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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    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Destroyed
    Groovy but tepid. [20 May 2011, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted May 24, 2011
    • 61 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Discipline
    Despite a couple of promising tracks the music generally befits the absurd lyrics.... Dupri, Ne-Yo, Rodney Jerkins, The-Dream, and StarGate often drown out Jackson's breathy vocals with soulless beats.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    LotusFlow3r
    LOtUSFLOW3R, is less narcoleptic than merely sleepy.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    For Me It's You
    Train continue to rumble down a middling path. [3 Feb 2006, p.70]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    You Can Feel Me
    An occasionally endearing, mostly stumbling mess. [1 Nov 2002, p.70]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Charango
    Teeters between cool languor and bland lethargy. [6 Sep 2002, p.86]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 61 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Clothes Drop
    Maybe he should lose the monotonous, low-rent beats and banal-hook girls (and boys). [23 Sep 2005, p.87]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 61 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Dynamite
    [Jay Kay's] blue-eyed disco funk has definitely had its highlights, but they're pretty hard to find here. [23 Sep 2005, p.90]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    This Delicate Thing We've Made
    This might make for nice pregaming music before an evening out clubbing in Ibiza, but for the rest of us, the effects can be a bit savage on the ears. [24 Aug 2007, p.133]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Fragile Future
    It's somewhat disappointing, that the disc's sound and content hew so closely to the standard emo/screamo/hardcore formula. [8 Aug 2008, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Certified Lover Boy
    The new album is like watching the eighth season of a sitcom and growing hyper-aware of all the recycled jokes and actors' laugh lines.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Senior
    Too much of the album skews toward the dance floor rather than the bedroom. [11 Apr 2003, p.78]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    One Plus One Is One
    A snoozy muddle, dominated by underwritten, over-orchestrated ballads. [6 Aug 2004, p.80]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 60 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    The Oracle
    The Oracle is not terrible, just thoroughly second-rate.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Sixes & Sevens
    He hits a campy sweet spot from time to time, but at a seemingly endless 20-track length, this is one tiresome gag. [21 Mar 2008, p.57]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 60 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Soul Sessions, Vol. 2
    As long as the original recordings by the Chi-Lites and the Rolling Stones continue to exists, Sessions' covers are passionately pointless. [3 Aug 2012, p.74]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Aug 29, 2012
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Strip Me
    Strip Me, her third studio disc, plays like one long, increasingly desperate pep talk. The only breather? "Unexpected Hero," a lovely late-Beatles-style ballad.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Y Not
    The Beatlesque affectations of Starr's recent discs have been replaced with determinedly bland '80s production, although there are still enough painfully underwritten peace 'n' love aphorisms to make even a Rip Van Winkle hippie wince.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Patience
    Baring your tortured soul is one thing, but unleashing a barrage of self-pitying ballads and expecting people to listen is a test of even the most open-minded fan's patience. [4 June 2004, p.80]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 60 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    The Complex
    Even emotive guests like Tracy Bonham and Dave Matthews can't heat up The Complex's frosty, dullingly drum-driven aesthetic. [2 May 2003, p.70]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 60 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    TP.3 Reloaded
    Listen at your own peril. [8 Jul 2005, p.71]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 60 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Magna Carta Holy Grail
    I rank this album alongside Kingdom Come, which in a way was a transitional album toward the superior Blueprint III. Like others, I see (perhaps wistfully so) MCHG operating as a sort of stopgap until he releases something great, like a Blueprint IV.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    V
    V's spiraling, cathartic anthems often collapse under their own weight. [21 Sep 2001, p.84]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 60 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Songs About Girls
    In this post-Sir Mix-A-Lot age, even the most proper among us love a fun, edgy booty song. But will.i.am neuters that guilty pleasure with stiff drum programming, robotic guitar bursts, and vaporous synth melodies.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Song Yet To Be Sung
    Trades smarm-rock for half-baked one-world electro-pop, with predictably unctuous results. [17 Aug 2001, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 60 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Lessons In Love
    For the most part, this is a bland blur of midtempo grooves and sub-R. Kelly metaphors. [8 Aug 2008]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 60 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Back On My B.S.
    For every track that finds him returning with full force to the tongue-twisting ways of his youth ('Don't Believe 'Em') or addressing tabloid gossip with refreshing honesty ('If You Don't Know'), there's a blatant trend grab like the Auto-Tune-abusing 'Hustler's Anthem '09.'
