Entertainment Weekly's Scores

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For 3,519 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 81% higher than the average critic
  • 1% same as the average critic
  • 18% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 5 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 78
Highest review score: 100 The Idler Wheel Is Wiser than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More than Ropes Will Ever Do
Lowest review score: 0 Playing With Fire
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,085 out of 3519
  2. Mixed: 407 out of 3519
  3. Negative: 27 out of 3519
3519 music reviews
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    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Spirit
    Her lovelorn ballads achieve a dullness to which normally only Americans aspire. [14 Dec 2007, p.67]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Wonders of the Younger
    The idealism is admirable, but after an album of Bambi's worldview via Beach Boys strings, you'll want to put Higgenson down for a nap.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Custom Built
    Custom Built boasts the talents of both Miley Cyrus and Jason Miller from goth-metalers Godhead, who offers a brutal remix of the Rock of Love theme.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Take It To The Limit
    If you were ever young and in love, dumb with drink, and had a head swimming with not just Boone's Farm wine but also Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, and AC/ DC (to name these guys' most blatant anthemic influences), you may be willing to forgive Hinder's lack of originality and preponderance of madonna/whore issues.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Human
    Human is too glib and uneven to ignite new excitement. [2/16/2001, p.99]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    So Amazin'
    Milian's limp attempt at a sassy, streets-friendly R&B sound simply lacks bite and believability. [19 May 2006, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Dirty Vegas
    There's little with teeth on Dirty Vegas' snoozeworthy debut. [21 June 2002, p.84]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Red Light District
    [Ludacris] largely trades in his playful personality for an unbecoming tough-guy posture. [10 Dec 2004, p.93]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    1,000 Years
    Corin Tucker's voice--always so uniquely emotive in the punkier contexts of S-K--looms uncomfortably over songs that sound scrapbooked from other '90s-centric acts (Liz Phair, Pavement) but never take on a form of their own.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Take Care
    What Drake needs is a few more punchlines to brighten up his monochromatic therapy sessions. Surely Canada's excellent healthcare system can underwrite that.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Scars & Stories
    Even producer Brendan O'Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young) can't save Scars & Stories from generic TV-soundtrack mediocrity.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Mylo Xyloto
    What's missing is the innovation that made Viva La Vida so dynamic.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Dead Man Shake
    Westerberg plays blues dress-up with bar-band enthusiasm but not much depth. [24 Oct 2003, p.106]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 60 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Soul Sessions, Vol. 2
    As long as the original recordings by the Chi-Lites and the Rolling Stones continue to exists, Sessions' covers are passionately pointless. [3 Aug 2012, p.74]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Aug 29, 2012
    • 43 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Memories: Do Not Open
    [“Break Up Every Night” is] an actual dance cut. The other cuts are basically ballads with beats--modernized Moby without the soul-searching or gospel samples.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Take off Your Pants & Jacket
    The band work so hard at it, and the music is such processed sounding mainstream rock played fast, that the album becomes a paradox: adolescent energy and rebellion made joyless.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    A Hundred Miles Off
    The CD's austere instrumentation brings out the worst in Leithauser, whose once-endearing tunelessness becomes a whining deterrent.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Weird Revolution
    A typical morass of computerized beat science, vague exoticism, and singer Gibby Haynes' crackpot mantras... [7 Sep 2001, p.164]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    American Doll Posse
    Too bad Posse is a conceptual wreck, because it benefits from some of the beefiest, most borderline-glam-rock moments Amos has put on record.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Fireflies
    Alterna-folkie Lori McKenna's contributions save Hill from schlock overdose. [5 Aug 2005, p.65]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Rebel Heart
    The funny, creative, outrageous Madonna we’ve known is still in here somewhere. It just takes a lot of patience to find her. [Adam Markovitz's review]
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Cradlesong
    One doesn't look to the Matchbox Twenty frontman for musical daredevilry, but his second solo disc falls too often into the mom-rock safety net.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Disconnection Notice
