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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    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The BBC Sessions
    Serious fans will covet the four excellent unreleased songs from a 2001 recording.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Monomania
    The music sounds more hot-blooded and feral. [10 May 2013, p.67]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted May 3, 2013
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Lost Horizons
    Mostly, it's pleasant background music. [15 Aug 2003, p.74]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Private Press
    Few approach this style of record making with as much playfulness and gravity.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Turn On The Bright Lights
    Interpol mix the propulsive sonic backgrounds and emotional swells of early-'80s post-punk with unexpected bursts of melody and their own brand of wit to create one of themost exciting new sounds of the year. [23 Aug 2002, p.142]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Armchair Apocrypha
    Occasionally he overreaches... but when Bird keeps things simple, Apocrypha is full of modest charms. [23 Mar 2007, p.59]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Chemtrails Over the Country Club
    Chemtrails is less a full transformation than the first step forward in another direction.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Eleven
    The tunes don't stick the way McBride's usually do, but Eleven illuminates some new wrinkles in the country star's always-impressive voice. [14/21 Oct 2011, p.119]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Oct 24, 2011
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    McCartney III
    Like any contemporary Macca project, III feels like comfort food. Credit that voice, charming and unmistakable after decades of use. Hearing it anew is like curling up inside a warm blanket.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    I Learned The Hard Way
    I Learned the Hard Way, her fourth album with the Dap-Kings is pure joy, even when heartbreak sends her voice digging deep. This isn't just old-school; it is school.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Figure 8
    His music has always straddled the line between fragility and triviality, and too much of ''Figure 8'' falls on the wrong side of that divide.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    James Blake
    An intriguing concept, not always fully realized. [1 Apr 2011, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Apr 8, 2011
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Ecstatic
    Though his vigor falters toward the end, The Ecstatic remains by far his strongest, most deeply felt work in ages.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    You In Reverse
    More enjoyably organic-sounding than most of 2001's too pristine Ancient Melodies of the Future. [14 Apr 2006, p.86]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Lost Tapes
    His gritty, yet hopeful, reflections make Lost Tapes a real find.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Sunny Border Blue
    As usual, the results are exquisitely unsettling... [3/9/2001, p.82]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Devils & Dust
    Devils is a more mature effort than Joad and Nebraska, for being a little less bleak. [29 Apr 2005, p.144]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Magnificent City
    Aceyalone's deft merging of bookishness and braggadocio is a rare find. [17 Feb 2006, p.79]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Boxing Mirror
    A triumphant CD that owes an unmistakable debt to Lou Reed's noirish 1978 rock operetta Street Hassle. [28 Apr 2006, p.137]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Set Yourself On Fire
    It's sort of an indie-pop Rumours, sans the wooden balls. [11 Mar 2005, p.102]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Post-War
    Ward's talents have never been more persuasively showcased. [1 Sep 2006, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Back To Black
    It's precisely Winehouse's lyrics... that raise this expertly crafted set into the realm of true, of-the-minute originality. [16 Mar 2007, p.67]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Melody A.M.
    Settles into a stream of pastoral, boutique techno that's both soothing and derivative. [1 Nov 2002, p.70]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    These Are The Vistas
    With equal measures of beauty, terror, and comedy in their own stuff, there's plenty going on besides stunt covers. [2 May 2003, p.71]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Time* Sex* Love*
    Stick with her slow, depressing stuff, and bring your Zoloft. [6/1/2001, p.90]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Sing The Sorrow
    The songs combine the most pretentious and overworked elements of their influences. [21 Mar 2003, p.112]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    12 Songs
    [The] tension between Rubin's desire to pare it down and Diamond's tendency to amp it up makes for the best musical checks and balances; nothing gets too unplugged or too bombastic. [11 Nov 2005, p.67]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Actor
    Actor is a uniquely potent cocktail of sounds and moods that'll get you hooked, fast.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Screen Violence
    Even amid all the worrying, their defiant, quivering music vibrates with possibility in a way that plainly and passionately refutes even the darkest moments of despair their lyrics express. [Sep 2021, p.107]
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar
    Its multitude of borrowings from other genres meld elegantly to frame Plant's inimitably keening vocals. [12 Sep 2014, p.62]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Sep 9, 2014
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Rubber Factory
    Shockingly well done... a remarkable album. [3 Sep 2004, p.73]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    God's Son
    As with all thug poetry, the ego and malice are blinding, but moments of self-deprecation and social responsibility out-flash the gun bursts.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Metals
    Metals, which borrows from jazz and blues, is an artfully arranged opus with such natural beauty, it should be certified organic.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    It's a Wonderful Life
    This time, the music is even more haunted. The brittle keyboards and violins make for the sound of an Appalachian funeral. It's the O Brother, Where Art Thou? for the modern death-obsessed introvert.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    (What's the Story) Morning Glory? [Deluxe Edition - Remastered]
