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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    • 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.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Hot Thoughts
    This is not a dilettantish push into the unknown. Spoon has been heading in this direction for years, and in many ways Hot Thoughts is the payoff.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Dig in Deep
    Dig in Deep prompts a fresh perspective on Raitt herself and a five-decade musical career that is still unfolding and revealing new facets.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Historian
    As good as “No Burden” was, Historian is better: songs like short stories; sneakily hard-hitting arrangements; dreaminess and catharsis, often in the space of a few verses.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    True Love Cast Out All Evil
    Erickson's voice transparent and vulnerable, the lyrics direct yet poetic, sifting through years of pain for signs of hope. With the exception of the howling "John Lawman," the music is contemplative and atmospheric, a mix of field recordings from the past and unfussy, live-in-the-studio interactions.
    • 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.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Of the Sun
    It distills what has made Trupa Trupa a must-see in past years at music conferences such as South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Next Day
    It’s his most consistent and rewarding work since “Scary Monsters and Super Creeps” in 1980.
    • 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.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Ivy Tripp
    Crutchfield keeps her songs concise, and weaves in subtle forget-me-nots.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Somewhere Else
    Somewhere Else [is] her third and best album.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Morning Phase
    Beck’s blend of acoustic instruments, twinkling percussion and wordless vocal harmonies feels weightless, evanescent, sometimes lovely. But when David Campbell’s strings make themselves heard, Morning Phase becomes something more than just a sequel to Beck’s best album.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Researching the Blues
    The band doesn't break much ground--if you loved their '90s albums, chances are you'll appreciate this one. But maturity has its own rewards.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Benjamin Booker
    The production will frustrate those who demand cleaner sounds, who like their vocals to rise above the rhythm section. Instead the singer's voice folds into the noise, just another grimy texture on an album that treats the blues not as a museum piece, but as a roadmap of one prodigal son's early life.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    They Want My Soul
    The quintet likes to pull melody out of dissonance and repetition. Now they've also found the soul.
    • 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.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Your Future Our Clutter
    The songs sometimes meander in search of focus, but once they do, the band bangs away with a fierce, bulldog tenacity.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Push the Sky Away
    Lovely strings, flute and backing vocals occasionally shed some light, but mostly this is Cave playing it slow, hushed and haunted.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    I Learned The Hard Way
    I Learned the Hard Way (Daptone) is a master class in soul singing, songwriting and arranging.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Ecstatic
    His fourth solo release, The Ecstatic (Downtown), reaffirms why hip-hop aficionados cared about him in the first place.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Ode To Joy
    Though it encompasses traditional elements, “Ode to Joy” falls on the quirkier side of the Wilco spectrum, an album that prizes subtlety and intimacy over immediacy and dynamics.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Trackless Woods
    As the songs unfold, the nuances in DeMent's vocals become more apparent, as painterly as the poet's words.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar
    The band's debut studio album is more Lullaby than ceaseless roar. As such, it leaves more room for Plant to explore the next time he gets together with this formidable crew.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Sing the Delta
    On this quiet beauty of an album, she once again makes a virtue of her modesty.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Magic Whip
    It's actually quite good; not exactly a return to the band's mid-'90s Brit-pop peak, but a welcome progression beyond. Blur delivers a stranger, more atmospheric but still melodic brand of electro-folk salted with rock guitar and orchestral sweep.
    • Chicago Tribune
      • Posted Apr 27, 2015
    • 81 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Crack-Up
    Most of the songs are not nearly as immediate [as "On Another Ocean (January/June)" and "If You Need to, Keep Time on Me"], with elaborate and often pretty arrangements that hold the listener at arm's length with too-similar tempos and sparing hooks. Pecknold clearly has a lot on his mind, but he pays a price for stuffing all his ideas into suites.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Sweet Heart Sweet Light
    There's nothing sappy or draggy about the music, though. It can be crushing and corrosive, with just a hint of sweetness and hope. That tension suits Pierce.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Villains
    An album that makes a virtue of its uneasiness, its unwillingness to settle down. Homme turns his restlessness into a virtue.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Bravest Man in the Universe
    It adds up to Womack's strongest work since the early '80s.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Sorry To Bother You
    WAVIP closes the album with an anti-climatic "we are all V.I.P." chant, the only dud on an album that otherwise makes even the hardest-hitting messages sound care-free and danceable.
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