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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    • 100 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Beatles [White Album] [50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition]
    It peels back the layers of a group diligently working to produce something special. [30 Nov 2018, p.51]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Nov 21, 2018
    • 100 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Pinkerton (Deluxe Edition)
    Only hardcore devotees (of which, admittedly, there are many) truly need to hear all of the 25 rarities and concert recordings included with this expanded two-CD reissue Pinkerton: Deluxe Edition.
    • 99 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Sign O' the Times [Deluxe Edition]
    On a purely musical level, this collection is a true beauty, with 63 previously unreleased tracks. ... For the completists, you’ll want this set forever in your life.
    • 99 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Live in Europe 1967: Best of the Bootleg, Vol. 1
    The set lists may have looked similar, but here's proof they didn't sound alike --and that they'll still get you mighty high.
    • 98 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Fetch the Bolt Cutters
    Fetch, which blossoms more and more with each listen, feels giddy too; high on romance and rhythm and the surreal gift of being alive.
    • 97 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    SMiLE
    It's a gorgeous trip back to a time when anything seemed possible. [1 Oct 2004, p.73]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 97 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Van Lear Rose
    Crackling with a bristling immediacy, Van Lear Rose yanks Lynn into the present while never abandoning musical traditions that continue to define her, her voice, and her material. [30 Apr 2004, p.160]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 97 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    How The West Was Won
    Capture[s] a mighty band at the height of its gargantuan power.
    • 97 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Electric Ladyland [50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition]
    Even if you've been to Electric Ladyland, this version is worth the price of readmission. [30 Nov 2018, p.51]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Nov 21, 2018
    • 96 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    To Pimp A Butterfly
    Lamar’s earnestness and charisma never waver; as much as he owes to his predecessor, the clearest antecedent for Butterfly isn’t Pac but rather peak Prince. Lamar operates in the same boldly visionary idiom as the Purple One, expanding the boundaries of the hip-hop empire and daring other aspirants to the throne.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Keep An Eye On The Sky
    The spare demos, crystal-clear concert recordings, and handsomely produced liner notes are a fan's delight, but it's the three original albums included here--38 haunting ballads and fist-pumping anthems, some in unreleased mixes, each one a gem--that still shine brightest.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Siamese Dream [Deluxe Edition]
    Fans will adore the numerous B sides and demos, and the concert DVDs provide a fun, flannelly time capsule.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Stankonia
    Stankonia reeks of artful ambition rendered with impeccable skill -- or as one song title so concisely has it, ''So Fresh, So Clean.''
    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    DAMN.
    After delving into the personal on 2012’s good kid, m.A.A.d. city and going broader on Butterfly, Lamar has found a middle ground on DAMN. that yields some of his most emotionally resonant music yet.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Rough and Rowdy Ways
    Rough and Rowdy Ways is a clear reflection of America’s jagged landscape — one of romance and mystery, creativity and fortune, protestations and politicking, conquests and colonialism. It makes for an exquisite, haunting listen.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Wildflowers & All The Rest
    Suffused with warmth and memory, this set belongs among your Tom Petty records. [Nov 2020, p.97]
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Savane
    An elegant summation of his work. [11 Aug 2006, p.69]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
    He samples atmospheric noodling from Aphex Twin and bombastic nuggets from Black Sabbath and King Crimson, and he gets help from some of the biggest names in pop, rap, and indie rock. West crafts these influences into a fever dream with a crescendo around every corner - the Beautiful Fantasy of the album's title.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Icky Mettle [Deluxe Edition]
    The reissue of their 1993 debut rescues a bevy of lost single, further cementing Icky;s status as a holy grail of lovely, rumpled passion. [5 Aug 2011, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Aug 10, 2011
    • 93 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Some Girls [Deluxe Edition]
    The dozen unearthed tracks here [are] the outtakes of the outtakes. [2 Dec 2011, p.77]
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Live At Reading
    Live at Reading presents the band at its post-Nevermind peak. Watching Kurt Cobain radiate so much life is bound to trigger some tears.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Love And Theft
    It may not be a better album than ''Time Out of Mind,'' but it glides from genre to genre with a sprightly glee, as if Dylan were traversing the American musical landscape in search of thrills, revenge, and reparation.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads [2004 Version]
    Captures the punk attitude, brittle R&B vamps, and quirky lyrical trips of their early years. [20/27 Aug 2004, p.123]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Achtung Baby [Super Deluxe]
    The six discs in Achtung Baby: Uber Deluxe Edition may seem like overkill, but most everything here, from the raw demos (a stripped-away "Mysterious Ways" is especially revelatory) to the cache of beat-science remixes that put 1993's confusing Zooropa into better context, is essential to understanding the most inscrutable stadium-filling band in history.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Tropicalia: A Brazilian Revolution In Sound
    A perfect mix of giddy tropical rhythms and Beatles-style experimentation. [27 Jan 2006, p.85]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Lemonade
    Her boldest, most ambitious, best album to date.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition
    Many of the unreleased, B-side, and cover tracks here are less immediate, but no less joyful for the Pavement completist.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards
    Familiar, compelling, and tugging out empathy.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Woody at 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial
    This excellent three-CD overview of the hugely influential folksinger's career covers much of the obvious ground, then explores some less-visited hinterlands on its third disc.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Boy In Da Corner
    One of the strangest, bumpiest musical journeys we're likely to experience on record this year. [16 Jan 2004, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 92 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    You Want It Darker
    On his 14th studio album, the songwriting maestro--still vital at 82--is a lion in winter, his lyrics heavy with God and sex and death and his legendary voice scraped down to a subterranean rumble.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Archives Vol. 1 1963-1972
    An impressive package, but fans will be paying big bucks for a lot of stuff they already own.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Channel Orange
    Ocean is less concerned with urban realism than with his own '80s-noir fantasy of what the city's like, and his music captures that vibe perfectly, pulsing with electro-soul grooves, vintage jazz-funk.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Elephant
    Not that there aren't hints of greatness on Elephant.... That said, ''Elephant'' also flaunts everything that's contrived about the band -- the gimmicks for which they've become better known than their actual music.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Melodrama
    It’s Lorde’s own storytelling that offers Melodrama‘s most rewarding twists.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
    [The album's] ambition flies so far beyond that of anyone doing rap right now (or pop, or rock, or R&B), awards shows may need to create a special category for it. [19 Sep 2003, p.83]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 91 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Live In London
    Live in London is a reminder that Cohen is as gifted a performer as he is a songwriter.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Good Kid, M.A.A.D City
    This Dr. Dre-endorsed phenom delivers on the promise of his rabidly beloved mixtape Section.80. [2 Nov 2012, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Nov 1, 2012
    • 91 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    A Grand Don't Come For Free
    Isn't likely to convert, say, your average Jay-Z fan.... Yet it works, and even seems refreshingly exotic. [21 May 2004, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 91 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Canto
    Several arrangements lean to the left, bringing to mind another Los Lobos side project, the Latin Playboys. [3/16/2001, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Renaissance
    The catalog of touchstones, samples, and cameos on Renaissance could double as a syllabus for a master class on the evolution of dance music as it has unfolded during Beyoncé's lifetime.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The ArchAndroid
    Does every genre suit her equally? Of course not, but most of Janelle Monée's mad experiments yield spectacularly catchy results.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Guitar Song
    The moody set mixes covers of legends like Vern Gosdin with originals that ring so true they might as well be standards. The 25-song collection feels longer than Johnson's infamous owl sanctuary of a beard, but it's unlikely any country purists will complain.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Is This It?
