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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    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Third
    Third is indeed a less immediately accessible effort than Portishead's more groove-oriented earlier work, but it's no less gorgeous.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Don't Give Up On Me
    The results are astonishing. [26 July 2002, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Girls Can Tell
    Girls' melding of new wave and indie pop literally sounds timeless... [3/9/2001, p.82]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Late Registration
    Late Registration is more cumbersome and burdened than its predecessor--a little less cohesive, a lot less fun--but it rarely fails to engross at nearly every step. [2 Sep 2005, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Stay Positive
    Damn if an already nearly perfect album doesn't, with these bonus tracks, gets a little better itself. [18 Jul 2008, p.64]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    I See You
    The payoff is the boldest work yet from a band famous for subtlety--the sound of the xx hitting the caps-lock key.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Midnights
    Still, if the songs on Midnights aren't her stickiest, it doesn't much matter while they're playing, given how effectively they generate a mood and paint effective pictures.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Helplessness Blues
    On Helplessness Blues, their second disc of intimate, obsessively crafted folk, the bearded Seattleites take a giant step forward in their quest to turn the clock backward.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Mezmerize
    It's heavy and hooky. [20 May 2005, p.73]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Twin Cinema
    It's their trademark boisterous hyper-melodies... that will have you involuntarily humming their praises for weeks (months!) to come. [26 Aug 2005, p.59]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    New Moon
    Moon's two cohesive CDs prove as emotionally powerful as anything in his catalog. [1 Jun 2007, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Streetcore
    Just the sort of punky reggae party he was born to throw. [24 Oct 2003, p.106]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Greatest Hits: The Evidence
    A modest, charming relic...
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Have One On Me
    While Newsom remains the most intricate lyricist currently working ?outside of rap, her melodies have become cleaner, her ?arrangements less mannered, and her singing more ?straightforwardly heartfelt.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Oceans Apart
    They remain one of rock's most pleasurable hand-me-down discoveries. [29 Apr 2005, p.148]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Veckatimest
    If the second half brings diminishing returns, it's still more than worth the trip.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Bitte Orca
    Somehow the band makes it work, though, pulling all those disparate sounds together in a unified style that's all the more glorious for its strangeness.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Kicking Television: Live In Chicago
    There's no denying this is the sound of a band at its onstage peak. [18 Nov 2005, p.135]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Tenacious D
    They're profane, bursting with rage and lust, and they deliver more laughs than anyone since Richard Pryor.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Bubblegum
    Alt-rock blues darker and scarier than Jon Spencer or even Jack White ever imagined. [24 Dec 2004, p.66]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Soft Bulletin
    A vertiginous rainbow swirl that crams so many ideas into so many tight spaces that each track is like a perfectly rendered Joseph Cornell box.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass
    They embellish what they long ago mastered: making shaggy, dreamy, cuddly, explosive indie rock. [15 Sep 2006, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You: The Fonotone Years, 1958-1965
    A rich exploration of Appalachian roots. [25 Nov 2011, p.71]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Nov 23, 2011
    • 85 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Jasper County
    Jasper beats her '90s efforts.... Yet any personality dissipates amid the average tunes. [23 Sep 2005, p.91]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Airing Of Grievances
    With thrash-and-burn riffs, shout-along rants, E Street Band-style blue-collar blues, and tin-can acoustics, these Jersey boys' debut album The Airing of Grievances burns all the way down from its big mouth to its black liver.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Blinking Lights And Other Revelations
    Everett finally delivers the absolute stone masterpiece fans have always known lurked inside his dour heart. [29 Apr 2005, p.147]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Left Of The Dial: Dispatches From The '80s Underground
    Like the great college radio station that never was. [29 Oct 2004, p.69]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Old Ideas
    The man in the suit still commands a room, telling tales of forgiveness, heaven, and alcohol. [3/10 Feb 2012, p.112]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Jan 30, 2012
    • 85 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Celebration Day [Live]
    This vanilla artifact from Zep's massive 2007 reunion concert falls into all of the typical traps associated with live albums. [30 Nov 2012, p.73]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Nov 21, 2012
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Boys And Girls In America
    On several tracks, the swirls of organ they've added to their hyper-literate stomping suggest Deep Purple with a library card. [6 Oct 2006, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Pure Comedy
    On Pure Comedy, Father John Misty is just about clever enough to glide entirely on his intellectualism, but by emotionally removing himself from his own narratives, he’s ended up making a record that’s smarter than it is affecting.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Ys
    There is still something unsettlingly Renaissance fair-meets-Wind in the Willows about her music, yet something lovely lives there as well. [24 Nov 2006, p.109]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Kish Kash
    The richest and most fervent music the Jaxx have ever made. [24 Oct 2003, p.104]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Revolution
    Revolution is a portrait of an artist in full possession of her powers, and the best mainstream-country album so far this year.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Strange Mercy
    It's cerebral and a little chilly, but also full of musical surprises. [23 Sep 2011, p.79]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Oct 6, 2011
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
    Even if her fiery temper's not for everyone, she never stoops to teardrops-on-my-guitar banalities. [27 Apr 2007, p.139]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Astroworld
    Astroworld mostly holds itself together despite its aggressive number of moving parts.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    One Beat
    There's lots for the lovers, plus some surprises that might win over a few haters. [23 Aug 2002, p.142]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    High Violet
    Their fifth album High Violet is slow to blossom; its sumptuous layers and stately pace can feel almost funereal, and frontman Matt Berninger often sounds badly in need of Paxil. But Violet eventually burrows in, and stays.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    This Right Here Is Buck 65
    Consistently inventive. [21 Jan 2004, p.89]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Beyoncé
    Here more than ever Bey indulges clashing impulses--between strength and escape, megapop and fresh sounds, big messages and resonant lyrics.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    evermore
    Swift's lyric-writing abilities feel leveled-up on Evermore, its characters drawn in pointillistic detail. ... Similarly, the musical risks on Evermore are bigger, both in scope and in payoff. ... Freedom from expectations has, both with this album and its predecessor, led to Swift's leaps giving new heights to her already-pretty-skyscraping career.
    • 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
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Last Broadcast
    The darkest feel-good record of the year. [14 Jun 2002, p.100]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Fever To Tell
    Combine the intense vocals and thin lyrics with the speed and exuberance of the songs (most are well under three minutes) and ''Fever to Tell'' feels a lot like a series of quickies -- exhausting, fun, but a bit empty.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Ugly Organ
    Organ raises the Saddle Creek bar in terms of sheer psychiatric-rock intensity. [Listen 2 This supplement, Mar 2003, p.10]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Kaputt
    Kaputt nods to Steely Dan and late Roxy Music, and its shimmering synths and moody soft rock would be the perfect soundtrack to a romantic urban noir.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Yonder Is The Clock
    The fourth album from these purveyors of Band-evoking Americana is as folksy and honed as a tale by Mark Twain, from whom the Felices borrowed the title.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Second Chance
    It's the year's most elegant tell-all.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Hearts Of Oak
    Ted Leo turns gasping, insistent vocals into narratives that are political and pop, never compromising one for the other. [21 Feb 2003, p.150]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Bow Down To The Exit Sign
    Holmes races through genres like a mad cab driver running red lights, revving up a jittery, urban fever dream from a junk heap of beats and ragged exotica. [10/27/2000, p.120]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Electric Dirt
    The former Band drummer and cancer survivor's vocals sound grizzled and glorious on Electric Dirt.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Serena-Maneesh
    Sure, this speaker-frying style has been done before, but rarely with such confidence. [12 May 2006, p.83]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Play
    What could've been a condescending gimmick yields some of the year's most haunting, and haunted, music.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Medulla
    One of her best efforts. [10 Sep 2004, p.161]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Apollo Kids
    Many of these tunes sound like they could have been recorded at any point in his 17-year career - and that's great news for fans.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    This Is Happening
    Golden-voiced Murphy, however, doesn't try for any cheap Bowie-baritone vocal mimicry, and his lyrics and musicianship have greater depth and polish. The best inspiration should come with improvements, and Murphy's are vast.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Treats
    It's as if every element of Sleigh Bells' genre-swerving sound--primitive guitar fuzz, pastiche beats, sugar-buzz?vocals--bypasses the default snark button and burrows?directly into jaded listeners' punch-drunk pleasure centers.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Indestructible
    It's when Rancid downshift that things get really interesting. [22/29 Aug 2003, p.131]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Evening Of My Best Day
    These are pop's most artful anti-Bush statements to date.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Our Endless Numbered Days
    Makes John Mayer sound like Slayer. [21 May 2004, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Kids See Ghosts
    While Kids See Ghosts feels more like a Cudi album than a Kanye one, it is a production showcase for both. ... The seven-song affair leaves you greedy for more when it’s over in a mere 23 minutes.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Trouble Will Find Me
    The result is a painstakingly composed batch of tracks that struggle to break free from their gorgeously constructed prisons.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The World Has Made Me The Man Of My Dreams
    Ndegeocello's dreamy vocal styles buttress this boudoir-freindly work. [28 Sep 2007, p.106]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Sugar Mountain: Live At Canterbury House 1968
    His meandering monologues contrast with the top-notch if uniformly pensive songs.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Veni Vidi Vicious
    They almost vindicate the near-deafening hoopla that preceded this major-label debut. [10 May 2002, p.80]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Gimme Fiction
    Strings swoon, falsetto voices sigh, and counterpoint piano lines glide. Yet nothing sounds fussy. [20 May 2005, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Feels
    Breathlessly giddy and shamelessly trippy. [21 Oct 2005, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Black Cadillac
    The best of Cash's nuanced compositions... turns her healing process into great art. [27 Jan 2006, p.84]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Western Stars
    Placing intricately detailed portraiture on massive musical backdrops has been a Springsteen trademark for years, of course, and Western Stars continues this legacy, transforming the enormous into the intimate. [14/21 Jun 2019, p.104]
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Bird Songs
    The vintage tunes inspire riskier improvs from Lovano, even when his rhythm section adheres to more straight-edged accompaniment.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Yeezus
    This album has the potential to mess with your whole year.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Wildheart
    Miguel recognizes both the romance and the risk embedded in the City of Angels, a clear-eyed balance that makes Wildheart as bracing as a plunge into the Pacific.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
    Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is one of those ''taking stock'' records that collates and refines everything that came before. But what an inventory of sounds they've built.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Takk...
