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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    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Matangi
    M.I.A. never overthrew the prevailing pop order.... With her usual freetrade beats sounding more velvety than spiky, Maya Arulpragasam's fourth album finally makes peace with this. [8 Nov 2013, p.63]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Nov 1, 2013
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The River In Reverse
    Costello can still oversing and overwrite... But even when he threatens to turn baroque, as in ''Broken Promise Land,'' Toussaint rescues him.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Painkillers
    Painkillers is a compelling second act.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Cassadaga
    Musically, it's his richest album yet, full of Nashville twang and Branson brassiness. And lyrically, the itinerant-traveler conceit is intriguing, even though its sweeping scope lacks the almost masochistically intimate power of earlier material.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Loose In The Air
    Ever wonder what Interpol would sound like with a noize guy scuzzing up their high-tension tunes? [16 Sep 2005, p.87]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Busted Stuff
    This is such a fascinatingly different take on (mostly) the same material that it almost whets your appetite for a third rendering.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Love Is Hell, Part 2 [EP]
    Song for song, the EPs trump ''Rock 'n' Roll.''
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Cellar Door
    A well-conceived collection of odd pop songs with thoughtful lyrics about unusual subjects. [23/30 Jan 2004, p.101]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Gold
    The album's sprawling tour through American music, from coast to beer-stained coast, is like a diner full of comfort food.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Power Out
    Recalls both early [Philip] Glass and Stereolab, at least until the squaling vocals begin, when it starts to conjure the art brut of punk foremothers like the Raincoats or the Slits. [Listen 2 This supplement, Feb 2004, p.16]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Rancid [2000]
    This collection of urgent, gravel voiced anthems is one of the most vital things the punk world has coughed up in years.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Handcream For A Generation
    Sounds even more like Quentin Tarantino directing a Bollywood Superfly starring Beck. [3 May 2002, p.88]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain
    [A] simply dreamy album. [20 Oct 2006, p.83]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Pretty Little Head
    Not every moment is essential, but compromise just isn't part of McKay's dazzling, defiant repertoire.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Made Of Rain
    Rain’s black-velvet melancholy makes it easy to pretend they never left.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Leaders Of The Free World
    The gloom-rock tunes are as sophisticated as ever. [24 Feb 2006, p.64]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Lovers Rock
    One pretty song melts into the next; the result is an undifferentiated dreaminess. [11/17/2000, p.126]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Meltdown
    Meltdown gets stuck in a hard-rock rut. [11 Mar 2005, p.104]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Now
    As mellowed-out as much of ''Now'' is, it's definitely not aural wallpaper, but a cohesive effort that rewards repeated listenings -- a veritable slow jam-boree.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Transnormal Skiperoo
    White shares similarly enthralling tales of troubled characters but infuses them with a newfound levity. [14 Mar 2008, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Employment
    Certainly makes for a fun time. [8 Apr 2005, p.64]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Chaos And Creation In The Backyard
    There's no question that in places, it's a tad too twee. But what we're hearing is an artist honestly following his muse--always a compelling event. [16 Sep 2005, p.84]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Comfort Of Strangers
    Orton's most naked, traditional-sounding CD. [10 Feb 2006, p.132]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    No Wow
    [The Kills] use overdriven riffs and ticky-tacky drum-machine beats to create a steamy mood of sexual menace and druggy abandon. [11 Mar 2005, p.102]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Death Magnetic
    Sometimes the album's mini-epics come off as we've still got it! stunts. But when it's working, the effect is like ceding your senses to a particularly well-engineered roller coaster in the dark.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Colour In Anything
    At 17 songs in 76 minutes, Colour is Blake’s longest album yet and with so much talent aiding the songwriter, it can feel belabored. But then there are stunners like “f.o.r.e.v.e.r.” and the title track.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Marshall Mathers LP
    ''The Marshall Mathers LP'' is indefensible and critic-proof, hypocritical and heartbreaking, unlistenable and undeniable; it's a disposable shock-rap session, and the first great pop record of the 21st century.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Revelling/Reckoning
    Pick from either the funky Revelling or the more downbeat Reckoning and you'll be rewarded with an intimate new mood or insight, expertly framed by the singer's acoustic-based every-style. [13 Apr 2001, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Sleep And Release
    Like Radiohead's Kid A, it's a rock album divided into movements closer in spirit to a dance record (complete with two ''chill-out'' tracks at the end), which is what, at times, makes it as difficult as it is compelling.
