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
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Uh Huh Her
    ''Uh Huh Her'' reasserts that Harvey, now the grande dame of this genre, remains unrivaled.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    American III: Solitary Man
    Though the Man in Black has rarely sounded blacker, producer Rick Rubin frames that deep sea voice with harmonies and churchly organs, making for a dark angel beauty of an album that's austere but welcoming.
    • 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.
    • 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
    • 71 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Honeycomb
    Black's take on Southern soul: spare, graceful, in the pocket, with Black himself sounding reborn and relaxed. [22 Jul 2005, p.78]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Grey Album
    A startlingly, shockingly wonderful piece of pop art. [19 Mar 2004, p.64]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Feels
    Breathlessly giddy and shamelessly trippy. [21 Oct 2005, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 77 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Civilians
    Civilians matches Henry's rough croon with a rich, warm sound that instantly draws you into its sonic world. You won't want to leave.
    • 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.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    When I Was Cruel
    Bristling with an electric current that seemingly short-circuited years ago, ''When I Was Cruel'' is the best work Costello has produced since ''Blood & Chocolate'' back in the mid-'80s.
    • 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
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Little Sparrow
    In wedding bluegrass with the Appalachian sound of her youth, Parton, who wrote half of the material and reprises her classic ''Down From Dover,'' repeatedly explores her favorite theme -- romantic betrayal -- and turns in a powerful performance, augmented by the best of bluegrass' hot pickers
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Visitations
    With its lushly forbidding soundscapes and enigmatic lyricism, Visitations bears repeated journeys. [2 Feb 2007, p.123]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Fleet Foxes
    Hushed and wistful, Foxes evokes the itinerant days of yore...you know, before gas cost four bucks a gallon.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Gung Ho
    A collection of hypnotic, human rock & roll that extols such seemingly antiquated virtues as moral fiber, history, and love as spirituality.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Equilibrium
    A perfect 41-minute album that balances wide-open melodic inventions with crisp, time-stopping grooves. [Listen 2 This supplement, Feb 2003, p.10]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 77 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Outsider
    An unexpected ball. [19 Aug 2005, p.144]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    It'll Be Better
    While there may not be a "Sledgehammer"-style smash here, this stuff hits just as hard.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    St. Elsewhere
    St. Elsewhere is a bumpy but mesmerizing ride.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Savane
    An elegant summation of his work. [11 Aug 2006, p.69]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 70 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Boy Who Knew Too Much
    It's a Technicolor pop explosion designed for throwing your jazz hands into the air.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Vows
    The rest of Vows is equally fresh and surprising, its genre leaps held together by Kimbra's pliant coo.
    • 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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Bows & Arrows
    Bows and Arrows reveals a band that's grown tighter, hungrier, and more varied since last time. [6 Feb 2004]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    O
    Rice is both vulnerable and seductive. [18 Jul 2003, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Wounded Rhymes
    While her 2008 breakout, Youth Novels, was quirky and coy, Wounded Rhymes is hungry, dark, dirty.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Up!
    Playing armchair producer and doing comparison tests is so entertaining, the cumulative package is greater than the sum of its parts.
    • 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
    • 73 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Ear Drum
    A procession of sharp cuts. [24 Aug 2007, p.133]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Aerial
    Considering the length of her hiatus, this is a remarkable surprise.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Strangers to Ourselves
    The album’s real heart, though, is in the spots where Brock lets his eccentricities run wild. “Pistol (A. Cunanan, Miami, FL. 1996)” is named for the man who murdered Gianni Versace, and is as deeply creepy as its subject matter. It’s as strange as “Lampshades” is accessible, a tricky move pulled off expertly, and proof that the band’s found a vital second wind.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Breakfast
    They've made the most exciting debut of 2012 so far.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Hive Mind
    There’s something enjoyably old-school about Syd’s leisurely approach.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    You Are The Quarry
    A set of irresistible tracks both danceable and desolate. [28 May 2004, p.124]
    • 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
    • 62 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Kisses on the Bottom
    It's de-lovely.
    • 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
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Night On My Side
    The sweetly pained vocals sound darn similar to Beth Orton's. [25 Apr 2003, p.151]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Sale el Sol
    Sale el Sol still demonstrates Shakira's boldly global mindset.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Faith: Special Edition
    He wants our sex, and he can have it.
    • 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
    • 77 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    No More Drama
    The multiproducer arrangements are expansive yet warm, and Blige's pushy rasp has never sounded better.
    • 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
    • 77 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Truth About Love
    The storytelling on The Truth About Love, Pink's sixth album and first full-length since 2008's Funhouse, is unfalteringly vibrant, loaded with righteous anger, irreverence, and a clear eye for the darker side.
    • 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
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Platinum
    On Platinum, an old-school country wisecracker that's one of her all-time bests, she's funny as hell.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Human Conditions
    Though elaborately orchestrated, the songs retain their intimacy, communicated in Ashcroft's vocals, which, over the years, keep getting warmer. [7 Mar 2003, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 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
    • 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.
    • 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
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    45/45 [EP]
    Betke masterfully manipulates space and echo. [25 Apr 2003, p.151]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Point
    11 irresistible sound collages that feature driving beats, amiable guitar acoustics, and a quadraphonic sense of aural play that encourages rampant headphone abuse. [15 Feb 2002, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 74 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Reprieve
    It's beautifully committed music--the kind that's as essential now as it has ever been. [11 Aug 2006, p.67]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 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
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    EP
    Four hypnotic, Madge-tinged dance tracks. [1 Apr 2011, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Apr 8, 2011
    • 70 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Widow City
    A gas, a blast. [12 Oct 2007, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Melodrama
    It’s Lorde’s own storytelling that offers Melodrama‘s most rewarding twists.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Don't Give Up On Me
    The results are astonishing. [26 July 2002, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    American Beauty/American Psycho
    American Beauty/American Psycho, the quartet's seventh studio album, is even better [than 2013's Save Rock and Roll], and reveals them as perhaps the only current mainstream rock combo capable of making big-venue sing-alongs that also reward deep headphone analysis.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    69 Love Songs
    69 elegant observations by a pop master.
    • 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
    • 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
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Nothing Was the Same
    This lush, un-hurried album reveals a surer character, rebuking other rappers who talk smack "just to get a reaction" and even relatives diminished by easy money and proximity to fame.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Two Against Nature
    Their ensemble sound remains sharp and inimitable.
    • 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
    • 67 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Evil Urges
    The cumulative result is an exhilarating, bone-deep experience--a true album, built for sustained listening.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Realism
    The delicate melodies--sung by Merritt and various innocents, including longtime collaborator Claudia Gonson--make all the psychic mayhem go down smoothly, barely leaving a trace of blood on the floor.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Post-War
    Ward's talents have never been more persuasively showcased. [1 Sep 2006, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 68 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Bazooka!!!
    A glorious blend of punk and power pop straight outta '78. [22/29 Aug 2003, p.133]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Home
    A magisterial album.... If the group has cast off some of the youthful eclecticism, the three Chicks have pulled off something more difficult: refined their trademark sound without allowing it to turn into a copyrighted formula.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Love
    You could figure it as a sop to today's interactive mash-up culture. Or you could say it's just extending the medley-ish, segue-happy ethos of Abbey Road to the band's entire catalog. Really, it's both, and it's bliss.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    In Your Dreams
    In Your Dreams, Nicks' first studio album since 2001, is also streaked with the witchy-woman weirdness only she can bring.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Cookie: The Anthropological Mix Tape
    Another set of songs that are political and unflinchingly personal, but still manage to entertain. [7 June 2002, p. 76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    A Rush Of Blood To The Head
    Displaying a cohesion rarely heard in albums these days, ''A Rush of Blood'' bobs from one majestic little high to another.
    • 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.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends
    Their [the guest artists'] fresh influx of ideas on The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends creates new flavor profiles for the band's loopy psychedelic slurry.
    • 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.''
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Songs For Christmas
    The season's most thrilling holiday release. [1 Dec 2006, p.85]
    • 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.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Scorpion
    From start to powerful finish 16 tracks later, Scorpion pumps up the volume, the rhythms, everything.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Stumble Into Grace
    Lovely, heartbreaking, and just diffident enough to get perspective on this bittersweet old world. [26 Sep 2003, p.94]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 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
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Long.Live.A$AP
    His major-label debut proves he's more than a magnetic hedonist.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Magic
    Magic, his best record since "The River" in 1980. [5 Oct 2007, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Decline Of British Sea Power
    It's not all darkness: The Brighton, England-based quintet offers enough straight-ahead rockers to keep the CD from turning into dirge overkill. [Oct 2003, p.95]
    • 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.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Push the Sky Away
    The peak of Cave's 15th album with the Bad Seeds is a multidimensional walkabout through sonic shadows and fog. [22 Feb 2013, p.74]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Feb 20, 2013
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Detours
    In Detours' subdued second half, though, Crow lays off the social commentary to address her own recent rough patches, with lyrics that grow more absorbing and intimate as Bottrell's eclecticism simmers down.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Blonde
    With these 17 tracks, Ocean shows himself to be one of pop’s foremost innovators.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Celebration
    Superfans may well die happy with this much concentrated Madge-estry: 36 tracks covering nearly every phase of her 25-year career. It all holds up surprisingly well.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Modern Times
    Intriguing, immediate, and quietly epic, Modern Times must rank among Dylan's finest albums.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
    It's that very rare thing: a totally fresh--and utterly engaging--sound. [Listen 2 This supplement, Mar 2004, p.12]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Tigers Have Spoken
    A breathtaking 35 minutes. [12 Nov 2004, p.122]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 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.
    • 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.
prev
Page: