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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    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Under the Savage Sky
    Greenberg again contributes a handful of songs to the toughest sounding Savages recording yet.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood
    The freshness of Shifty Adventures owes to his love of surprise and subversion.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Time's All Gone
    Waterhouse's pleasingly wrecked guitar playing is matched by singing that teeters out of control every so often, like he's trying to tamp down a wild animal in his throat.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Dark Matter
    The 73-year-old songwriter shows no sign of being at a loss for words about the dark comedy known as the human condition. He even puts a new twist on his already unconventional approach to song form.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Revelations
    On Revelations, he serves notice that his sound and vision have returned intact.
    • 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.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Songs Cycled
    There’s nothing musty about his arrangements, a sharp melding of pop melody and new-classical harmonics. Parks also brings a wry and pointed flair for political and social commentary.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Pearl Jam 20 [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
    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.
    • 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.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Teeth Dreams
    Overall, hits outweigh the misses in what adds up as one of the band's darkest albums.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Street Songs of Love
    What makes it work is the sheer exuberance of the performances, the roar coming from the speakers. This is an album about the heart, but it hits below the belt--it wants to make you move.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Melodrama
    This is a personal singer-songwriter album outfitted in pop colors. Strings swoop, backing vocals become percussion beds, keyboards are smudged and distorted with dance club grime, beats ascend and then dissolve.
    • 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.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Real
    The music is more refined than previous Loveless albums. With the exception of the sonic roar in "Same to You," the pleasures on Real turn on instrumental subtleties.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Element Of Freedom
    It's her most consistent album and also her most low-key.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Once More 'Round the Sun
    If not exactly lighthearted, Once More 'Round the Sun is certainly the brightest and catchiest of the six Mastodon albums.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Banga
    For the rest of her 11th studio album she makes good on her word, drawing connections across history between cultures, generations and genres of music.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Our Pathetic Age
    “Our Pathetic Age” addresses big topics — social media alienation, nefarious government oppression, the suppression of individuality — but refuses to knuckle under. By breaking sounds loose from the strictures of time and genre, DJ Shadow implies that the music still runs free.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Hit Reset
    Hanna has actually upped the ante. In many ways, this is the singer's most personal and musically diverse album.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Voyager
    Nothing feels particularly overdone, and the album plays smoothly enough to qualify as background music for a sand bar.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Help Us Stranger
    Help Us Stranger brims with unapologetic rock songs that mine ‘60s and ‘70s signifiers without getting stuck there. Yet it’s the ballads that give the album its unexpected emotional heft.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Wise Up Ghost and Other Songs
    Tempos drag in the Latin-flavored "Cinco Minutos Con Vos" and the static "Viceroy's Row," and the title track is a mood piece that never climbs out of neutral. But even these misfires feel like experiments that fell short, while the rest of "Wise Up Ghost" revels in its uneasiness.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Volume Two
    Like its predecessor, Volume II stands outside current production trends, and it’s built to last on its own modest terms.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Mojo
    These aren’t classic Petty songs, but they are sturdy vehicles for a terrific, if frequently underrated band.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    MDNA
    It's her best album since "Ray of Light" in 1998.
    • 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.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns
    Every album contains a few moments of mastery, and Dirty Jeans is no exception.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Drums Between the Bells
    The newly minted Drums Between the Bells with poet Rick Holland, don't break ground, but serve as pleasant place-holders for Eno obsessives.
    • 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
    • 75 Critic Score
    OFF!
    The album blurs past in less than 16 minutes and then demands to be played again.
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