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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    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Suitcase 2: American Superdream Wow
    If you're not a rabid fan... these too-coy-for-comfort exercises in lo-fi songcraft will likely leave you mulling the differences between profundity and fecundity. [11 Nov 2005, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Go Away White
    White doesn't quite make good on that potential, the guitar fuzz is too restrained, while Peter Murphy's vocals evoke David Bowie doing funny grandpa voices. [7 Mar 2008, p.93]
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Fragile Army
    There's now an almost garish cast to the proceedings. [22 Jun 2007, p.71]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Drastic Fantastic
    Drastic Fantastic's airy guitar pop--not to mention Tunstall's muted rasp--feels more technically proficient than passionate. [21 Sep 2007, p.81]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Rebel Heart
    The funny, creative, outrageous Madonna we’ve known is still in here somewhere. It just takes a lot of patience to find her. [Adam Markovitz's review]
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Peanut Butter And Jelly Live At The Ginger Minge
    The band's brand of anti-melody, two-chord thrash... is starting to feel punishingly stale. [28 Jan 2005, p.84]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    10,000 Hz Legend
    The faux naive stance is merely irritating, the bubblegum track merely cute, the cheese rock quotient merely cheesy.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Comedown Machine
    The band vacillates between rudderless tone poems ("'80s Comedown Machine"), exhausting rave-ups (the screeching "50/50"), and bizarre A-ha biting ("One Way Trigger"), all of which overflow with incomplete ideas.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Iowa
    It's an almost unrelentingly brutal disc that, like so much of the nü metal, often seems like a parody of itself.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Father of All…
    A derivative party foul, a spirited genre game that plays like a copy of a copy. [Feb 2020, p.104]
    • 67 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Ghetto Classics
    By the time the saccharine last track rolls around, you feel like you've heard that same unremarkable melody, midtempo shuffle, and 1970s soul-sampling style on repeat for nearly an hour. [17 Feb 2006, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Everyday
    A bumpy ride that finds [producer Glen] Ballard attempting to rein in Matthews' self-indulgent tendencies, with varying degrees of success, to ditch his jam-band image for a sleeker sound.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Heavier Things
    Overall, ''Heavier Things'' is snappier than, say, a Bruce Hornsby CD, if not as rockin' and emotion-drenched as the latest from Dashboard Confessional.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Dead Man Shake
    Westerberg plays blues dress-up with bar-band enthusiasm but not much depth. [24 Oct 2003, p.106]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    On An Island
    Enhanced with pretentious orchestration and filled with aimlessly pleasant acoustic ruminations, it attempts, and roundly fails, to replicate the magic of the Floyd in "Comfortably Numb" mode. [17 Mar 2006, p.111]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    When The Sun Goes Down
    Songs about island escapes and carefree postadolescence abound. [6 Feb 2004, p.140]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Scorpion
    Although it picks up a little towards the end, Scorpion‘s second half is often a joyless slog, a prioritizing of vibe over structure that results in some of Drake’s most unfocused songwriting to date.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Out Of Exile
    The album ends up in the same spinning-wheels muck that often bogged down Soundgarden. [27 May 2005, p.136]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    I Am Not a Human Being
    I Am Not a Human Being's angry title track showcases Wayne's ability to at once spit funny similes and tough talk, but its punk-hop guitar riffs barely even compete with the ones on his much-derided 2010 rock album, Rebirth.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hot Fuss
    Isn't it a little too early for a Strokes tribute band? [18 Jun 2004, p.86]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Time To Love
    These toothless, '80s-embalmed tracks... are the aural equivalent of Sleepytime tea. [28 Oct 2005, p.87]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Reptile
    But at heart, Reptile is yet another version of the tepid corporate rock records Clapton's been making ever since 1974's bestselling 461 Ocean Boulevard.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    A Crow Left Of The Murder
    Tuneless, torturously knotty prog-metal. [13 Feb 2004, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Jesus Piece
    Jesus Piece can't even make the playoff, thanks to Game's airless delivery. [14 Dec 2012, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Dec 12, 2012
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Cover Up
    A record full of drab Casio ditties. [9 Jul 2004, p.88]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    MACHINA/the machines of God
    The heavy-handedness is as bald as Corgan's dome, and often just as unappetizing.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    I Told You I Was Freaky
    The sophomore studio set by Flight Of The Conchords, which gets off to a disappointing start with a string of lame loverman jokes over even lamer dime-store production. [23 Oct 2009, p.60]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 66 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    A Rock In The Weary Land
    He's forgone the folk-pop and jangly mystical ruminations of his past for heavy synthesizers, overproduced vocals, and esoteric allegories, making for a long, strained trip. [14 Sep 2001, p.94]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 66 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    The Cost
    The Frames just about define overripe, both musically (imagine if Coldplay decided to make its power ballads even more bombastic) and lyrically. [23 Feb 2007, p.99]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Love & Hate
    The beats--never a selling point for Acey's albums--don't have the verve to lift leaden lines. [13 Jun 2003, p.96]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Elephunk
    Here, the group courts the mainstream with an almost comic ferocity, jumping on every bandwagon that's passed.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Kasabian
    Kasabian need an aptitude for more than just attitude. [11 Mar 2005, p.104]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Return of Mr. Zone 6
    There aren't many hot tracks here. [1 Apr 2011, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Apr 8, 2011
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Twelve
    Almost nothing here evokes Smith's old "Go, Rimbaud!" chutzpah. [27 Apr 2007, p.139]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 65 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Wait For Me
    The album collects 16 droopy, drowsy, mostly instrumental tracks of gauzy piano and somnambulant? murmurings, only a very few of which (the mournful title track, the ominously lovely 'Slow Light') exhibit a pulse.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Mylo Xyloto
    What's missing is the innovation that made Viva La Vida so dynamic.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Spirit
    Her lovelorn ballads achieve a dullness to which normally only Americans aspire. [14 Dec 2007, p.67]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Tha Last Meal
    Like everything he's done since 1993's ''Doggystyle,'' ''Tha Last Meal,'' starting with its tacky cartoon cover art, feels cut rate -- yet another minor album from a major talent.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Freedom's Road
    Like a political speech, Mellencamp's stadium rock plays to the cheap seats but rarely offers specific critiques or risks giving offense. That this is less than inspiring says as much about modern politics as it does mass-market pop.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Appeal To Reason
    That's a serious issue on Appeal to Reason; songs like 'Re-Education (Through Labor)' and 'Entertainment,' which seeks to redress the evils of media manipulation upon the land, are peppy but pretty empty, power-chord downers with little bark or bite.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Baby Blue
    Lord performs assertive power-pop melodies… but she sings them in a voice so airy and indifferent, it takes away their punch. [12 Mar 2004, p.112]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Mama, I'm Swollen
    Tim Kasher is emo's grown-up hero--a punk who pays his mortgage. So it's a little awkward to find the Omaha native stricken with Peter Pan syndrome on Cursive's sixth album, Mama, I'm Swollen.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    R.E.M Live
    Whenever they shift to tracks from 2004's leaden "Around the Sun," you can practically hear the audience slink toward the concession stand. [26 Oct 2007, p.69]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 65 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    It Ain't Safe No More
    A tragically mediocre album full of lackluster arrangements and inexplicably short songs. [13 Dec 2002, p.83]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Ursa Major
    Third Eye Blind's fourth album and first since 2003--shows that frontman Stephan Jenkins' way with a hook has dimmed little since the band's mid-'90s heyday. The clunky lyrics are another thing.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Peeping Tom
    Once you get past the shock tactics, Peeping Tom is little more than a pile of dated Linkin Park-style sludge. [2 Jun 2006, p.83]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Demi
    It’s too bad that her new album, Demi, sounds like such a decisive return to teen pop.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Mind Body & Soul
    Monotonously midtempo, supper-club soul... Even during those moments when the grooves lighten up, Stone drags them down with her mannered delivery. [1 Oct 2004, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 64 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    The History of Rock
    Compared with ''Devil Without a Cause,'' it's also underwhelming, a push mower to ''Devil'''s lawn tractor.... The shelved compositions he's finally put on tape didn't necessarily need to be resurrected...
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Coverage
    [The] production [is] so overblown with strings, turntable scratching, and arena-rock pomp that her perkily utilitarian voice, and the songs themselves, become an afterthought. [31 Oct 2003, p.74]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Trouble Man: Heavy Is the Head
    His eighth album exhausts with pointless proclamations of hardness, only occasionally turning inward to contemplate actual heavy issues. [21 Dec 2012, p.67]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Dec 18, 2012
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Hang Cool Teddy Bear
    The passion and delivery are there, but the songs aren't. And two out of three ain't enough.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Battle at Garden's Gate
    Where Anthem positioned Greta Van Fleet as an overqualified cover band in gestation, Battle gives brief glimpses of potential for a collective determined to graduate from Guitar Hero savants. What's hindered Greta Van Fleet's attempts at individualism is their penchant for thrash and bombast.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Bronx III
    Several songs will get your blood pumping; the rest will let you practice your Bronx cheer.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    All Night Long
    Buckcherry crank out slick, sleazy repackagings of Aerosmith and AC/DC, then reach for redemption with sensitive modern-rock odes to love and hope on All Night Long.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Awesome As F**k
    Awesome as F---, a live album, doubles as both a high-octane greatest-hits collection and a not-always-flattering portrait of the band's evolution from bratty Northern California punks to stadium-rock juggernaut.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Encore
    On an album that sags with filler and trite rehashes, he sacrifices the rich, multi-textured productions of The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show for thug-life monotony, cultural zingers for petty music-biz score-settling, and probing self-analysis for juvenile humor. [19 Nov 2004, p.80]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sam's Town
    With Sam's Town, they've removed the glopped-on Goth eyeliner, sprouted scruffy outlaw beards, and traded in urbane decadence for windswept super-romanticism. Bye-bye, Duran Duran; hello, Simple Minds.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Colonia
    Too bad her sharpest one-liners on Colonia get buried in a wash of pastoral easy listening.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Greendale
    About the time an FBI agent shoots the heroine's cat, prior to a Hair-style love-in finale, you'll know you and Young have weathered his career low point together. [19 Sep 2003, p.86]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Ye
    We got a shockingly anodyne, non-political, briefly magnificent, half-finished piece of work.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Made In China
    The sour largely overwhelms the sweet on this set of metal sludge, repetitive tunes, and purposefully ugly vocal effects. [12 Aug 2005, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Farmer's Daughter
    If Farmer's Daughter feels like one of the most genuine Idol-contestant debuts yet, it's also one of the dullest, with Bowersox hitting every note exactly the way you expect her to.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    My World, My Way
    The standard-issue No Limit backing beats vary little from track to track, making Silkk's world and ways hardly shocking. [3/2/01, p.70]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Identified
    Right now, this High Schooler's musical graduation is stalling somewhere around sophomoric.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Picture Show
    Picture Show's mixed bag of angular post-punk, moody synths, and blasts of mainstream rock (see ''Everybody Talks'') doesn't quite have the wit, charm, or cool of its aughties touchstones.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Printz
    Christopher Colonna's partly annoying, wholly unintelligible emceeing on ''Pony'' could not possibly prepare you for the nasal pseudosnarl of lady rapper Vila, who dominates the album's latter half.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Hands All Over
    Hands, competent and studio-sleek as it is, too often begs for a fresher muse.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Wildflower
    Her fondness for overblown L.A.-rock cliches undercuts the intimacy she's after; the music sounds homogenized. [7 Oct 2005, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 63 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    The Devil You Know
    There is a small group of Black Sabbath fans who believe the band produced its best work after singer Ronnie James Dio replaced Lord of Darkness/future variety-show host Ozzy Osbourne in the late '70s. Alas, their case will not be aided by their new album.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Double Up
    Just as surely as Justin brought sexy back, Kelly is bringing slightly creepy back.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Glass Passenger
    Jack's Mannequin frontman Andrew McMahon sticks to his formula of friendly piano and new-wave-influenced beats on his second album.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Be As You Are (Songs From An Old Blue Chair)
    His sun-baked characters... are too lazy to be interesting. [28 Jan 2005, p.85]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Donkey
    Despite momentary highs like ''Rat Is Dead (Rage)'' and ''Move,'' the entire album feels muffled by standard dance-punk grooves and generic call-to-party lyrics.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Beneath the Velvet Sun
    It's Richard Marx filtered through Beck. [10/27/2000, p.121]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Pocket Symphony
    This is meant as a return to the film-score sounds of Safari. Unfortunately, "hummability" is missing fromthe formula. [9 Mar 2007, p.106]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Unleashed
    What this needs is a shot of Keith's humor, largely MIA here. [26 July 2002, p.69]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Drones
    There are snatches of salvation, but every time Drones aims for dystopian profundity, it hits Styx-level goofiness. [12 Jun 2015, p.74]
    • 63 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Rehearsing My Choir
    [The Grandmother's] spoken-word soliloquies only deepen Choir's too-clever-for-its-own-good impenetrability. [28 Oct 2005, p.89]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Paper Walls
    A CD teeming with punchy choruses and crunchy guitars that are so five years ago.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    MPLSound
    Third disc MPLSoUND is the strongest of the bunch, though that's faint praise; even standouts like the teasing, breathy 'Chocolate Box' and the bedroom-ready 'U're Gonna C Me' feel, at best, like pale lavender imitations of better times.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    MGMT
    Their cavalcade of goopy dross and hippie-dippy navel-gazing takes a left at transcendence and eventually just lets this bloated trip sputter out altogether. [20/27 Sep 2013, p.152]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Sep 18, 2013
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Goddess In The Doorway
    Precision-tooled modern rock that aims for radio, not revelation.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Pieces In A Modern Style
    Rather than reinventing these centuries-old compositions, Orbit's snoozy-listening remakes only serve to surgically remove their innate drama.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Born to Die
    All tabloid tawdriness aside, she unleashes some truly A-level songs. But 
its baffling failures drop Die to a middling, maddening C+.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Auf Der Maur
    The album's monolithic sound... feels dated and drab. [4 June 2004, p.80]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Till Death Do Us Part
    The CD's style jumbling never coheres. [26 Mar 2004, p.74]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Untitled
    Untitled's titles-- 'Pregnant,' 'Whole Lotta Kisses,' and (yes) 'Bangin' the Headboard'--don't do much to flip the script, or even write a new page.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Pray IV Reign
    These songs are still full of crude misogyny and tired concepts. Give Jones points for honing his craft, but he's got a long way to go.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Best Little Secrets Are Kept
    About as sexy as a late-night Nerve.com instant-message session. [22 Apr 2005, p.62]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 62 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Do Rabbits Wonder
    Heat can't find a melody to save their Moog. [18 Apr 2003, p.70]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Tomorrow
    Though he's got plenty of hooks, personality is in much shorter supply.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Wake Up And Smell The Coffee
    It's official: Dolores O'Riordan is rock's most vapid lyricist. [26 Oct 2001, p.125]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fork In The Road
    Given that Fork in the Road was inspired by Young's alternative- energy-fueled car, the most appropriate description is probably ''pedestrian.''
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Black & Blue
    Black & Blue merely maintains a holding pattern, recycling their past and doing little to establish a firm future.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Audio Day Dream
    If Lewis could just find a way to integrate all his early-MTV influences (A Flock of Fat Boys?), well...that album wouldn't be great either--though it'd be less forgettable than this exercise in pop adequacy.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Blessings and Miracles
    That Santana can still impose his stamp on a solid handful of tracks is absolutely worth celebrating. That he's unable to grab the spotlight on the rest of Blessings and Miracles offers a hint of what he's sacrificed along the way.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Under Rug Swept
    The album's garbled title is preparation for some of the clumsiest lyrics to be heard on a pop record in years.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Mix-Up
    Who'd have guessed that a Beastie Boys record could be too subtle?
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Emotional Technology
    He's too reserved as a solo performer to keep things interesting. [5 Sep 2003, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
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