    ''Is This It'' bows down before all the trademarks of pre-1977 rock: off-kilter guitar solos, half-buried vocals (à la ''Louie, Louie''), attitude-heavy slurring (by singer Julian Casablancas), primitive tom-tom rhythms (shades of the Velvets' Moe Tucker), and the raw, muddy sonics of garage-band 45s.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service
    Luckily, We Got It From Here... Thank You 4 Your Service not only satisfies its lofty expectations, it often exceeds them.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Illinois
    Sounds quaint and even magical. [15 Jul 2005, p.71]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 90 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Carrie & Lowell
    With its quiet meditations on mental illness, God, and death, Carrie is a hauntingly beautiful bummer.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    No Cities to Love
    Even though they're no longer underdogs—their last album, 2005's The Woods, cemented their rep as one of the all-time great groups—that hasn't changed on their triumphant return.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Original Pirate Material
    By adding grit and gutter-savvy humor, Skinner also takes U.K. garage to a new level, making for the year's most striking debut.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Alice
    You'd be hard-pressed to find sounds this spookily evocative anywhere outside the grooves of scratchy old 78s. [Applies to both 'Alice' and 'Blood Money,' 10 May 2002, p.80]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 90 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Funeral
    For the most part, Funeral is a lovely, uplifting, and often pleasingly grandiose whirl through a panoply of sounds. [5 Nov 2004, p.81]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Faith: Special Edition
    He wants our sex, and he can have it.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
    The fact that this album feels so complete even without any words from his old partner reinforces just what peak form Big Boi is in.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    the record
    It's never a guarantee that a collaboration from talented soloists will work, let alone multiple times. The Record navigates that hurdle deftly enough to suggest that none of these artists have reached their full potential. Neither has Boygenius.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Live Anthology
    With all the hits plus an enjoyable assortment of rarities and covers, The Live Anthology is a comprehensive portrait of a perpetually professional live act.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    græ
    græ finds him trying to be, well, everything, and through a convergence of folk, jazz, classical, and art-rock, along with his probing lyricism, Sumney has managed to produce a sonic marvel.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Z
    They evoke the musical essence of various titans while achieving a wholly distinctive sound of their own. [7 Oct 2005, p.73]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    St. Vincent
    Crackling, uncanny and compulsively listenable. [28 Feb 2014, p.71]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Feb 26, 2014
    • 89 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Since I Left You
    When the technique works, the results are exhilarating. [9 Nov 2001, p.111]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Modern Times
    Intriguing, immediate, and quietly epic, Modern Times must rank among Dylan's finest albums.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Miss E... So Addictive
    Elliott spends too much time dissing detractors, but the hooks come as fast as the reefer references, and for the first time since her debut, she sounds as if she's having a blast... [25 May 2001, p. 80]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    HoboSapiens
    An audacious marriage of restless experimentalism and eloquent melodic craft. [10 Sep 2004, p.165]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Bachelor No. 2 (or, the last remains of the dodo)
    A genuinely winning collection of sublime, old-school pop.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Coloring Book [Mixtape]
    Though it doesn’t eclipse the LSD-inspired brilliance of Acid Rap, Coloring Book affirms Chance’s place as one of hip-hop’s most promising--and most uplifting--young stars.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Big Fish Theory
    The full-length follow-up to his 2015 debut, Summertime ’06, surpasses expectations, with incisive lyrics and beats that spurn current trends for a set that sounds unlike anything else in hip-hop right now.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    A Seat at the Table
    The album radiates universal beauty and truth in the tradition of Stevie Wonder and Minnie Ripperton--and the whole world could simply use more of that.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Last Exit
    Supple, stylish electro-pop so cool it makes glaciers jealous. [24 Sep 2004, p.106]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Pink Noise
    Pink Noise revels in the freedom of moving beyond stress for something peaceful, adding yet another layer to Mvula's already-rich tapestry of sound.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    When I Get Home
    A stunning effort. Solange creates such fully realized art that even when she may be expressing uncertainty and doubt, she’s charging herself--and her audience--with finding possibility.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Idler Wheel Is Wiser than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More than Ropes Will Ever Do
    It isn't easy listening. But it's worth it.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Merriweather Post Pavilion
    Merriweather Post Pavilion won't land the band the opening slot on a Coldplay tour, it cleaves closer to "Pitch's" more listener-friendly aesthetic, abandoning the self-indulgent impulses that sometimes muddied last year's "Strawberry Jam" for an album full of effervescent, transportive oddity.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Songs For The Deaf
