Entertainment Weekly's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
    • 70 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Madame X
    She still has a lot to say on Madame X’s 15 tracks. ... But its global sounds and millennial guest stars, including rappers Quavo and Swae Lee, can feel more like obligatory flag-planting than organic evolution. As an artist, Madonna owes nothing to some ageist, retrograde idea of what she’s allowed to be; if only Madame felt like a more compelling rebuttal to all that.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Tyrannosaurus Hives
    Too many tracks amount to herky-jerky guitar parts stapled together with power but not as much precision. [23 Jul 2004, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 66 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Charm
    One-third amazing, one-third good, and one-third awful. [7 Apr 2006, p.59]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 76 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Easy Come, Easy Go
    Her interpretations of songbook classics from the likes of Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, and Smokey Robinson (as well as a few relative youngsters, including Neko Case and the Decemberists) are gratifyingly intimate and rough-hewn, and the production is gorgeous--even if it does, as its title implies, fail to leave a lasting impact.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Back From The Dead
    The nostalgia continues on Back From the Dead with reworked versions of tunes from the Rob Reiner flick that started it all; six so-so new tracks reveal why the throwback vibe was probably a good idea.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    God Willin' & the Creek Don't Rise
    It doesn't take long for the singer to retreat into his beard for some Laurel Canyon-style sensitivity exercises. With a band this agile, it's a shame he doesn't dance a little more.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    A Joyful Noise
    Without a clear purpose, most of A Joyful Noise blends into a fog of wandering melodies and come-and-go beats that sound ambivalent about even wanting your attention.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Power In Numbers
    Bad rap is no way to repair a bad rep. [21 Oct 2002]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 50 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Black Butterfly
    The LA quintet, fresh off the radio ubiquity of 'Sorry' last year, prove themselves masters of the form again with such generically sentimental anthems as 'Dreams' and 'Don't Go Away.' [19 Sep 2008, p.72]
    • 68 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Let Go
    Lavigne's monochromatic debut set of unimaginative guitar rock is saved only by the earnestness of her songs.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Liberation Transmission
    Around the world, 15-year-olds will fall for this band. Then they will turn 16 and move on. [30 Jun 2006, p.161]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 52 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Make Believe
    Weezer's most conventional disc... a cleaner-sounding record heavy on way-earnest power ballads. [13 May 2005, p.85]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 69 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Neighborhoods
    The lyrics focus on moving on, but their music can't seem to break the tether to yesterday.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Break Up
    Johansson's throaty vocals fit Break Up's intimate vibe better than they did on her overly ambitious Tom Waits-covers album. Still, aside from the jangle 'n' twang ditty 'Relator' and remake of Chris Bell's classic 'I Am the Cosmos,' the project never really achieves liftoff.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Street Sweeper Social Club
    While Morello's and Riley's styles suit each other well, their acclaimed resumes are ultimately just a reminder that both men have done more memorable work elsewhere.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Life On A String
    Despite an occasional dip into buzzy techno waters, Life is more retread than reinvention. [Aug 24/31 2001, p.137]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 68 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Freight Train
    The results float comfortably in the haze of Jackson's 20 year career. If you hate surprises, he's your guy.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars
    Melodically repetitive, the songs only intermittently approach the energizing highs of earlier Fatboy cuts.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Strange Little Girls
    ''Girls'' is largely a success, even if most cuts sound traditionally Tori.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    A Woman, A Man, Walked By
    Though A Woman a Man Walked By does have strong moments with longtime collaborator Parish, exercises in atonality like 'Pig Will Not' feel less womanly than regressively adolescent.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Naked Truth
    Her very-real-life drama has inspired some of her most focused work... and also some of her worst. [21 Oct 2005, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Roadsinger (To Warm You Through The Night)
    The artist formerly known as Cat Stevens hasn't lost his knack for melody. But with clunkers like ''When I hold your hand I could fly a zillion miles with you,'' he could use a lyrical refresher course.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    D.N.A.
    That lack of personality doesn't kill the disc's ample pleasures. It just makes you wonder whose D.N.A. we're examining.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Sweat
    The album inevitably deteriorates into generic boasts via guest rappers. [17 Sep 2004, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 82 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Asleep In The Back
    A full hour of dense, moody gloss--difficult listening without the tuneful base that keeps Radiohead anchored. [29 Mar 2002, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    '64 - '95
    It's an admirable creative stretch, but the resulting mash-ups are little more than pleasantly diverting. [4 Feb 2005, p.135]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 51 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    I Am Not a Human Being II
    Lil Wayne still has his curveball, but on I Am a Human Being II his MVP status is behind him.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Raymond v. Raymond
    Raymond v Raymond doesn't offer much real revelation. Its main aim is more standard issue: Sleek, grown-and-sexy R&B tuned to seduction, not divorce court.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    In My Own Words
    Confident if slightly underwhelming. [3 Mar 2006, p.100]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 52 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    City Beach
    Sadly, her lyrics slide into threadbare banalities. [23 Feb 2007, p.98]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 60 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Golden Age Of Grotesque
    Inventive and powerful enough to merit intermittent attention, but ultimately crushed by the weight of its hoary pretensions.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Gemini
    It’s a sprawling set that displays many different sides of his personality, from party boy (the old-school groove “Levitate”) to spiritual dad (the gospel-charged “Church”). Although it is uneven and feels longer than its 60 minutes, Gemini is held together by Macklemore’s Everydudeness and a loose mixtape quality.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Stars Dance
    Stars Dance feels like a studiously anonymous bag of one-size-fits-all pop attitudes. [26 Jul 2013, p.67]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Jul 22, 2013
    • 70 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Duper Sessions
    It's a cute idea, except that Lerche's jazz-tinged pop is more compelling than his pop-tinged jazz. [24 Mar 2006, p.70]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 62 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Before I Self Destruct
    Growling violent threats over hard beats, 50 sounds the hungriest he has in years. Of course, there’s nothing remotely original about the formula he’s returning to, but at least he’s going through the motions with gusto.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Pawn Shoppe Heart
    Too often the group sounds like a sped-up version of the Cult. [12 Mar 2004, p.111]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 66 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Kiss Me Once
    Dodgy songs abound, but so does Kylie's plucky charm. [21 Mar 2014, p.62]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Mar 18, 2014
    • 56 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Lines, Vines and Trying Times
    On their fourth release in as many years, the boys don't entirely topple their Tiger Beat pedestal, but with Lines' PG-13 sentiments and wailing guitars, they try hard to leave their tween-dream innocence behind.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Underneath
    Taylor's delivery is often so slurred that it's hard to decipher what he's singing. [23 Apr 2004]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 64 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Welcome to the Fishbowl
    Fishbowl reveals less about the star's true interior life than ever.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Optimist LP
    Given the right melody... Turin Brakes make fragile, delicately understated music... But just as often, they're weighed down by draggy tunes and unintentionally amusing lyrics. [4 May 2001, p.69]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 60 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    American Life
    At its best, her new album offers blunt, questing, decisive music at a chaotic time. At its weakest, she sounds like a gal who's grown content with hubby and kids and the hard-earned privilege of hiring the help to keep herself at tip-top tautness.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Everything's OK
    There's nothing grievously wrong here, but there's nothing transcendent, either. [18 Mar 2005, p.66]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 70 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Delirium
    All these songs sound good enough, but the head rush promised by the title never quite arrives.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Rufus Does Judy At Carnegie Hall
    That said, if it drives anyone to Judy at Carnegie Hall--one of the best live albums ever then bravo.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    TLC
    If the new songs are likable enough, none eclipse those of their peak. Luckily, TLC has always had as much to do with an emotional connection as with the music. Here, they stoke it in ways likely to give longtime fans a nice glow.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    A Bigger Bang
    Instead of playing it slick, they've made their dirtiest, most homemade-sounding album since Some Girls.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Music For Cougars
    Mark McGrath & Co. are back after six years with Music for Cougars, and still churning out affable pop-rock for various beer-commercial activities (beach volleyball, slo-mo water-balloon fights).