    The band's lyrics make Smash Mouth look like Sartre, and its anthemic choruses never quite jell into actual good songs. [18 Feb 2005, p.78]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The 2nd Law
    Leave the rock operas to other Olympians; like elite sprinters, Muse are best when they're surging straight ahead.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Pocket Symphony
    This is meant as a return to the film-score sounds of Safari. Unfortunately, "hummability" is missing fromthe formula. [9 Mar 2007, p.106]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Mad Season
    Especially in its ballad-heavy second half, mad season feels like the rock equivalent of a chick flick.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Second Round's On Me
    This round goes down like a cheap well drink. [18 Aug 2006, p.139]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Lookaftering
    Bunyan's wispy soprano lacks nuance, making for music that's ultimately more numbing than emotive. [4 Nov 2005, p.71]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Freedom's Road
    Like a political speech, Mellencamp's stadium rock plays to the cheap seats but rarely offers specific critiques or risks giving offense. That this is less than inspiring says as much about modern politics as it does mass-market pop.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Silver Lining
    The nostalgia train is stalled by embarrassing platitudes and well-worn riffs. [14 Jul 2006, p.79]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 83 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Love vs Money
    That alpha-jerk machismo is mitigated somewhat by the intoxicating future-soul sonics on songs like 'Right Side of My Brain.' But The-Dream's vision of romance mostly plays like a nightmare.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Yellowcard
    Although they’ve occasionally strayed from that style of pop-punk over the 13 years since that collection debuted in 2003, their tenth and final record features glimmers of their former selves--for better and for worse.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    3121
    A messier, more elf-indulgent affair than its predecessor. [24 Mar 2006, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Feedback
    The guileless, old-school vibe... feels tired. [28 Jul 2006, p.67]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Amnesiac
    By the sound of it, Radiohead have strayed off into the same territory Yes did over a quarter century ago -- and two pieces of marginalia in a row don't bode well for the outcome. [8 June 2001, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Beat 'Em Up
    A major improvement over Avenue B's acoustic midlife crisis, this self-produced disc finds the Ig yelping off the top of his id again. [27 Jul 2001, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Appeal To Reason
    That's a serious issue on Appeal to Reason; songs like 'Re-Education (Through Labor)' and 'Entertainment,' which seeks to redress the evils of media manipulation upon the land, are peppy but pretty empty, power-chord downers with little bark or bite.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Maladroit
    Unfortunately, Cuomo hasn't come up with enough quality material to match his god-of-thunder conceit.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Here And Now
    The long-awaited hERE aND nOW falls victim to the pair's hokier tendencies.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Incredible Machine
    When having 15,000 fans wave their cell phones in the air goes from a nifty career aftereffect to the very reason for writing songs, it seems like something is amiss.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    New Danger
    A mishmash of mightily uneven demo-quality tracks. [29 Oct 2004, p.67]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Drastic Fantastic
    Drastic Fantastic's airy guitar pop--not to mention Tunstall's muted rasp--feels more technically proficient than passionate. [21 Sep 2007, p.81]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Auf Der Maur
    The album's monolithic sound... feels dated and drab. [4 June 2004, p.80]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 48 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Guilty Pleasure
    At 24, though, she's still treading an overly familiar pop-rock trail already better blazed by 16-year-old Miley Cyrus, and Guilty Pleasure isn't so much pleasurable as simply vapid.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    When The Sun Goes Down
    Songs about island escapes and carefree postadolescence abound. [6 Feb 2004, p.140]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Tomorrow
    Though he's got plenty of hooks, personality is in much shorter supply.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Hymns Of The 49th Parallel
    What's missing are distinctive arrangements or emotional interpretations of the material that would stake lang's own claim to these songs. [30 Jul 2004, p.69]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 51 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Clear as Day
    On Clear as Day, American Idol's latest champ sounds like he's 52, and not just because of the Randy Travis baritone coming from his Opie Taylor mouth.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Greatest Story Ever Told
