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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    • 87 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Showtime
    These barren videogame shoot-out beats and textures don't do him justice. [17 Sep 2004, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 85 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Celebration Day [Live]
    This vanilla artifact from Zep's massive 2007 reunion concert falls into all of the typical traps associated with live albums. [30 Nov 2012, p.73]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Nov 21, 2012
    • 85 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Lookaftering
    Bunyan's wispy soprano lacks nuance, making for music that's ultimately more numbing than emotive. [4 Nov 2005, p.71]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 84 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Our Endless Numbered Days
    Makes John Mayer sound like Slayer. [21 May 2004, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 83 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Think Tank
    For an album called Think Tank, this muddled retread seems awfully short on ideas. [9 May 2003, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 83 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Love vs Money
    That alpha-jerk machismo is mitigated somewhat by the intoxicating future-soul sonics on songs like 'Right Side of My Brain.' But The-Dream's vision of romance mostly plays like a nightmare.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Get Behind Me Satan
    Get Behind Me Satan is surprising, all right, but not always in the right ways.... Too many of the tunes--and Jack's lyrics--are undercut by lurching, half-finished arrangements. [10 Jun 2005, p.105]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    White Chalk
    On the largely piano-based White Chalk, she retreats into an odd little-girl-lost persona, singing almost entirely in a tremulous higher key that strangles the most powerful instrument in her arsenal: that voice.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Libertines
    Like the Strokes on their own sophomore effort, the Libs thoroughly disappoint on this follow-up. [24 Sep 2004, p.106]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Untouchables
    Nothing here explains the reported $4.5 million budget. [28 June 2002, p.142]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 79 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    No More Shall We Part
    Cave's songs once conjured eternity. Now they just feel like one. [13 Apr 2001, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 79 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Dear Catastrophe Waitress
    The smiley-face vibe and quasi-ironic lyrics... only make the band seem more coy and arch than ever. [10 Oct 2003, p.124]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 78 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Take Care
    What Drake needs is a few more punchlines to brighten up his monochromatic therapy sessions. Surely Canada's excellent healthcare system can underwrite that.
    • 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
    • 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
    • 58 Critic Score
    Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
    If [only] these epic songs glowed hotter along the way. [6 May 2011, p.74]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Apr 29, 2011
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    1,000 Years
    Corin Tucker's voice--always so uniquely emotive in the punkier contexts of S-K--looms uncomfortably over songs that sound scrapbooked from other '90s-centric acts (Liz Phair, Pavement) but never take on a form of their own.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    My Name Is Buddy
    Cooder's guitar work is lyrical as always, but the songs... are oppressively cutesy and faux naive. [9 Mar 2007, p.109]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Open Season
    The only real surprise is its wan predictability. [15 Apr 2005, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 76 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    SelmaSongs: Music from the Motion Picture Dancer in the Dark
    Something here brings out the most precious and irritating aspects of Björk's elfin voice.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Dead Man's Bones
    How you respond to this cloying, gothic preciousness will have everything to do with your personal tolerance level for things like rough-hewn songcraft and small children chanting about zombies. [16 Oct 2009, p.59]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Yellowcard
    Although they’ve occasionally strayed from that style of pop-punk over the 13 years since that collection debuted in 2003, their tenth and final record features glimmers of their former selves--for better and for worse.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Amnesiac
    By the sound of it, Radiohead have strayed off into the same territory Yes did over a quarter century ago -- and two pieces of marginalia in a row don't bode well for the outcome. [8 June 2001, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Front Parlour Ballads
    Bogs down in stillborn ballads, vague metaphors, and fusty arrangements that sound too Olde English, even for him.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Nineteeneighties
    Without exception, the well-chosen tunes become edgeless, pleasant downgrades of their remarkable originals. [30 Jun 2006, p.159]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Tomorrow's Sounds Today
    Tomorrow's sound, grittier and dustier than '98's poppish A Long Way Home, masks the album's core blandness; too much of the material is just plain forgettable. [11/3/2000, p.83]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Limbo
    The record falls off during its latter half as the melodic R&B cuts begin to blend together. And in lieu of a clear-cut concept, the random spoken-word tidbits that appear throughout the tracklist feel frivolous compared to how Blood Orange and Frank Ocean used them on their last albums.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    OK Human
    The problem with OK Human isn't that Cuomo makes a facepalm-inducing Kim Jong-un reference and rhymes sad with bad, it's that there's not enough genuine pathos to outweigh the places where he can't help himself. Instead, the fleeting moments of authenticity are hidden beneath a pile of hokey one-liners, spotty vocal performances, and awkward arrangements that rely on the accompanying orchestra to provide all of the emotional depth.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Ego War
    The mix never really jells. [13 Jun 2003, p.96]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    100th Window
    A series of often stillborn soundscapes. [14 Feb 2003, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    lovehatetragedy
    Papa Roach were fairly distinctive two years back, but in a twist we've witnessed many times before, the band that helped beget so much of the rap-metal grudge rock we're now hearing resembles all its followers.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Mountain Battles
    The record comes off like punk-rock outtakes for the heavily narcotized.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Era Vulgaris
    All the beefy guitar playing in the world can't change the reality that there isn't a single song here that you'll remember, or what to return to, two summers hence. [15 Jun 2007, p.78]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Milk Man
    Seems Deerhoof have mistaken self-indulgence for experimentation. [12 Mar 2004, p.114]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Impeach My Bush
    It ultimately feels kinda sterile. [14 Jul 2006, p.79]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 74 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    The Cookbook
    While Elliott's lyrics have always been racy, this disc's uninspired musical foundation makes repellent lines... vulgar rather than playfully profane. [8 Jul 2005, p.66]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 74 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Reality
    Reality's core flaw is the same on e that has marred Bowie's work since 1993's Black Tie White Noise: studio-slick production that drowns even the best musical ideas in digitally processed canola oil. [19 Sep 2003, p.85]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Dirty Side Down
    The emphasis here is still on instrumental interplay; great for gearheads, a bit sleepy for everyone else. [28 May 2010, p.70]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Blue Lights On The Runway
    The rest of Blue Lights on the Runway is duller than 'The Great Defector;' most of it sounds like warmed-over Coldplay.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through The Eyes Of Madness
    Bleak and despairing... gloomy and numbing. [23 Sep 2005, p.86]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Prairie Wind
    We've heard it all before, and better. [30 Sep 2005, p.93]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Testimony: Vol. 2, Love & Politics
    The result feels like a lecture from the class goody-goody: instructive yet tedious.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Cradlesong
    One doesn't look to the Matchbox Twenty frontman for musical daredevilry, but his second solo disc falls too often into the mom-rock safety net.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    8 Diagrams
    Raekwon, Meth & Co. have lost their lyrical ferocity. Judging by this disappointing return, Wu-Tang may not be forever after all.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dreamland
    Plant makes the brilliant past seem truly leaden. [19 July 2002, p.74]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Bette
    The lone comic entry, the fetishist's tango "In These Shoes" cooks. The rest is blander than hospital food. [10/27/2000, p.120]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Maladroit
    Unfortunately, Cuomo hasn't come up with enough quality material to match his god-of-thunder conceit.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Shangri-La Dee Da
    The grrr goes out of Shangri after the first few tracks. [22 Jun 2001, p.90]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Just Like You
    The counterintuitive lushness smothers Cole's modest wail on cuts like'heaven Sent.' [28 Sep 2007, p.105]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Jacksonville City Nights
    Somebody tell this man to take a vacation. [30 Sep 2005, p.94]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Baby I'm Bored
    Yawn. [25 Apr 2003, p.150]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Clapton
    Clapton, his latest trip into mellowness is sleepier than usual, as he dabbles in gospel, Dixieland, and even a little Irving Berlin.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Burn The Maps
    These Irishmen have a way of merging lush Celtic melancholy with inspired Morse-code guitar noise... Alas, they also have a way with misogyny. [4 Feb 2005, p.135]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Oceania
    {The music] never breaks out of a gauzy prison of pleasantness. [22 Jun 2012, p.64]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Jun 18, 2012
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Idlewild
    OutKast have stretched rap's boundaries to the breaking point before, but this time their experiments come across as gimmicky or strained.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Black Cherry
    When backbeats disappear, though, boring dirges and space-age Muzak ooze out. [9 May 2003, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Gutterflower
    They lack the melodic range to differentiate the new tunes from each other, or even from songs they've been releasing for years.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Marshall Mathers LP 2
    While Bad Guy"--which recognizes that he's no better than the bullies who damaged him--might be the closest Em's come to a mea culpa, it still fails to justify his cranking the cycle back up again.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Days of Gold
    At a certain point, all the blue skies, blue jeans, babes, bros, and brews just start to sound like... blah blah blah. [20 Dec 2013, p.60]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Dec 13, 2013
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Epiphany
    While it makes a virtue of Michele's strong-female fortitude, Epiphany rarely balances that heat with hooks.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Sunshine Lies
    Frankly, we'd rather he went back to the past--specifically 1991, when the psychedelically inclined Nebraskan released his classic "Girlfriend." [5 Sep 2008, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Songbook [Live]
    His ... /bellow is downgraded to a whimper on these live, solo acoustic tracks. The Audioslave songs take the biggest hit; without amp-busting bluster, they're barely there.[Nov. 25, 2011, p. 71]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Nov 29, 2011
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Summer Make Good
    It doesn't help that it's dominated by Kristin Anna Valtysdottir's vocals, which sound like the coos of a Teletubby. [7 May 2004, p.86]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Mi Plan
    Tracks like 'Fuerte' find a decent Timba-lite groove; the rest are, at best, inconsequential.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Reads The Books [EP]
    Ends up mired in a decidedly mild brew. [22 Jul 2005, p.78]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Love, Angel, Music, Baby
    The ostentatiousness of it all grows irritating. [3 Dec 2004, p.83]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Cosmic Game
    Hampered by lazy beats and an overabundance of world-music window dressing. [25 Feb 2005, p.102]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Ownerz
    "Skills" and "Rite Where U Stand" show the group's formula can still sizzle, but on the more mundane tracks... Gang Starr sound comfortable, and that's the last thing they'd want. [11 Jul 2003, p.78]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sing: Chapter One
    There's just nothing new or fresh about the way she's flogging these favorites.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The 2nd Law
    Leave the rock operas to other Olympians; like elite sprinters, Muse are best when they're surging straight ahead.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Odyssey
    What it doesn't have is much in the way of songs, or sincerity. [8 Apr 2005, p.66]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 70 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Together We're Heavy
    A sonic improvement.... But it's all wasted on songs and harmonies too campy and cloying to be as uplifting as [DeLaughter] wants them to be. [16 Jul 2004, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 70 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    What A Time To Be Alive [Mixtape]
    There’s very little evidence here that makes the case for either as the game-changing superstar he actually is. Future comes off particularly blasé, falling repeatedly into the cliché version of himself that is all mealy-mouthed strip-club crooning.... Drake sounds only slightly more engaged.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Pinkprint
    Pinkprint slogs through too many ponderous piano ballads, and it's a shame, because there are moments here that give flashes of that mad brilliance.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Hymns Of The 49th Parallel
    What's missing are distinctive arrangements or emotional interpretations of the material that would stake lang's own claim to these songs. [30 Jul 2004, p.69]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 70 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Wolf
    Wolf's disengaged haunted-house funk plods joylessly through empty rage and squirmy homophobia. [12 Apr 2013, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Apr 5, 2013
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Red Light District
    [Ludacris] largely trades in his playful personality for an unbecoming tough-guy posture. [10 Dec 2004, p.93]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Exit Strategy Of The Soul
    Sexsmith unwisely attacks some notes above his comfortable register on 'Impossible World,' which is just one of the several numbers that are nothing more than blandly forgettable. [11 Jul 2008, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    A Hundred Miles Off
    The CD's austere instrumentation brings out the worst in Leithauser, whose once-endearing tunelessness becomes a whining deterrent.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    #1
    It's both impressive and pointless. [28 Feb 2003, p.79]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Thorns
    When an entire CD turns into a game of spot the classic-rock reference, it's distracting, not to mention dull. [23 May 2003, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Here And Now
    The long-awaited hERE aND nOW falls victim to the pair's hokier tendencies.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Thank You for Today
    For a band once accustomed to emotional turbulence, Death Cab seems to have gone numb. They do occasionally attempt to surpass that newfound rut.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    3121
    A messier, more elf-indulgent affair than its predecessor. [24 Mar 2006, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    This Is...
    What starts out as jubilant becomes four-on-the-floor purgatory. [4 Oct 2013, p.64]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Sep 27, 2013
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Sneak Attack
    The most compelling lectures can't obscure KRS' drab old-school beats and samples. [4/27/2001, p.118]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Out Among the Stars
    The suits might have been right the first time. It's mostly Sherrill's fault; the slide-heavy arrangements and hokey production flourishes would have sounded remarkably cornpone even 30 years ago.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Take off Your Pants & Jacket
    The band work so hard at it, and the music is such processed sounding mainstream rock played fast, that the album becomes a paradox: adolescent energy and rebellion made joyless.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Which Side Are You On?
    Here, she gets stuck in too many clunky Big Idea statements about equality and social politics.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Lost Riots
    More contrived than climactic. [29 Oct 2004, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    American Doll Posse
    Too bad Posse is a conceptual wreck, because it benefits from some of the beefiest, most borderline-glam-rock moments Amos has put on record.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Menace
    While sleek, skilled production on The Menace keeps their tightly wound new wave tracks from sounding dated, Frischmann's lackluster (often tuneless) songwriting stutters.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Art Of Losing
    Some cuts have a quick sugar-high effect--once they fade, they're about as fresh as overchewed bubblegum. [7 Mar 2003, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Dying To Say This To You
    Repetitive riffs and chord progressions spoil the good times. [24 Mar 2006, p.71]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Just Go
    On his ninth studio album, undifferentiated swaths of midtempo digital groove leave one longing for the (relative) analog authenticity of vintage Lionel.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Angel Of Retribution
    The bummer is the derivative material, which sounds a bit Spinal-tapped out. [25 Mar 2005, p.73]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Right About Now
    Seems like this MC's best days may be right about then. [2 Dec 2005, p.83]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Shade Of Poison Trees
    Carrabba's purported back-to-his-roots album (''redeem-o,'' anyone?), offers little evidence that he's matured along with his audience.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    MAYA
    The dizzy dynamism of her earlier work - a global stew of bhangra, baile funk, and hip-hop, politicized and hitched to block-party beats - is largely reduced to inert feedback and industrial noise.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Take Me Home
    Most of Take Me Home is filler with barely enough zip to keep the kids up past dinner.
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