    • 66 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    I Look To You
    Whitney Houston's first album in seven years, doesn't pretend to offer the unblemished 21-year-old we met on her smash 1985 debut, but it never?truly lets listeners inside the heart and head of the woman she is today.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Moodring
    At best, Moodring exhibits some minor genre dabbling, but truthfully, Mya's source material hasn't broadened much.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Every Man For Himself
    It's hard to find a track that won't get fists pumping or cigarette lighters waving.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    A Little More Personal (Raw)
    Lohan's (admittedly studio-sheened) brand of pop darkness reads realer than Ashlee Simpson's. [9 Dec 2005, p.85]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 48 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Wanderlust
    Wanderlust is, at best, a bright collection of Daughtry-esque rock boasting anthems. [6 Jun 2008, p.117]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • tbd Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Night and Day II
    Jackson continues braving the waters of conceptual post-pop, for better and worse. [11/10/00, p.90]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 76 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Golden Ocean
    [Hersh's] clamorous return to Electric Ladyland does little, though, except to cover some fair tunes with layers of cathartic thrashing. [11 Mar 2005, p.102]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 63 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Some Loud Thunder
    The giddy art-school anthems of their last album are largely submerged in a cauldron of studio-induced sonic goo. [2 Feb 2007, p.123]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Ripcord
    Urban also does himself no favors by approving so many cynically conforming lyrics. ... Then again, depth isn’t Urban’s calling card. Fun is, and he managed to find a fresh expression for it in “Gone Tomorrow.”
    • 65 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Evolution Of A Man
    McKnight's goals has never been to thrill a la younger peers like The-Dream, and occasionally here he could use some edge. [30 Oct 2009, p.57]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Love & Life
    Blige, despite her signature heartache-inducing voice, cannot save love fromher heavy-handed songwriting. [5 Sep 2003, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Free At Last
    Behind-the-boards stalwarts like Bink and Dame Grease provide plenty of soulful hip-hop, but the chemistry isn't quite the same.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    We Walk This Road
    Producer T Bone Burnett brings a sense of consistency, and Ben Harper helps out on a handsome revamp of Blind Willie Johnson's ''If I Had My Way.''
    • 54 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Who I Am
    Very accomplished, vaguely surprising--and a wee bit dull.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Does This Look Infected?
    What's missing is a sense of danger, a whiff of real risk, elements that have always been crucial to great rock.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Kid Rock
    Ironically, the more Rock expresses his true self, the more generic he sounds. [28 Nov 2003, p.123]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 69 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Ambition
    While his follow-up's party beats are sturdy, it's frustrating to hear him trade his brainy morality for shoutouts. [11 Nov 2011, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Nov 11, 2011
    • 65 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Time To Move
    Melodies? Pretty mushy. Lyrics? A little dopey. Still, props to Loggins for boxing within his weight class.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Crazy Clown Time
    A typically creepy solo set full of warped guitars and carnival-barker vocals. [11 Nov 2011, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Nov 11, 2011
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Another Country
    There's the occasional splash of lap-steel to appease fans, but not nearly enough for the diehards among them. [29 Feb 2008, p.59]
    • 70 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    High Off Life
    While the commercial prospects for High Off Life remain high, Future seems, at least creatively, in a state of arrested development here. ... Still, when High Off Life succeeds, it does so extraordinarily.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Man-Made
    Feels like Teenage Fanclub's winter CD, owing a debt more to the mopey introspection and sparse arrangements of Nick Drake. [17 June 2005, p.83]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 66 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    In The Zone
    Despite inventive touches like zigzagging strings and humping-android hooks, too many tracks... are little more than wobbly, rhythm-based contraptions intended to advance Spears' sex-princess-on-the-loose image.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Waking Up
    OneRepublic sophomore disc reflects that studio experience with loads of slick synth licks and jucy percussion tricks; it's much more flavorful than the band's Fray-like debut. [20 Nov 2009, p.87]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 62 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Divide
    If the familiarity of the album bodes well for its commercial success, key elements of Sheeran’s schtick don’t add up creatively. Despite the wrinkles of wit and flashes of detail in his writing, he’s horribly sentimental, idealizing love into anonymity in a song actually called “Perfect,” as well as one titled “How Would You Feel (Paean).”