    The year's best hard-rock album. [6 Sep 2002, p.86]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 89 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    12 Stories
    Clark keeps things edgy, singing about divorce, drugs, jail, and Jesus with matter-of-fact sass and ample twang.[25 Oct/1 Nov 2013, p.100]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Oct 22, 2013
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Sale el Sol
    Sale el Sol still demonstrates Shakira's boldly global mindset.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Hell Hath No Fury
    The best hip-hop album of 2006.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Push Barman To Open Old Wounds
    Irresistible. [3 Jun 2005, p.86]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Same Trailer Different Park
    On her confident, melodic major-label debut, Musgraves' vocals are pleasingly agile, but what Same Trailer Different Park continually showcases is her writing prowess.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    folklore
    Swift explodes the expectations of anyone preparing to call her music "diaristic," writing songs from different perspectives while putting her already-detailed work under a microscope. ... A content smile of an album on which one of the world's biggest pop stars, charts be damned, forges her own path and dares listeners to come along for the ride.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Yours, Mine & Ours
    Yours Mine & Ours has an easygoing vibe that gives Pernice's literate folk-pop ample room to roam. [11 Jul 2003, p.78]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Chutes Too Narrow
    Just the record you'd want: production a bit bigger, and songs more adventurous but no less indelible. [Listen 2 This supplement, Oct 2003, p.14]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 88 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Hypermagic Mountain
    If what this drums-and-bass duo does with infernal noise is your thing, you're a pretty happy camper. [28 Oct 2005, p.89]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Future Nostalgia
    Lipa quickly established herself as one of pop's most compelling presences during her quick rise, and Future Nostalgia shows that she's going to be sticking around its upper echelons for a while.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964
    If there's nothing truly revelatory, it's still a dandy opportunity to eavesdrop on the future mouthpiece of a generation finding his voice (sometimes awkwardly).
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Divers
    Joanna Newsom’s fourth full-length, Divers, haunts you like an unanswered question. That’s what makes it so engrossing. You don’t listen to it to figure out what it means. You play it to revel in the mystery of the songs and who, exactly, is the marvelous, mercurial creature singing them.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    30
    A surprisingly personal album that showcases how Adele has matured, both as an artist and as a person, since the middle of the last decade. She could have built on her blockbuster success in a cynical way, copy-and-pasting "Rolling in the Deep" and "Hello." Instead, she lets her emotions guide her, with triumphant results.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    69 Love Songs
    69 elegant observations by a pop master.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Ta Det Lugnt
    You'll swear it's a lost tape from a sweet Hendrix-Iron Butterfly-Cream jam session. [19 Aug 2005, p.145]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Bad as Me
    Without abandoning his classic formula--junkyard percussion, loose-limbed blues licks, and that unmistakable mouth-of-hell baritone--Waits keeps pulling switcheroos out of his porkpie hat on his 20th album.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    A Moon Shaped Pool
    By nature, Radiohead albums will always be somewhat epic, but this one is more consistently grandiose than any of the band’s releases since 2000’s masterpiece Kid A.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Masseduction
    Five studio albums in, it feels more like another new beginning, and pretty close to a masterpiece.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Dear Science,
    TV on the Radio may still--and always--make capital-A art, but they've found something universal, even joyful, in the noise.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
    Once again showcases her vulnerability, opening up old wounds from relationships with her father, a past lover, and, ultimately, herself. [Sep 2021, p.107]
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Return To Cookie Mountain
    The savvier arrangements, brimming with unsettling sound effects, put Cookie Mountain several steps ahead of its fine 2004 predecessor, Desperate Youth, Bloody Thirsty Babes.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Up In Flames
    These laptop-pop fractals... deliver spectacular hip-hop drum breaks and the sort of mile-deep multi-tracking that makes digital technology so much fun. [Listen 2 This supplement, Apr 2003, p.12]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
    Her strongest work since 1995's To Bring You My Love.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Black America Again
    It’s the MC’s empathetic and clear-eyed rhymes that truly make this a vital contribution to the national conversation.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Destroyer's Rubies
    His insider snipes at indie-rock pretense show Wildean wit. [24 Feb 2006, p.64]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Undun
    The Roots have always been at their best expressing quiet desperation and spinning old-school tales of struggling upward.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Rejoicing In The Hands
    Though his second CD has a charming Ambrose Bierce quality to it, a little goes a long way.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Vespertine
    When it all comes together, as on ''Hidden Place'' or ''It's Not Up to You,'' Björk and her electronica collaborators create moving interplanetary chorals. ''Vespertine'' is also her most erotic work....
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