-picked band of California-based conspirators (including ace drummer Jay Bellerose and guitarist Greg Leisz), Henry puts the jazz great in a limber, small-group setting well-suited to Allison’s no-frills style and laconic tone.- Chicago Tribune
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With its array of loops, chilled keyboards and rhythmic accents ranging from the Caribbean to the Mississippi Delta, Sun makes Marshall's sultry, darkly shaded voice sound almost playful at times.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Sep 4, 2012
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- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Feb 22, 2019
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Patterson Hood's plaintive growl couldn't suit his songs better, and Mike Cooley adds a plainspoken twang.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Feb 15, 2011
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El-P has never sounded more scathingly unhinged as an MC. Killer Mike, who brought an urban philosopher’s mind set to “R.A.P. Music,” conjures that same level of intensity when he rains down insults alongside his new sidekick.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Jul 8, 2013
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2 picks up where the debut left off, with trace elements of Southern swampiness mingling with sun-kissed West Coast mellowness.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted May 19, 2016
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They're deceptively laid-back satirists who deliver their smackdowns amid da-da streams of consciousness, sometimes with such subtlety that by the time the joke finally registers they're off on a fresh, equally strange and frequently hilarious tangent.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Sep 14, 2011
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Hanna has actually upped the ante. In many ways, this is the singer's most personal and musically diverse album.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Jul 11, 2016
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The 28-minute length of this album adds to the impression that this feels more like a demo, a collection of fragments woven by Russell into a cautionary mood piece, rather than a major comeback.- Chicago Tribune
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Pearl Jam was typecast as the corporate pretenders to Nirvana's punk darlings in the Seattle hierarchy circa 1991, but they've not only endured but grown as a band--a case concisely made by the Pearl Jam 20 soundtrack.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Sep 20, 2011
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The Providence, R.I., group’s third studio album, Cost of Living (Sub Pop), marks a step up in production clarity, with Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto slightly altering the band’s balance of power while retaining its not-having-it attitude.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Aug 14, 2017
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The album doesn't lift off until it's nearly over.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Feb 17, 2015
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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.- Chicago Tribune
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Slayer has remained unrelentingly true to its origins. The innovations no longer arrive with each album, but the quartet is playing at a high level, and Greg Fidelman’s production captures that sound with thrilling, their-fist-your-face immediacy.- Chicago Tribune
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The album aims for pleasure rather than introspection, and most of the time, it hits the mark.- Chicago Tribune
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The follow-up amplifies the hooks, widens the scope, deepens the wordplay.- Chicago Tribune
- Posted Apr 5, 2019
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