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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    • 87 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    22, A Million
    Bon Iver is moving on, but to where exactly? Even Justin Vernon doesn't appear to know, which may be why this transitional album sounds so muddled and the songs so elusive.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Western Stars
    The large-scale orchestrations rarely complement the mood. Instead, they barge in, a river of syrup that drowns the sense of betrayal in “Stones,” gushes through “The Wayfarer” and inspires some of Springsteen’s most egregious Gene Pitney-style over-emoting in “Sundown” and the disastrously overdone “There Goes My Miracle.”
    • 84 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Thanks for the Dance
    Overall, though, the songs don’t measure up. ... And it’s clear why. The master songwriter simply ran out of time.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Contra
    The musical detail is impressive, if not quite adding up to as many catchy songs as on the debut. A greater concern is that after two albums, it's pretty apparent that Vampire Weekend doesn't really have a whole lot to say.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    I Am Easy to Find
    The arrangements only rarely bring out the drama in these interactions. The intimacy becomes wearying, with spoken-word interludes, interstitial pieces and hushed vocals stretching the 16 songs to 64 minutes, an experiment in search of a direction. The most radical album of the National’s career is also its most disappointing.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Praise & Blame
    With Praise & Blame, Jones dials down the camp and tries to act his age--he turned 70 in June. So what we get is a more refined, more serious Jones, and that's no fun at all.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Center Won't Hold
    Much of “The Center Won’t Hold” doesn’t sound like the old Sleater-Kinney, which is precisely the point. Brownstein and Tucker prefer to go charging into the future, but at the expense of some of the very attributes that made them so compelling in the first place.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Biophilia
    Only "Virus" connects in the way Bjork's best work can, uniting the fundamental optimism and wonder underlining this project with music that sounds otherworldly yet welcoming.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Days Are Gone
    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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wasting Light
    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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wrecking Ball
    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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    I'm New Here
    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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Winter Of Mixed Drinks
    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.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Terror
    It sounds like it was made by the last survivor on a dying planet, a final transmission from an underground bunker.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hesitation Marks
    Too much of Hesitation Marks sounds tentative.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Depression Cherry
    Many of the songs address the notion of transition and change, of leaving one part of life behind and moving into another, and Depression Cherry sounds like the work of a tentative band working through its own transition, unsure of its next move.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Watch the Throne
    In many ways, West and Jay-Z are saying something similar on their new album. But their approach is not to shine a spotlight on their community. Instead, they urge listeners to "watch the throne," and gaze in awe on their good fortune.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Everyday Robots
    The album's attempts at shaking up the down-tempo, down-hearted mood fall short.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Life Of Pablo
    Sounds like a work in progress rather than a finished album.
    • 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.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ultraviolence
    Ultraviolence almost qualifies as a parody. Unfortunately, there's not enough punch in the songs to make listeners care whether she's joking or not.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Glastonbury 2000 [Live]
    Bowie at his best was both a crowd-pleaser and provocateur, a pop visionary and an avant-garde subversive. The crowd-pleaser is on full-force display at Glastonbury 2000, but the facets of his stage persona that made him the most unsettling of rock stars are nowhere to be found.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    False Priest
    The hooks are more pronounced and the bottom end beefed up, which gives Barnes' R&B leanings a lot more dancefloor appeal and makes songs such as the buttery Solange duet "Sex Karma" sound better than anything Prince has come up with in years. But the affectations remain troubling.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive
    Maybe working on a novel distracted Earle, but the feisty dust-kicker of old appears to have taken this one off.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hardwired...To Self-Destruct
    It's an album that would be far improved if it were chopped in half.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Caracal
    Pleasantly executed exercise in retro dance pop.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dark Night Of The Soul
    Unfortunately, the ambitious concept proves too unwieldy to work as a consistent album.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    What We Saw from the Cheap Seats
    Most of the songs are so flat that the singer sounds constrained.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Welcome Oblivion
    Much of Welcome to Oblivion feels like a 65-minute placeholder akin to a remix album rather than a major new direction for Reznor to pursue.
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