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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    • 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.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Remedy
    This blissful joy ride is hard to resist and easy to love.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards
    Familiar, compelling, and tugging out empathy.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Robyn
    Fantastic all of the time.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Way I See It
    Backed by a galvanizing ensemble of musicians that would make the Funk Brothers proud, Saadiq belts out effervescent love songs with infectious vigor.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Reminder
    Another multifaceted gem.
    • 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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Drill A Hole In That Substrate And Tell Me What You See
    White conjures lost souls drifting through a mythical nation of pawnshops and cheap motels, his voice a sensual whisper over their rattling bones. [9 Jul 2004, p.89]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 68 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    North
    Feels like a mash note to autumnal Manhattan. [26 Sep 2003, p.93]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Whoa, Nelly!
    One of the year's most consistently pleasurable debuts.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Tempest
    Thirty-five albums in, Dylan remains as magical and mysterious as ever.
    • 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.
    • 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
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    In Rainbows
    Rainbows may be the gentlest, prettiest Radiohead set yet.
    • 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
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    American VI: Ain't No Grave
    There are none of the folk-alt-rock karaoke selections of previous American discs on American VI: Ain't No Grave, just 10 wholly appropriate picks that speak to the gravity of ?Johnny Cash's situation and his joy?in both life and death.
    • 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.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    This Is Country Music
    The whole record plays like a best-of sampler--not just for Paisley, but for the history of the art form.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Taking The Long Way
    Finally, they put their music where their opinionated mouths are.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Poses
    With Broadway-worthy new standards, and a strong supporting cast, Wainwright delivers a flawless, flip-flopless performance. [8 June 2001, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8
    Excitingly, Tell Tale Signs jumps decades ahead to offer an alternate history of a less leaky period: the creative renaissance that started at the end of the 1980s and has been bearing fruit ever since.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Paper Tigers
    All retro rock should sound this good. [22 Apr 2005, p.62]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    LP1
    She exerts enough of a magnetic pull to lure listeners into some challenging territory.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Actor
    Actor is a uniquely potent cocktail of sounds and moods that'll get you hooked, fast.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
    Though the album trips lightly from slinky roller-skate jams ('Fences') to near Brit-rocky rave-ups ('Lasso'), the underlying vibe is both retro and somehow outside of time--like a memory made sweeter than the real thing it recalls.
    • 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.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Hell Hath No Fury
    The best hip-hop album of 2006.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Ancient Melodies Of The Future
    A lovely surprise. [17 Aug 2001, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Gaslighter
    By blending early-21st-century pop savvy with the storytelling that made country music so crucial to the American canon, Gaslighter is all fire and nerve, performed by three women whose musical bona fides are rivaled only by their rock-solid backbones.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Soldier Of Love
    On songs like the space-folky ''Long Hard Road'' and the reggae-scented ''Babyfather,'' Sade exhales peerlessly while the boys behind her fluff one heck of a sonic pillow. Weary bones, rest here.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Stand Ins
    This Austin quintet follows 2007's "The Stage Names" with a second tour de force about the collateral damage of fame.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    VH1 Storytellers
    Whether singing or speaking, he does it all with a sort of messy, testifying fervor: There are many congregants in the Church of Kanye, but none so devout as the man himself.
    • 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
    • 77 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Atom Bomb
    The vibe isn't far removed from the funky frathouse spirit of a vintage Leon Russell album (note: That's a good thing). [18 Mar 2005, p.66]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Body Talk
    Spectacular Swedish import Robyn continues to languish in the cult-act remainder bin, but these 15 excellently curated tracks (culled from three 2010 EPs) deserve to change that.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Twilight Saga: New Moon [OST]
    Think of New Moon as a sort of survey course in new-now-next rock: a mixtape with teeth.
    • 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
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    World Without Tears
    A perfectly imperfect set, it's looser, blowsier, and more what-the-hell? than anything she's done.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Beaucoup Fish
    Wipe away its dusting of frost and you'll encounter mystery, beauty, and alluring rhapsodies, with the warm, pulsating beats serving as the music's heart.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    We are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
    We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed is full of half-heartfelt, half-hilarious songs that capture the rush of being young in a noisy new century.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Electric Circus
    Although he can be self-righteous, scattered, and grim, a team of truly youthful-minded producers is there to color the gray.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Get Away From Me
    Sophisticated stuff even for a music vet; truly stunning considering McKay is only 19.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Renaissance
    His music now seems as fresh and necessary an alternative to rap's mainstream as it did when Tribe first arrived. Welcome back, old friend.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Songs For The Deaf
    The year's best hard-rock album. [6 Sep 2002, p.86]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Cobblestone Runway
    His encouraging lyrics are creatively conceived and cliche-free, while his music has a folky, redemptive grace. [11 Oct 2002, p.83]
    • 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
    • 69 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    West
    As bummers go, West is a beautiful one — akin to Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Red Dirt Girl
    A transcendent and seductively personal sound.
    • 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
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Live In New York City
    Fans will likely find Live In New York City's porridge not too epic and not too stingy, the balance of newer material, obvious classics, and obscure trifles just right. [13 Apr 2001, p.73]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 71 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    LP3
    While these beats keep you hooked without a single word, surely they'd sound phenomenal with the right vocal on top. [15 Aug 2008, p.67]
    • 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.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    ...Like Clockwork
    Stoner-rock heavyweight Josh Homme shows no ring rust on QOTSA's first new album in six years. [14 Jun 2013, p.94]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Jun 7, 2013
    • 53 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    HitNRun: Phase One
    HITnRUN is an invigorating, eclectic modern pop record that takes a now-familiar (but still no less impressive) formula--equal parts hedonistic arena rock, chugging funk, and art-mutated pop--and tacks on a handful of new sounds and twists that give is a satisfying, visceral edge.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    When The Pawn...
    Apple's piano trundles, the strings loom, the beats clop; everything, including her throaty voice, has alluring dark circles under it. With their hints of cabaret, tango, and doomed chanteuses, the melodies slither rather than pummel you.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Final Straw
    Much of the credit for this catchy set of Britpop goes to the intelligent use of samples. [2 Apr 2004, p.66]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Rome
    On Rome, they masterfully conjure up a love story fit for the silver screen--shoot-outs and tumbleweeds included.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    All That You Can't Leave Behind
    As hopelessly antiquated as it may sound in the year 2000, it's as if they decided it was time to write and record an album of very good, extremely substantial traditional rock songs with an underlying inspirational bent.... the new work focuses on songs, not sonic gimmicks, and the difference is palpable.
    • 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.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Codes and Keys
    It's a reminder to the rest of the pretty-rock community that loveliness is worthless if there's no heart behind it, and Death Cab's beats stronger than most.
    • 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.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    How Animals Move
    Lush, high-plains soundtrack music. [1 Nov 2002, p.70]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Something More Than Free
    His latest sounds happier, and it’s still steeped in the Southern mythology that’s his forte.
    • 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
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Life Will See You Now
    Yielding vibrant optimism where Lekman had typically sulked with a smile. Life is the perfect pick-me-up for the winter of our discontent.
    • 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]
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Lemonade
    Her boldest, most ambitious, best album to date.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Back To Me
    Offers up the same taut honky-tonk, high-lonesome balladry and electric-rock snarls as Failer. But the production is more direct, and her songs are more rueful. [4 Mar 2005, p.71]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Shake The Sheets
    Practically every song is a near-perfect amalgam of straight-up melodies and pogoing beats. [5 Nov 2004, p.80]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 74 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Ultraviolence
    Ultraviolence is the masked bacchanalia that finally unleashes the full potential lurking beneath the hype.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Working On A Dream
    Springsteen's topical concerns have subsided for now, washed away by a high tide of positive personal feelings.
    • 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.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Music For Imaginary Films
    The overall tone remains knowing and playful.
    • 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
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Rubber Factory
    Shockingly well done... a remarkable album. [3 Sep 2004, p.73]
    • 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
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Random Access Memories
    It's a headphones album in an age of radio singles; a bravura live performance that stands out against pro forma knob-twiddling; a jazzy disco attack on the basic house beat; a full collaboration at a time when the superstar DJ stands alone. It's also quite moving; melancholy runs through every song.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    45:33
    45:33 deftly segues from the smooth funk favored by Levan to synth-pop and Talking Heads-style polyrhythms before opening into serious space-party territory.
    • 97 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    How The West Was Won
    Capture[s] a mighty band at the height of its gargantuan power.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Montage Of Heck: The Home Recordings
    It’s hard to grade Montage of Heck. Considering sound quality and execution of ideas, it’s in the lower C range. But as a cultural artifact that provides an inside look at the creative process of an enigmatic genius, it’s absolutely indispensable.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon)
    Their grandiose score will make you glad that this silent film [Melies' 1902 film A Trip to the Moon] isn't silent anymore. [17 Feb 2012, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Feb 13, 2012
    • 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.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Imidiwan: Companions
    Their lyrics reveal the mysteries of true rolling stones. [16 Oct 2009, p.59]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Let England Shake
    Harvey uses the bright grooves to present her grim thoughts on the world's armed conflicts. It's a hoedown for the end of civilization.
    • 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.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Townes
    Earle, Townes Van Zandt's foremost disciple, gives 15 favorites the kind of carefully considered settings they deserve.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Chase This Light
    Chase This Light is what emo should sound like: big emotions, sure, but also big hooks, big stakes. And big rewards. [19 Oct 2007, p.126]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Kill The Moonlight
    Could be the Strokes in 10 years--if they work hard. [Listen 2 This Supplement, Aug 2002, p.14]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Medulla
    One of her best efforts. [10 Sep 2004, p.161]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Body Talk, Pt. 2
    On Body Talk Pt. 2, this eight-track follow-up to June's Body Talk Pt. 1, the Swedish electro-pop pixie uses sleek club music to endearingly explore more unpolished emotions.
    • 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.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace
    It isn't long before you realize how frickin' right it all sounds, how damn near flawless the tone of the whole set feels. [28 Sep 2007, p.104]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Ceremonials
    She crafts Ceremonials, a confident, unflinching tour de force.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Syro
    A startlingly accessible, possibly even pop-friendly effort. [3 Oct 2014, p.69]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Sep 29, 2014
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Because Of The Times
    If less accessible on first hearing than its predecessors, the result is an epic wide-screen movie of a CD and the band's best to date.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Adore Life
    Overall, this is an an album that feels on the brink of falling apart. It doesn’t, but it’s exactly that tension that’s a pleasure all its own.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Non-Fiction
    On his gleefully carnal sixth LP he shows off a flexibility that few performers can match.[30 Jan-6 Feb 2015,p.120]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Jan 27, 2015
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