    All things considered, we like Banner much better when he's angry. [25 Jul 2008, p.71]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 77 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
    If [only] these epic songs glowed hotter along the way. [6 May 2011, p.74]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Apr 29, 2011
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Mama, I'm Swollen
    Tim Kasher is emo's grown-up hero--a punk who pays his mortgage. So it's a little awkward to find the Omaha native stricken with Peter Pan syndrome on Cursive's sixth album, Mama, I'm Swollen.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Taking Chances
    It's cool that Dion can mimic everyone from Shakira to Sam Phillips...but her appalling Janis Joplin impression is a Chance too far. [16 Nov 2007, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Ownerz
    "Skills" and "Rite Where U Stand" show the group's formula can still sizzle, but on the more mundane tracks... Gang Starr sound comfortable, and that's the last thing they'd want. [11 Jul 2003, p.78]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    New Life
    Her seventh album is a thoroughly last-millennium set of self-help ballads about starting over.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Screaming Bloody Murder
    Murder ultimately drowns in flavorless thrashing. [1 Apr 2011, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Apr 8, 2011
    • 45 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Como Ama Una Mujer
    Como Ama does represent a victory for Lopez by offering fairly persuasive proof that, contrary to rumor, she can sing, and without a regiment of background choralists. All that bulking up she's been doing at the vocal gym isn't enough, though, to turn flaccid torch songs into muscle.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Dear Catastrophe Waitress
    The smiley-face vibe and quasi-ironic lyrics... only make the band seem more coy and arch than ever. [10 Oct 2003, p.124]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Let Love In
    Their punk roots are virtually nowhere to be found; now it's all overblown power chords, tambourines, and lovelorn lyrics. [28 Apr 2006, p.135]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Ghetto Postage
    The occasional touch of humor offers too-rare relief from stale rhymes and grooves. [12/15/2000, p.83]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    My World, My Way
    The standard-issue No Limit backing beats vary little from track to track, making Silkk's world and ways hardly shocking. [3/2/01, p.70]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    18 Months
    His new album is called 18 Months, but it doesn't sound like it took anywhere near that long to make.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Days of Gold
    At a certain point, all the blue skies, blue jeans, babes, bros, and brews just start to sound like... blah blah blah. [20 Dec 2013, p.60]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Dec 13, 2013
    • 47 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Battle For Everything
    Weighed down by artificially inflated anthems, garbled lyrics about the apocalypse, and coy attempts at surrealism. [6 Feb 2004, p.140]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Our Endless Numbered Days
    Makes John Mayer sound like Slayer. [21 May 2004, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Charango
    Teeters between cool languor and bland lethargy. [6 Sep 2002, p.86]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Thorns
    When an entire CD turns into a game of spot the classic-rock reference, it's distracting, not to mention dull. [23 May 2003, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Jacksonville City Nights
    Somebody tell this man to take a vacation. [30 Sep 2005, p.94]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • tbd Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Gems: The Duets Collection
    The soft-rocker belter hooks up with Seal, Rascal Flatts, and others for covers of sure-thing hits like "Fields of Gold" and :You Are So Beautiful." [24 Jun 2011, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Jun 23, 2011
    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Getting Away With Murder
    Too many of the [tracks] here lack depth. [3 Sep 2004, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Gutterflower
    They lack the melodic range to differentiate the new tunes from each other, or even from songs they've been releasing for years.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    So-Called Chaos
    Once more, her songs become little more than cloying ruminations or sarcastic harangues aimed at those who want to squash her individuality. [28 May 2004, p.121]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Blue Lights On The Runway
    The rest of Blue Lights on the Runway is duller than 'The Great Defector;' most of it sounds like warmed-over Coldplay.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Colonia
    Too bad her sharpest one-liners on Colonia get buried in a wash of pastoral easy listening.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Ursa Major
    Third Eye Blind's fourth album and first since 2003--shows that frontman Stephan Jenkins' way with a hook has dimmed little since the band's mid-'90s heyday. The clunky lyrics are another thing.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Tomorrow's Sounds Today
    Tomorrow's sound, grittier and dustier than '98's poppish A Long Way Home, masks the album's core blandness; too much of the material is just plain forgettable. [11/3/2000, p.83]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    lovehatetragedy
    Papa Roach were fairly distinctive two years back, but in a twist we've witnessed many times before, the band that helped beget so much of the rap-metal grudge rock we're now hearing resembles all its followers.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Shade Of Poison Trees
    Carrabba's purported back-to-his-roots album (''redeem-o,'' anyone?), offers little evidence that he's matured along with his audience.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Open Season
    The only real surprise is its wan predictability. [15 Apr 2005, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 48 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Streets Of Gold
    Streets of Gold's beats still sound garage-sale-Casio cheap, but the album yields several doofy, affable sing-alongs and even - yeeps! - an Owl City-esque ballad.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    In My Mind
    If In My Mind seems divided against itself, rest assured that all of the songs have something in common: They're not remotely catchy.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Under the Mistletoe
    The Biebs' gentle set of gentile carols on Under the Mistletoe isn't coal-lump bad; it's more like a dorky sweater from Nana with a 20 in the pocket.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Mix-Up
    Who'd have guessed that a Beastie Boys record could be too subtle?
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Battle at Garden's Gate
    Where Anthem positioned Greta Van Fleet as an overqualified cover band in gestation, Battle gives brief glimpses of potential for a collective determined to graduate from Guitar Hero savants. What's hindered Greta Van Fleet's attempts at individualism is their penchant for thrash and bombast.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Nobody's Daughter
    While Love remains as ferocious as ever, the bleak, samey production here doesn't always rise to meet her.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Hang Cool Teddy Bear
    The passion and delivery are there, but the songs aren't. And two out of three ain't enough.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Kasabian
    Kasabian need an aptitude for more than just attitude. [11 Mar 2005, p.104]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Sneak Attack
    The most compelling lectures can't obscure KRS' drab old-school beats and samples. [4/27/2001, p.118]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Reads The Books [EP]
    Ends up mired in a decidedly mild brew. [22 Jul 2005, p.78]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Jason Derulo
    On Jason Derulo, though, Derulo has trouble making an impression.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Midsummer Station
    The Midsummer Station is loaded with so many platitudes and puns that it quickly descends into sugar shock.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Boomslang
    The album's arrangements are limp and unimaginative. [28 Feb 2003, p.80]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Trouble Man: Heavy Is the Head
    His eighth album exhausts with pointless proclamations of hardness, only occasionally turning inward to contemplate actual heavy issues. [21 Dec 2012, p.67]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Dec 18, 2012
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Fragile Army
    There's now an almost garish cast to the proceedings. [22 Jun 2007, p.71]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 49 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    #willpower
    His milk-snortingly inept lyrical flow too often hijacks #will's beat-addled moneymaker shakers. [3 May 2013, p.63]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Apr 26, 2013
    • 51 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Tical 0: The Prequel
    Meth's rugged rhymes still flow with effortless finesse, but for the first time, he loses his identity. [14 May 2004, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Burn The Maps
    These Irishmen have a way of merging lush Celtic melancholy with inspired Morse-code guitar noise... Alas, they also have a way with misogyny. [4 Feb 2005, p.135]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Emotional Technology
    He's too reserved as a solo performer to keep things interesting. [5 Sep 2003, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Everyday
    A bumpy ride that finds [producer Glen] Ballard attempting to rein in Matthews' self-indulgent tendencies, with varying degrees of success, to ditch his jam-band image for a sleeker sound.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Unbroken
    The Idolrunner-up's pleasant-but-unremarkable vocals can't elevate this tepid collection.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Sunshine Lies
    Frankly, we'd rather he went back to the past--specifically 1991, when the psychedelically inclined Nebraskan released his classic "Girlfriend." [5 Sep 2008, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
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