    At times Takk almost rocks--as much as tiny ice-crystal elves from the magical land of Narnia can rock, but still. [16 Sep 2005, p.88]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Lost in Translation OST
    Included are (somewhat disappointing) new tunes from Air and My Bloody Valentine mastermind Kevin Shields. [10 Oct 2003, p.124]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Blood Money
    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
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Black Album
    The Black Album's bling-bang reportage mostly rings redundant. [28 Nov 2003, p.121]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts [2006 Version]
    Despite seven unessential bonus tracks, the remastered Ghosts feels haunting, hypnotic and fresh 25 years later. [14 Apr 2006, p.87]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Invasion of Privacy
    Where Cardi B struggles to perfect the timing of her flow, she makes up for it with the heft of her voice. Combining the gruff delivery of Biggie Smalls with the bird-flipping fire of Tupac Shakur and the bubbly aura of a tween star, Cardi deploys a hybridized power vocal that punctuates trap and bounce-heavy pop with a witty presence that makes her narrative universally accessible.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Living for a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran
    Johnson occasionally lacks the depth of Cochran's bloodshot despair, but with guests like Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard, you can't blame him for not sounding sad in Living for a Song.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Imidiwan: Companions
    Their lyrics reveal the mysteries of true rolling stones. [16 Oct 2009, p.59]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Crane Wife
    The jarring faux-metal riffage of "When the War Came" exposes Meloy's limits, but several of these studies in heartbreak and homicide rank among his most moving. [6 Oct 2006, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Extraordinary Machine
    The cleaner take on Extraordinary Machine is like a trip to a less cluttered haunted house, and Apple's more nuanced delivery sticks the knife in, but slowly. It's both charming and devastating. [7 Oct 2005, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Pretty Toney Album
    Ghostface... comes off hungrier than ever to produce thrilling hip-hop. [14 May 2004, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
    Songs like "Fight Test" and "Do You Realize" have various tics--but they're so sweet-souled that such sins are easily forgiven. [19 July 2002, p.74]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Ghosts Of The Great Highway
    Honestly isn't too different from Painters. [Listen 2 This supplement, Nov 2003, p.39]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Sweet Warrior
    The guy's a six-string hero whose artistic sweep runs from plangent ballads to fiery barnstormers to, well, a heap of engaging styles in between. [1 Jun 2007, p.69]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Entomology
    Neither of the albums they recorded before disbanding made it to the U.S.; thankfully, this long-overdue retrospective includes the choicest cuts from both. [22 Dec 2006, p.83]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Currents
    There’s a new kind of richness to frontman Kevin Parker’s lonely-astronaut experiments.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Shepherd's Dog
    Once the shock of Beam's experimental bent wears off, it becomes clear that he's added dimension to his style without sacrificing its gorgeous tranquility. [28 Sep 2007, p.107]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Multiply
    If even a hint of Jamiroquai makes you gag, stay away; otherwise, proceed to the dance floor, please. [22 Jul 2005, p.74]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Boygenius [EP]
    If the music here has the ebb and flow of more than one era, the lyrics wield sharper teeth. [2 Nov 2018, p.49]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Oct 31, 2018
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Modern Vampires of the City
    When everything here lines up the right way--and it more often than not, it does--Modern Vampires is the perfect album for the coming Atlantic summer. Think of it like saltwater taffy: bright and sweet, with plenty to chew on.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Heaven
    The soul chanteuse unspools 11 gorgeous tracks. [1/8 Jun 2012, p.117]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted May 29, 2012
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    15 Again
    Cassius' Philippe Zdar and Boombass are at their best on 15 Again when they pair fuzzy beats with sleek, Steely Dan-inspired, soft-rock stylings.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    We Love Life
    Invitingly lush. [23 Aug 2002, p.142]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Send
    Something of a return to the style of earlier work. [16 May 2003, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Cast Of Thousands
    Just when this occasionally draggy album threatens to give in to its own malaise, the band interjects a lound, jarring organ or jagged noise. [23/30 Jan 2004, p.98]
    • Entertainment Weekly
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