    As well as Morning Glory holds up, it's the 14 B sides guitarist and main songwriter Noel threw away nearly two decades ago that make up the fantastically gooey center of a new three-disc package.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Anniemal
    This sugar rush of an album proves Mom right yet again: Candy is best consumed in moderation. [10 Jun 2005, p.107]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Tanglewood Numbers
    10 charming ditties about depression. [28 Oct 2005, p.84]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    July Flame
    Veirs' new album July Flame sends us on hikes through dreamy landscapes evoked by her uniquely tangy voice, casting minimal instrumentation in glistening arrangements to captivate the melancholy imagination.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    St. Elsewhere
    St. Elsewhere is a bumpy but mesmerizing ride.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Covers Record
    Marshall takes wild liberties with lyrics and melodies, and dissolves indie-rock self-consciousness into fractured, heartrending folk-blues.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Yours Truly
    One of the most purely enjoyable albums of the year, powered by her lithe, Broadway-honed voice and a canny exploitation of her most "adult" indulgence: nostalgia.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Less Than Human
    Overflows with ebullient beats that are both booming and bizarre. [29 Jul 2005, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Embryonic
    Equal parts overwhelming and intoxicating, Embryonic is a trip worth taking.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    My Name Is My Name
    [He expands his reach] with the aid of producer-label boss Kanye West, guest ranging from The-Dream to Kendrick Lamar, and a steely gusto unmatched in hip-hop. [11 Oct 2013, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Oct 7, 2013
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Give Up The Ghost
    Carlile's third album, a polished collection of confessional rockers and twangy love songs, should help keep her momentum going. [16 Oct 2009, p.59]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez
    Snags aside — “The Lost Chord” sounds bloated, and bonus cut “MLS” sands the edges off JPEGMAFIA — Strange Timez (out Oct. 23) adds a delightful new chapter in Gorillaz’s ongoing tale of cross-pollination.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Congotronics 2: Buzz'N'Rumble From The Urb'N'Jungle
    More diverse than the series debut. [3 Mar 2006, p.102]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    You Are Not Alone
    You Are Not Alone is mostly invigorating gospel, though he somehow got her to apply that mighty rasp to the saddest song ever, Randy Newman's "Losing You."
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    a ghost is born
    For someone [Tweedy] whose longtime strength has been songwriting over all-out adventurousness, many of the more traditional tunes seem, ironically, half finished. [25 Jun 2004, p.161]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Crack-Up
    On their latest, the band’s melodies are crisper and sonic dynamics and tempo-shifts are employed to greater effect.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Rainbow
    Rainbow, her rich, masterful third LP, is far more than a kiss-off to old demons--it’s an artistic feat, as Kesha unites stylistic forays with her sharp, weathered lyricism.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    New View
    The result is Friedberger’s most conventional-sounding rock record, and that’s a compliment: without any high-concept noise to distract her, New View focuses on her rich voice and her remarkable ability to turn a phrase.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Easy Wonderful
    There's something happily uncomplicated--and at times proudly uncool--about his band's sixth album, Easy Wonderful, like a 1990s Baja hoodie that you can't bring yourself to throw out.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Sweetener
    A fascinating and sneakily complex pop album that adds new creative wrinkles to Grande’s already estimable repertoire.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    MM..Food
    [Doom] flips countless edible metaphors over hard-hitting, jazzy beats while never devolving into pointless parody. [3 Dec 2004, p.87]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Old Kit Bag
    The writing is just as rueful, darkly romantic, and exuberant as it's ever been. [16 May 2003, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Penance Soiree
    Avant-rock fiends should rejoice. [7 May 2004, p.84]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Coral
    A record that's as hard to ignore as it is to pin down. [14 Mar 2003, p.66]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
    The band's playful musicality is undeniable. [26 Jan 2007, p.71]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Bravest Man in the Universe
    At times the dribs of Gorillaz-style glitch don't quite fit, making some songs on The Bravest Man in the Universe feel more like clever remixes than organic moments. Still, Womack shines.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Age of Adz
    The Age of Adz complements rather than distracts from the heartrending melodies and ambitious orchestration underneath.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    E-MO-TION Side B [EP]
    Side B is that bash: intimate yet inclusive, with an invitation personally delivered by hand.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Wilderness
    The result is a record that sounds less like the remaking they billed it as and more like an explorative sidestep.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Offend Maggie
    Nearly every tune sports a hummable melody--many of them sublime--which makes this album one of the more accessible entries in Deerhoof's willfully strange catalog.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Shining
    Though bittersweet, the CD lives up to its mastermind's lofty legacy. [25 Aug 2006, p.87]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Icky Thump
    Despite all the distortion and teeth-shivering riffs, Icky Thump rivals White Blood Cells in accessibility. [22 Jun 2007, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Crying Light
    The Crying Light--a haunting collection of ballads that play like transmissions from a mournful, elegant alien--nearly equals its predecessor.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Next Big Thing
    A lively and assured return to form. [14 Feb 2003, p.73]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Blue Boy
    The disc's gritter sound, courtesy of producer Steve Earle, is a perfect complement to Sexsmith's "Waterloo Sunset" croon... [6/8/2001, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Kid A
    On first listen, ''Kid A'' sounds like doggerel -- effects with beats, and off putting effects at that. Only after a dozen or so attentive listens does the album reveal itself as sublimely restless mood music. And even then, it remains elusive and aloof: Some songs are beautifully ambient, others are filler, and some are one and the same.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Music
    It's her most patchwork record since the Sean Penn years.... In the way it tiptoes around sundry moods and beats, ''Music'' is frustratingly inconsistent, as if Madonna herself weren't sure where to venture next. At times, it feels like a collection of sounds -- clever, intriguing ones, to be sure -- that seek to compensate for ordinary melodies and Madonna's stoic delivery.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Let Go
    A dozen near-perfect pop songs, each one teeming with joyful desperation.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    You Get What You Give
    While no one wants an existential crisis at the beach barbecue, these guys really shine when they ditch the polish in favor of some bite.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Aw C'Mon
    Judicious distillation might have provided sharper focus, but this is an appealingly ambitious sprawl. [combined review of both discs; 27 Feb 2004, p.99]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Return To The Sea
    The Frank Zappa/Neutral Milk Hotel/Muppet Show vibe doesn't always jibe, but that's half the fun. [7 Apr 2006, p.63]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Mirror Traffic
    The slacker king has traded paisley-print guitar freak-outs for faster, breezier pop songs.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Humming By The Flowered Vine
    Cantrell, with a voice reminiscent of Alison Krauss and melodies much the same, was born for this stuff. [24 Jun 2005, p.162]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Band of Joy
    Robert Plant sounds vocally reenergized on this covers-heavy follow-up to his Grammy-winning Alison Krauss collaboration, Raising Sand.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Destroy Rock & Roll
    It's got breezy lounge fare, vocoder-driven club cuts, and a joyful average-Joe appeal long gone from the fracturing world of DJ music. [10 Feb 2006, p.137]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    One True Vine
    [Producer Jeff Tweedy] provides many nicely spare showcases for her silken vocals. [28 Jun 2013]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Jun 21, 2013
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Section.80
    Along with the heady lyrics on cuts like "Rigamortus," makes .80 worth the visit. [5 Aug 2011, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Aug 10, 2011
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Honest
    ["I'll Be Yours" and "Move That Dope"] reinforces Future's status as the rap game's current MVP. [2 May 2014, p.63]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Apr 25, 2014
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Tigers Have Spoken
    A breathtaking 35 minutes. [12 Nov 2004, p.122]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Pleasure
    Many of the songs are slow-building numbers that gradually swell to a heightened moment of release. But Feist is too gifted a songwriter to ever need to rely on a mere formula; each time, the payoff is delightfully unexpected.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    American Slang
    With shouted-till-we're-hoarse vocals, taut guitars, and a grizzled demeanor that suggests too many night shifts, they've got Garden State attitude down.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    A Little Deeper
    Like Craig David, Ms. Dynamite seems happy to pad ''A Little Deeper'' with a few examples of suave, heartsick R&B.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Since We Last Spoke
    RJ... lets his softer side show to touching effect. [18 Jun 2004, p.84]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Tasty
    Much of the beauty of Tasty is in witnessing Kelis rise to the challenge of working with multiple imaginative maestros. [12 Dec 2003, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    7
    7's artful wooziness is hardly new, but for Beach House, it feels like home.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Sunlandic Twins
    Most of Twins seems too keenly fascinated by its own intelligence. [15 Apr 2005, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Hey Hey My My Yo Yo
    The twosome's gleeful confections are more than a little over-the-top, but repeat listens will reveal some truely indelible melodies beneath those stylistic frills. [17 Aug 2007, p.73]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Dye It Blonde
    At the very least, Dye It Blonde is a promising step forward for a group that's still growing into its talents.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Le Noise
    Underneath that intriguing tinsel, it's just one more late-period Young album, all grungy chords and ghostly falsetto.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Year Of Meteors
    A rare combo: thoughtful and hummable. [9 Sep 2005, p.145]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Tones Of Town
    If the opaque lyrics seem like last-minute slaves to the meter, the brothers' amicable yelpings add a human touch. [23 Feb 2007, p.98]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Dirt Farmer
    The Band's Levon Helm turns in a modestly charming album of 13 cover songs. [30 Nov 2007, p.131]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Night Falls Over Kortedala
    The album's sound is a swirl of sparkly '60s orchestration and horns--an achievement worth a thousands days of nights. [2 Nov 2007, p.63]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Jim Noir
    Thanks to instantly addictive compositions, Noir's aural power is n o longer a secret. [25 Apr/02 May 2008, p.117]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Oshin
    Oshin's moody, reverb-soaked hooks and unrushed vocals induce a similar state of hazy pop bliss [as The Cure]. [6 Jul 2012, p.73]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Jun 29, 2012
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    After Hours
    Perhaps his biggest sonic leap yet as well as his strongest and most consistent work to date. There's a cohesion to these 14 tracks that was absent from Tesfaye's last several releases, a real sense that he's closer than ever to striking the perfect balance between the darkly shaded aesthetic he broke out with and the naked pop ambitions of his more recent material.
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