    • 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
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Trouble In Dreams
    He's convincingly sensitive even at his most arch. [21 Mar 2008, p.57]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Honeymoon
    It’s stubbornly retro, and clearly that pleases the provocateur in Del Rey.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
    This 14-track-strong album is very much good news for people who loved Good News for People Who Love Bad News.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Alive 2007
    The master DJs blend all their biggest hits into one enthralling, seamless mash-up of pumping bass lines, steady drumbeats, and cooing vocoders.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    A Healthy Distrust
    The rapper's ferocity makes him a good fit for punk label Epitaph. [11 Feb 2005, p.63]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Come Feel Me Tremble
    The scratchy voice still aches, the guitar riffs still gleefully rip off the Faces, and the songs sound like they just fell out of bed. [24 Oct 2003, p.106]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Springtime Can Kill You
    Proof folk music shouldn't just conjure the past, but also sit down and have a drink with it in the present. [12 May 2006, p.82]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Seeds
    A jittery intensity powers Seeds, the band's fifth album.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Ships
    Though considered an acquired taste... Smith still finds something oddly charming in his sprawling chiaroscuro of sound, and a sort of childlike joy in its execution. [12 May 2006, p.80]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Jake Shears
    If the album sometimes feels more like a broadcast from some long-lost AOR radio frequency than its own fresh story, it's also just fun: a joyride reminder that newer dogs can pull off old tricks, too. [17/24 Aug 2018, p.97]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Aug 13, 2018
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Live A Little
    Live a Little... finds Pernice throwing off the shackles of overenunciation and fussy production.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Lights Out
    Their third album chugs like a Stockholm freight train with a Queens Of The Stone Age caboose. [9/16 Nov 2012, p.98]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Dec 6, 2012
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Soul Journey
    Her smoky Appalachian porch moan has never sounded deeper, realer or sexier. [6 June 2003, p.79]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    So Stylistic
    Though the formula is irresistible at times, it's tough not to squirm.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Standards
    A thing of strange beauty, with melodies and sensations slipping in and out of focus. [2/23/01, p.163]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Hour of Bewilderbeast
    A slippery and surprising little record -- an oblique song cycle tracing a relationship from balmy beginning to corrosive end.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Two Way Monologue
    A breezy, unexpectedly enchanting CD. [12 Mar 2004, p.112]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Bish Bosch
    [Walker] is stronger and scarier than ever on his violently gorgeous 14th album. [7 Dec 2012, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Nov 30, 2012
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Ambulance Ltd
    This alluring debut is hard to shake off. [24 Dec 2004, p.69]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    In Love & War
    In Love & War matches the brash energy of her biggest hit — though it's not for lack of trying, with many of these tunes shamelessly mimicking '1 Thibg.'
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    A Blessing And A Curse
    Finds [Drive-By Truckers] turing from the social concerns of 2004's Dirty South to the more personal with career-best results. [21 Apr 2006, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Momofuku
    Soul ballad 'Flutter & Wow' might be the best of his rare love songs, and harmonies from Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis add elegance to this garagey mix. [23 May 2008, p.122]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    How Do You Do
    L.A. retro soulster Hawthorne hasn't led a major-label deal smooth out its quirk. [Oct 2011, p.119]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Oct 25, 2011
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Camila
    Cabello’s voice isn’t especially distinctive, but it’s instinctually pretty: effortless and warm, with an edge of morning-after rasp.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Everything All The Time
    [They] show impressive mood-manipulation skills despite relatively simplistic songwriting. [24 Mar 2006, p.70]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    An Omen EP
    With Atticus Ross, Reznor pieces together wintry electronic headphone epics and deftly threads Maandig's ghostly sensuality into enigmatic tapestries. [30 Nov 2012, p.73]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Nov 21, 2012
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Ritual Union
    It's ambient R&B for restless nights. [29 Jul 2011, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Jul 27, 2011
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Under Great White Northern Lights [Live]
    This concert CD/DVD does a great job of highlighting both sides of The White Stripes' carefully controlled public persona.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Sea
    What makes it all work is her lithe voice, as eloquent an instrument as ever.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Guitar Slinger
    A concise set of soul-kissed tunes. [28 Oct 2011, p.73]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Nov 15, 2011
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    I'm Staying Out
    It brims with beautiful, confidently delivered tunes about love.... and all its inherent dangers. [25 Apr 2003, p.150]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Songs In A Minor
    Though the second half slackens with sad sack teen themes, ''Songs'' is a debut full of promise.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Feminist Sweepstakes
    Le Tigre meld cheesy lo-fi electronica, garagey hip-hop, cerebral sound collage, and new-wavey songcraft into infectious, stripped-down tunes.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Inni [Live]
    This double live album/DVD, which includes footage from their final 2008 prehiatus show at London's Alexandra Palace, is masterfully paced.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    More Fish
    B-list Wu cronies contribute a few too many forgettable guest verses, but Ghost's technique has never been deadlier.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Modern Guilt
    Burton makes the ultimate endgame sound like a party you'd still want to be invited to--one that even Beck might enjoy, despite himself.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too