    • 50 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Shock Value II
    So far, so predicatable--at least until "Tomorrow In The Bottle," which features Chad Kroeger of Nickelback. That guy's got a funky bone? Talk about a shocker. [11 Dec 2009, p.115]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Challengers
    Despite a few joyful diversions kike 'Myrid Harbour,' you're left with the feeling that this sluggish band of Pornographers isn't quite up to its latest challenge. [24 Aug 2007, p.133]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 62 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Blame It on Baby
    For the most part, Blame it on Baby is classic DaBaby. Minimal bass stabs and toybox plinks and whirrs accent joyful sh–t talking. Songs generally clock in under three minutes. Songs generally clock in under three minutes. He sounds like he’s having a lot of fun, which is all the album needs to be. But as the industry dictates, doing one thing well enough to get popular is not enough to stay popular, so there are also songs on here that paint him as lovelorn and heartbroken. It’s not a great fit.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Night Train [EP]
    On Night Train their knack for earworm melodies is hard to fault, but between rap breakdowns from K'Naan and the odd techno noodlings, it can be tough to tell who's at the wheel.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Get Weird
    Too bad the quartet play it safe with glossy anthems, misty-eyed ballads, and rowdy pep-rally stompers.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Secret Migration
    Much of the CD's faux poetry... sounds like the work of a New Age band. [20 May 2005, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 70 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Undermind
    For most of the album, Phish sound tighter and more alive than they normally do off stage.... [but] the band can't avoid the cloying tendencies that have always hampered their studio work. [18 Jun 2004, p.84]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 69 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Honkin' On Bobo
    Aerosmith go full bore in upturning the music's minimalist roots, building a wall of rock so monstrous that no air gets in. [2 Apr 2004, p.65]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 62 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Great Depression
    He's undercut by... undistinguished beats, bank-account boasts, and R&B hooks that seem incongruously grafted on for hit potential.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Living Things
    Resembles an overstuffed scrapbook more than it does a coherent album. [22 Oct 2004, p.96]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 67 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Detroit Deli: A Taste of Detroit
    If only rappers T3 and Elzhi had the personality to match the enticing soundscapes. [16 Jul 2004, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 65 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Contraband
    Even at its sharpest, Contraband feels secondhand, and much of it is also hobbled by a disconnect between singer and band. [4 June 2004, p.79]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Sugar Ray
    It's essentially more of the same.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Night Shades
    Cobra were more fun as party crashers than they are as VIPs.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Future History
    He swings hard, but often misses--perhaps his biggest problem is that he's not rooted in any genre outside of people-
pleasing pop.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Climate Change
    He presides over the festivities like the affable if occasionally annoying host, relentlessly pumping up you and his many guests--ranging from fellow Miami MC Flo Rida to usual suspects Jennifer Lopez and Enrique Iglesias--even when the track is tired.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Battle Of The Sexes
    Most of these aren't exactly new subjects for Luda, but as ?always his gymnastic flow and irrepressible personality redeem more tracks than not.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Legion Of Boom
    A somewhat dated listening experience.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Welcome Back
    The newly redeemed MC hasn't given up preaching completely; and righteousness is most un-Welcome. [20/27 Aug 2004, p.126]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Fame
    In this economy, though, her high-times escapism has its charms.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Lateralus
    The music has a clean, fluid flow but sounds thin-blooded and far less visceral -- freeze-dried -- next to newer, younger Ozzfest regulars, like Staind, who have followed in Tool's wake. [25 May 2001, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 56 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The New Classic
    Iggy's got a handful of top shelf singles, but too much of The New Classic is old news. [2 May 2014, p.63]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Apr 25, 2014
    • 53 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned
    After such an extended hiatus, one expects more from a Prodigy album than "Firestarter" knockoffs like "Get Up Get Off." [17 Sep 2004, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 58 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Sweet Escape
    Ultimately, Stefani isn't convincing as a dissatisfied diva.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Remix
    The Remix collects 10 club-ready interpretations of tracks from The Fame and its expanded reissue, The Fame Monster; it's a cash grab, but one that handily reminds you how much Gaga has done to push American pop back toward the dance floor.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Teenage Dream
    Beneath the fruity outfits and fart jokes, Perry is clearly serious about the business of hit songcraft; that doesn't make Dream nearly cohesive as an album, but it does provide, intermittently, exactly the kind of high-fructose rush she's aiming for.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    A.M.
    Some of that soul [heard on previous singles "Tomorrow" and "Voices"] survives on his fourth album, but too often he falls into the "bro country" trap currently plaguing the genre. [20/27 Sep 2013, p.152]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Sep 20, 2013
Page: