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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    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future
    Cheeky modernity hides beneath every glistening throwback.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Big To-Do
    The Big To-Do features some of the band's most evocative chunks of misery-detailing to date.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Ta-Dah
    Even some of the kickiest stuff has an unexpected emotional punch.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    El Camino
    They've teamed up with longtime producer Danger Mouse to do what they do best.
    • 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
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Heroes To Zeros
    Moon-eyed stoners looking for a 21st-century Pink Floyd should seek out the Beta Band. [7 May 2004, p.86]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Hot Thoughts
    This 10-song collection is dominated less by taut rhythm guitar than by synths, handclaps, and kickdrums. ... A band that never gets sick of adding tools to its bag of tricks.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Want One
    If Sondheim had been reared on old Van Dyke Parks records, he might sound like this. [26 Sep 2003, p.94]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Martha Wainwright
    Wainwright's barbed lyrics about love and relationships sound like she scrawled them on a whiskey-soaked night. [22 Apr 2005, p.62]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Breaker
    Although the rest of The Breaker may not be blessed with the T-Swizzle magic, there are some more strong contenders for your next breakup playlist.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Smash Mouth
    Smash Mouth keep getting better and better. [7 Dec 2001, p.104]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Talkie Walkie
    Tighter songwriting and an undercurrent of dark claustrophobia distinguish the disc from its predecessors. [23/30 Jan 2004, p.99]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 69 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Magic Potion
    Looser, but no less excellent, than their last collection. [15 Sep 2006, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The New Abnormal
    Abnormal offers something even better, possibly, than reckless youth: rock stars finally old enough to truly miss those good old days — and wise enough now, too, to give us the soundtrack these strange new times deserve.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Accelerate
    Heavyweight champeen or not, Stipe's got his fighting spirit back, and so does his band.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Chavez Ravine
    A ghostly meditation on the culture of forgetting. [8 Jul 2005, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 69 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Junky Star
    This moody, recession-themed collection from Bingham--who won an Oscar this year for a song from Crazy Heart--is unlikely to boost anyone's morale during our current downturn, but Junky Star might make some folks feel less alone.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Time (The Revelator)
    Ironically, while this is Welch's quietest album, with nary a drum or electric instrument in earshot, it's even closer to the spiritual vicinity of rock.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Stockholm
    Her first solo album brims with sassy, leather-clad guitar struts like the Neil Young-assisted "Down The Wrong Way" and the sad-eyed "Like In The Movies." [20 Jun 2014, p.64]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Jun 13, 2014
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Let It Come Down
    A big, lumbering, and often uplifting symphonic-rock piece about being a wastrel, it's as if Brian Wilson had made ''Pet Sounds'' a decade later in the midst of his bedridden, drug-addled despondency.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Andorra
    The only problem with this symphonic daydream is that at just nine songs and 43 minutes, it's over far too soon. [24 Aug 2007, p.130]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Rules Of Travel
    A CD of beautiful and melancholy folk-pop.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Eban & Charley [Soundtrack]
    Exquisitely moody songs alternate with instrumentals that sound like outtakes from the Mothers of Invention's Burnt Weeny Sandwich (that's a compliment). [25 Jan 2002, p.107]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Bon Iver
    On Bon Iver, his second full-length, an emboldened Vernon achieves a beautiful fantasy all his own, backed by a full band and buoyed with horns and pedal steel.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    A City By The Light Divided
    This is the Jersey qunitet's most riff-heavy, unified work yet. [28 Apr 2006, p.136]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Traveling Alone
    Tift Merritt strips things down on her raw fifth album, letting her aching vocals and bewitching twang do all the convincing. [5 Oct 2012, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Oct 2, 2012
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Moth
    Polachek is also a whip-smart lyricist and on these ten tracks, she reveals a poet’s eye for observing the world around her.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    A Mad & Faithful Telling
    It's a rare group that can make you wistful while wielding a caravans worth of instruments like a theremin, accordian, and sousaphone. [28 Mar 2008, p.67]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Tuskegee
    It's still gratifying to see how many A-list Nashville stars lined up for guest spots on Tuskegee--Blake! Tim! Shania! Willie!--and to hear how naturally the Alabama native countrifies R&B classics like "Endless Love" and the Jennifer Nettles-assisted "Hello."
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The King Is Dead
    The Decemberists redeem themselves with their sixth LP, The King Is Dead, a 40-minute set that's more succinctly rewarding than anything they've done in years.
    • 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.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    God Forgives, I Don't
    God Forgives is the first album that really feels like it was made by a boss.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Aphrodite
    The diminutive Australian diva is still delivering disco thunder from Down Under.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    We All Belong
    Like pals My Morning Jacket, Dr. Dog blend ''classic rock'' elements into woozy, idiosyncratic songs all their own.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    R.E.D.
    The rawer lyrics showcase a man who's maturing without making a fuss about it.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Tooth & Nail
    His perfectly weathered voice brings out the simple sweetness of breezy heartbreakers. [22 Mar 2013, p.64]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Mar 21, 2013
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Raising Sand
    These aren't "duets" but exercises in sublime harmony. [2 Nov 2007, p.65]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Soberish
    Revels in nervy song structures and unexpected instrumental touches even on its more straightforward tracks, such as the "Polyester Bride"-echoing "Good Side." The horns that rise up to accompany Phair's solidified sense of self on the slow-burning "Soul Sucker" give her inner journey a heroic feel, while her voice's airy upper register makes the plea at the heart of "Lonely St." even more potent.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Renegades
    The group's relatively unheralded musicians (guitarist Tom Morello, bassist Tim Commerford, and drummer Brad Wilk) have developed into such a nimble and cohesive unit that they'd sound pretty exciting even without someone spewing rapid fire invective over their grooves.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
    We Shall Overcome lets us revel in the sound of a man who no longer confuses unplugged with uninspiring--and who isn't afraid to mix in some merriment with the message. [28 Apr 2006, p.134]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 68 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Look Into The Eyeball
    His Great Solo Album, folding his obsessions with Afro-Cuban rhythms, Brazilian art song, American soul-funk, and workaday surrealism into perhaps his sweetest melodies ever. [11 May 2001, p.80]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 70 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Make Do With What You Got
    Don Was' appreciative arrangements leave room for the big man's vocal majesty. [11 Mar 2005, p.104]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 93 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Love And Theft
    It may not be a better album than ''Time Out of Mind,'' but it glides from genre to genre with a sprightly glee, as if Dylan were traversing the American musical landscape in search of thrills, revenge, and reparation.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Best Of Blur
    The band has quietly crafted some of the best singles of the '90s...
    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Depression Cherry
    Singer Victoria Legrand has a refreshingly unshowy croon that’s one of the most seductive in pop, and her gorgeous synth drones and guitarist Alex Scally’s effects-laden riffs are exquisite.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Harry's House
    Styles has put together an album that's so solid, even moments that would be cringeworthy when handled by lesser pop stars feel earned. ... Harry's House is also emotionally heavy at times, with Styles' understated delivery adding power to his plainspoken lyrics.
    • 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.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    SVIIB
    It’s a fully-realized vision of the dreamy shoegaze-pop they’d sought to prefect for years.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Lovebox
    Lovebox rarely disappoints. [24/31 Jan 2003, p.100]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Poison Season
    His follow-up is his most adventurous collection yet. Over 13 tracks, he unspools anthemic power chords, swaggering horns, and gimlet-eyed tales of his journeys around the world.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    36 Seasons
    For Ghostface aficionados, Seasons is easily superior to the new Wu-Tang joint, A Better Tomorrow. [5 Dec 20014, p.78]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Dec 5, 2014
    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    My Ride's Here
    Call him Tenacious Z. [31 May 2002, p.108]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 40 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Liz Phair
    An honestly fun summer disc. [Jun 27/Jul 4 2003, p.136]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Hidden Vagenda
    Achieve[s] the rare bliss of adult pop wisdom. [8 Oct 2004, p.114]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    What Went Down
    With a summer that’s been light on rock thrills, What Went Down is a welcome savior.
    • 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.
    • 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
    • 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.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Dirty Computer
    As a whole, Dirty Computer strikes the perfect balance between joy and sadness, offering a deeply resonant account of Monáe’s personal experiences as a black woman. Some of these experiences are unquestionably difficult. Yet in relaying them to us, Monáe never deprives herself (or the listener) of pride, joy, or autonomy.
    • 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]
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Bad as Me
    Without abandoning his classic formula--junkyard percussion, loose-limbed blues licks, and that unmistakable mouth-of-hell baritone--Waits keeps pulling switcheroos out of his porkpie hat on his 20th album.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Alone II: The Home Recordings
    Cuomo pinpoints melodies as crucial outlets for depression, guilt, ecstasy. He even turns a seemingly facile collaboration with Jermaine Dupri (who knew?) into an autumnal catharsis--the best Weezer song you never heard.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Sonic Nurse
    No big revelations, but plenty of rewards. [11 Jun 2004, p.123]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Alligator
    The twilit melodies and Matt Berninger's gossamer vocals will haunt your troubled dreams. [22 Apr 2005, p.64]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    AM
    Five albums in, they may not be a buzz band anymore, but they've become something much more interesting: a good band.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Human Performance
    Nearly every cut on Human Performance--from the quaking paranoia of the album opener “Dust” to the brooding resignation of the closer “It’s Gonna Happen”--finds Parquet Courts exploring fresh sounds and reaching new heights in the process.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Happenstance
    She proves she can hold her own with the best of the distressed songstresses. [11 Jun 2004, p.123]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 65 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Up All Night
    Eclectic, combustible tunes. [3 Dec 2004, p.85]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Psychedelic Pill
    Psychedelic Pill allows pretty haunted melodies like "She's Always Dancing" to seep into the gaps between the jagged solos. [2 Nov 2012, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Nov 1, 2012
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Rockin' The Suburbs
    But for all of its snickers, ''Suburbs'' is serious business -- a pop fantasia that seals Folds' rep as the Cole Porter of underclass underdogs.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Come Away With Me
    Her voice is supple and precise, her touch on piano lovely.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Lotta Sea Lice
    What Lotta Sea Lice lacks in flashiness, it makes up for with enduring tunes and performances that, low-stakes as they are, seem destined to resonate and yield fresh surprises for years to come.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Dreamer/The Believer
    Common attacks his ninth album with much intensity. [6 Jan 2012, p.73]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Jan 3, 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
    • 68 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Sky Full of Holes
    The beloved power-pop veterans dial down the big guitars and slick synths of yore on Sky Full of Holes, a relatively rootsy effort.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Sky Blue Sky
    This may be the best Eagles album the Eagles never made.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Bloodflowers
    One of the band's most affecting works.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Seven Swans
    He shares [Elliott] Smith's gift for sketching in complex emotional states with telling details. [19 Mar 2004, p.66]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Silent Alarm
    A post-punk mishmash of angular guitars, pulsating bass, and tricky time signatures. [8 Apr 2005, p.64]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 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
    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Easy Tiger
    Easy Tiger keeps it simple: beguiling melodies, an ace band, and Adams' elastic tenor.
    • 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
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
    How Big is Welch’s most accomplished album yet, primarily because she doesn’t rely solely on operatics to make herself heard. Welch may have gone slightly smaller with her sound, but her emotional depth and capacity for wonder remain gigantic.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Good Kid, M.A.A.D City
    This Dr. Dre-endorsed phenom delivers on the promise of his rabidly beloved mixtape Section.80. [2 Nov 2012, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Nov 1, 2012
    • 63 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Global Warming
    Global Warming re-ups Mr. Worldwide's booming brand with border-crossing dance-floor thumpers, swag-embedded journalism and duets with globally bankable artists.
    • 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
    • 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
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Mr. Wonderful
    These radio-ready tunes announce one of the funniest, most joyously profane MCs working. [3 Apr 2015, p.61]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Mar 30, 2015
    • 68 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Cruel Summer
    Cruel Summer is a posse album struck in West's image, full of the same idiosyncratic bombast that has fueled his biggest hits. He's a benevolent host, letting each squad member show off his skills.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Black Parade
    This album is not just the band's most adventurous but also its best.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Transcendental Blues
    Winding through the psychedelic title track, the ''Rubber Soul''-ish pop, the garage rock, and the lovely ''Eire meets Tennessee'' ''The Galway Girl,'' ''Blues'' is his musical road map.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Nashville
    Persistently gorgeous. [25 Feb 2005, p.102]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Working in Tennessee
    Here he rails against government and the state of music in a voice that radiates so-what intransigence. [7 Oct 2011, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Oct 6, 2011
    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Gods Of The Earth
    Although vocalist J.D. Cronise can't quite hit the castrato peaks of Priest frontman Rob Halford, Sword's hell-bent-for-leather propulsion ('Under the Boughs') and twisty song structures ('Lords') are more than enough to induce your ears to bleed with pleasure.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Paramore
    At 17 tracks, Paramore's self-titled release seems like it should also be a textbook victim of its creators' self-indulgence--but in fact it comes off like the great Blondie-indebted 21st-century new-wave album that No Doubt were trying to make with 2012's Push and Shove.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Electric Version
    Electric Version may be a bit less delirious at times, but it's still christened with that same sort of mystical, pop-hook abracadabra that results in happily ingratiating tunes. [9 May 2003, p.76]
    • 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.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Puzzle
    Songs so odd and cheekily gleeful they could almost be Mentos jingles.
    • 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
    • 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.
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