    The topics are all too familiar, not to mention heavy--a weightiness that doesn't quite match (or do justice to) her light, melodic warble. [13 June 2008]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    C'Mon Miracle
    She creates an atmosphere of such intimate ease, you feel as if she's singing for you alone. [4 June 2004, p.80]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Plastic Beach
    Sometimes, especially in the album's latter half, that sonic drift can come off as dull, and even dispiriting. Often, though, they do it with style.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Ash Wednesday
    Perkins' songs are neither maudlin nor exploitative--just quietly lovely. [2 Mar 2007, p.67]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Flesh Tone
    Does pregnancy turn R&B singers into robots? First Christina Aguilera went cyborg for her post-baby album Bionic, and now Kelis has gone Robo-Mom on this tribute to her infant son, Flesh Tone, which blends awesomely sweaty urban pop with cold Eurodisco.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Fantasies
    Danceable though they may be, these songs are also fighting some pretty serious gloom.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Roadkill Rising - The Bootleg Collection: 1977-2009
    These four apocalyptic discs show in-concert Iggy excels at unfettered rewrites if standards "Gloria" and "Hang On Sloppy." [27 May 2011, p.79]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted May 24, 2011
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Terror
    Artists from Radiohead to Liars have explored this territory already, and better. [19/26 Apr 2013, p.112]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Apr 23, 2013
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Ryan Adams
    Adams finds moments of quiet beauty and rabble-rousing rock. [12 Sep 2014, p.62]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Sep 9, 2014
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Selling Live Water
    Unfortunately, his spiels can deteriorate into what sounds like unedited 4 a.m. caffeine babble.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Age Of The Sun
    The Fix is Bill Doss, here trading soundscapes for soft-focus songs dressed in late-'60s filigree. [8 Feb 2002, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Dying In Stereo
    Utilitarian beats, charmingly lumpy flow, and some of the more amusingly literate rhymes around.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Away from the World
    DMB return to the crunchy arena-skronk of their peak. [14/21 Sep 2012, p. 141]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Sep 12, 2012
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Fallen Angels
    His voice may be husky and damaged from decades of performing, but there’s beauty to its character. Tellingly, he delivers these songs of love lost and cherished not with a burning passion but with the wistfulness of experience.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    King
    Though long at 18 tracks, King's still got plenty of heavyweight hits. [31 Mar 2006, p.64]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Celebration, Florida
    The folk-rockers magnificently expand their musical palette, finding space for punch horns, Floyd-ian sonic weirdness and even Audrey Hepburn samples. [13 May 2011, p. 63]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted May 6, 2011
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Valende
    Syd Barrett meets Fellini. [28 Jan 2005, p.85]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 77 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Emotional Mugger
    Although Emotional Mugger isn’t a bad record--Segall probably doesn’t have one of those in him--it’s among his weakest releases yet.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Gift Of Screws
    Buckingham remains the master of type A chamber pop.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Dirty Projectors
    He’s applied some of his musical tourism to Dirty Projectors to convey a batch of hyper-specific lyrics through an often-thrilling blend of electronica, prog-rock, Afro-beat, R&B, and pop.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    New Again
    On New Again, the emo survivors manage to reinvent themselves as mainstreamo shredders.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Once Again
    Musically, the CD is satisfying enough to ensure further Grammy acclaim. Lyrically, it's damaged enough to require a top-flight couples therapist.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Age Of The Understatement
    The Age of the Understatement is ultimately an auspicious work from a couple of twentysomethings looking to transcend the term ''side project.''
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Cool
    It turns out randomness makes for a surprisingly unifying concept.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Attention Deficit
    He often lives up to that promise on his major-label debut, tossing out deep thoughts and show-offy puns over beats that pay homage to the go-go of his native D.C.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Field Music
    It's an excellent nod to XTC's mod-pop, played with a frenetic edge for the ADD generation. [7 Apr 2006, p.63]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Pieces of April [Soundtrack]
    While [the new songs] have their charms, none can match the playfully sophisticated melodies and sad-sack wit of 1999's wonderful ''69 Love Songs.''
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Original Motion Picture Score for The Virgin Suicides
    Hardly a major work; several tracks recycle the elegiac main theme, and you miss the occasional vocal that enhanced Moon Safari.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Group Sounds
    After 10 years, RFTC have perfected their mix of muscular guitar riffs and bristling horns; it's the songwriting that's hit a dead end. [3/9/2001, p.82]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar
    Expands the parameters of the band's earlier acoustic-based sound, with the addition of electric guitars and more complex drumming enhancing frontman Chris Carrabba's emo-lite songcraft. [15 Aug 2003, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    From Every Sphere
    His songs recall both the musical inventiveness of Captain Beefheart and the mopey poetry of Elliot Smith. [30 May 2003, p.116]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Out of the Game
    If Out of the Game sounds old-fashioned, Wainwright's words feel like postcards from now.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Repulsion Box
    A darn groovy good time. [2 Sep 2005, p.79]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Chief
    This midlevel country dude, one of Nashville's most detail-oriented songwriters, peppers his third album, Chief, with so many proper nouns - Waylon and Springsteen, Jack Daniel's and Jesus - that it's sometimes hard to hear 
Eric Church through all the neo-outlaw hero worship.
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