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
    • 63 Critic Score
    National Ransom
    As with many of his releases the last decade, National Ransom is kind of a mess, with enough scattered gems to reward deeper investigation.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Marauder
    [“If You Really Love Nothing” is] one of Interpol’s best recent songs, but its standard proves difficult to maintain on what is in many ways a typically hit-and-miss latter-day Interpol album.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Bon Iver
    The sound is a good deal plusher, the arrangements thickened with pedal steel, saxophone, horns, percussion. But Vernon still sounds like he's back in that Wisconsin cabin that birthed "Emma."
    • 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.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Lazaretto
    It's only when White breaks through the more familiar framework that the album sparks.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Tron: Legacy
    It's a hint of what may come, a bridge to something greater than this first, tentative attempt at a more ornate sound.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    The Truth About Love
    It's not the left-field pop classic she seems capable of one day creating, but it also contains a handful of tracks that laser in on exactly what she does best.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Rose Mountain
    It's likely that guitar-rock fans who have never heard Screaming Females before will find this a solid introduction to a great band. Here's hoping they are intrigued enough to discover the richer rewards to be found in the trio's back catalog.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Born This Way
    It is the sound of a major artist sprinting to please everyone all the time – and even a pop star as inclusive as Gaga can't pull that off.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Freedom's Goblin
    With 10 tracks spread across a mere 36 minutes, Segall’s self-titled 2017 album functioned as an instant career overview. As the longer, less-focused sequel, Freedom’s Goblin comes off as almost too much of a good but increasingly overfamiliar thing.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Angles
    If nothing else, Angles makes it impossible to predict where the Strokes will go next.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    The Fall
    Mostly, this is Albarn making one for the headphone-obsessed in his fan base, a soundtrack for kicking back in the back seat and watching the world drift past.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Hurley
    The song's stitched-together feel is also emblematic of an album that feels a bit rushed.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Invitation
    It’s a convivial though seldom revelatory collection of straight-up verse-chorus-bridge pop-rock songs.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Under Great White Northern Lights [Live]
    But right down to the tongue-in-cheek stage patter (“My name’s Jack White and this is my big sister Meg White on the drums!”) there’s nothing here that White Stripes’ fans haven’t heard before.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    4
    She reportedly considered 70-plus songs and hired a variety of collaborators, ranging from Babyface to M.I.A. producer Switch, and yet the album feels skimpy, half-finished.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    reputation
    But the Swift who used to treat her fans like confidantes instead of a marketing demographic resurfaces only as the album winds down.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    If You're Reading This It's Too Late [Mixtape]
    The album doesn't lift off until it's nearly over.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Move Like This
    Outside of that immaculate first album, the Cars always made better singles anyway, and that's still true here.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Everything Will Be Alright in the End
    Everything will likely add a few tunes to the pile of singalongs, but likely won't change anyone's mind about what the band's greatest albums still are.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    M B V
    Shields and his bandmates have made a transitional album, one that nods to the band’s storied peak but winds up heading in a new direction.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Let England Shake
    Harvey doesn't preach, she merely describes, the lilting voice and the light melodies creating a surreal backdrop for mayhem.
    • 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.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Behind the Shade
    About half the album falls into a bland exercise in proficiency for these rock lifers, flavored by horns and saxophone that sound tacked on.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Fear Inoculum
    The album plays like an extended mood piece that bends and drifts, with a shortage of the crushing hard-rock crescendos and riffs that defined the band’s work on “Lateralus” (2001) and before.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City
    Some of the shaggy verve of old has been sacrificed, and the latter half of the album lacks the emotional specificity of Alex’s best work. A few quieter acoustic tracks, augmented by understated strings and horns, echo the singer’s work in his alter-ego project, Quiet Slang, and provide some welcome textural variety.
    • 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.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Disgraceland
    The gussied-up production--by respected names such as TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek, Chris Coady (who worked with another up-and-coming Chicago group, Smith Westerns) and Jim Abbiss (Arctic Monkeys)--subtracts the charming sloppiness of 2012 debut "Remember When" and amps up the popcraft, but loses some of the energy.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Port of Morrow
    For the Shins major-label debut, he [James Mercer] has enlisted pop producer Greg Kurstin (who has worked with everyone from Kesha to Beck) to sharpen, polish and broaden the sound, and the results are decidely mixed.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Anastasis
    With this less melodramatic, late-period Dance Can Dance, the finer things are encoded in the details.
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