    • 59 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    This Way
    A misstep. [23 Nov 2001, p.82]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Land Air Sea
    Alas, those wondering where Weezer would be without Cuomo's most delicious hooks will learn that, too. [23/30 Jan 2004, p.99]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    So Amazin'
    Milian's limp attempt at a sassy, streets-friendly R&B sound simply lacks bite and believability. [19 May 2006, p.76]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    New Danger
    A mishmash of mightily uneven demo-quality tracks. [29 Oct 2004, p.67]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Glitter
    ''Glitter'' is a mess, but its shameless genre hopping (and Carey's crash) makes it an unintentional concept album about the toll of relentless careerism.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Motown: A Journey Through Hitsville USA
    After their vaguely successful '04 covers album, "Throwback," the Boyz return with another throwback, this time sleepwalking through classics. [16 Nov 2007, p.79]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Welcome To The Dollhouse
    On one song after another, they sing about sex with all the feeling of fresh-from-the-factory mannequins.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Roses
    Stalwart fans may swoon, but Roses, like its title track, just kinda wilts.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Level II
    A little humdrum. [4 Apr 2003, p.100]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Gloriana
    The vast majority of their debut album, Gloriana, falls somewhere between maudlin boy-band songwriting cliches and? a particularly melodramatic Six Flags country revue.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Happy In Galoshes
    Sticky melodies crop up here and there, but they're badly outnumbered by turgid power ballads and indulgent experiments.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Big Dreams & High Hopes
    Jack Ingram was named Top New Male Vocalist at last year's ACM Awards, but the Faustian bargain this respected Texas veteran made to strike it rich in Nashville is abundantly clear.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    TheFutureEmbrace
    Flim-flammy beats, tinny guitars, and Corgan's nasal moan predominate as he mopes like it's 1984 and his mom forgot to renew his Sisters of Mercy fanclub membership. [24 Jun 2005, p.164]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Echo
    Too much of Echo is mired in soppy balladry and standard-issue dancery that seem meant to be consumed with a box of drugstore Chablis.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Getting Away With Murder
    Too many of the [tracks] here lack depth. [3 Sep 2004, p.77]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Blurred Lines
    The problem's not merely that Thicke has doused himself in too-strong cologne. It's how predictably it all fits with his frictionless boutique-lounge grooves.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Beat 'Em Up
    A major improvement over Avenue B's acoustic midlife crisis, this self-produced disc finds the Ig yelping off the top of his id again. [27 Jul 2001, p.72]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Anywhere I Lay My Head
    In burying Johansson's vocals so deeply in the druggy ambiance, producer David Andrew Sitek (of TV on the Radio) means well but ends up obscuring Waits' great tunes.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Devil's Night
    At least Eminem's voice and rhyming skills remain among the most arresting in current pop. The same can't be said of the other members of D12, who are proficient and barely distinctive.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Britney
    Other than the absence of ellipses in the title, ''Britney'' finds pop's poster girl for virginal vamping in an awkward adolescence, wavering between playing it safe and busting a few tentative new moves.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    My Favorite Headache
    Is it any surprise that the first solo album from Rush bassist-vocalist Lee contains all the elements that make his band the most annoying power trio in rock? [11/17/2000, p.127]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 58 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Grand Champ
    The X-Man's grating lyrical redundancy throughout this disc reeks of laziness, and his self-derivative hooks and beats hints at complacency and stunted growth. [3 Oct 2003, p.73]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Do You Know
    While it's nice to hear her pipes free of breathless pop production, it's a shame she ran with such bland, emotionally self-indulgent material for this crossover Do You Know.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Unbroken
    The Idolrunner-up's pleasant-but-unremarkable vocals can't elevate this tepid collection.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    New Life
    Her seventh album is a thoroughly last-millennium set of self-help ballads about starting over.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The High End Of Low
    Musically, the new tunes mostly evoke warmed-over Nine Inch Nails crossed with mediocre '70s metal, and occasionally, the results can be fairly satisfying.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Free Spirit
    It's frustrating, then, that Free Spirit's sanded-down sprawl more often than not threatens to suffocate any presence of a personality imbued in the music itself.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    David Archuleta
    On "American Idol's" seventh season, David Archuleta had some personality--something you'll struggle to remember while taking in this bland, amnesia-inducing collection.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Emotion & Commotion
    The guitar legend ticks that box [soporific Muzak] here with laid back instrumental versions of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "Nessun Dorma" that recreates the excitement of an elevator ride. [14 Apr 2010, p.73]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    If I'm Honest
    This makes for the most autobiographical album of Shelton’s career. So why does it end up seeming about as weighty and true as a reality show? For one thing, Shelton’s voice lacks the kind of emotional depth that’d bring a listener to tears.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Baby Monkey
    It's competent, if fairly faceless. [23/30 Jan 2004, p.99]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Mr. A-Z
    But if many of his overheated lyrics crash, let the black box show that even his most banal efforts are ridiculously hummable. [29 Jul 2005, p.66]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 58 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Freedom
    Akon's philosophy of liberty also includes the freedom to reuse nearly identical hooks for 13 songs straight. That approach may bring him plenty money, but it yields only a few legitimately fun tracks, buried beneath a pile of boring retreads.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Chickenfoot
    'Avenida Revolution,' which concerns the Tijuana drug wars, is a tiresome slice of sub-Metallica rock. But more upbeat tracks like 'Sexy Little Thing' boast the kind of party-happy groove you might expect from a band whose frontman is almost as famous for ?tequila as music.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    7 [EP]
    With 7, there’s too little conviction to tell if a full project is something Lil Nas X wants to do. At best, there’s a set of half-considered songs. At worse, you’re left wondering why anyone fussed over Blink-182’s Enema of the State in the first place. ... It's not the work of a star, but a timid upstart. [5 Jul 2019, p.42]
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Feedback
    The guileless, old-school vibe... feels tired. [28 Jul 2006, p.67]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Welcome To The North
    The mix of loopy, Jane's Addiction-style psychedelia and old-fashioned stadium rock is galvanizing at first... but by midpoint, it's merely exhausting. [22 Oct 2004, p.96]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 57 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    MUSIC: Songs from and Inspired by the Motion Picture
    Sia's previous triumphs have set a high standard, one that Music doesn't meet. Her "awesome" intentions aside, the album's messages of affirmation and encouragement may be well-meaning, but ultimately fall short while underlining Music's broader, damaging issues.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hotel Paper
    The inescapable girlishness in her voice heightens the unlived-in quality of hackneyed, loverlorn ballads like "Desperately," the least desperate-sounding song of 2003. [Jun 27/Jul 4 2003, p.136]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Human
    Human is too glib and uneven to ignite new excitement. [2/16/2001, p.99]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Nobody's Daughter
    While Love remains as ferocious as ever, the bleak, samey production here doesn't always rise to meet her.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Ghetto Postage
    The occasional touch of humor offers too-rare relief from stale rhymes and grooves. [12/15/2000, p.83]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Come Through for You
    The former major-label casualty barely makes a dent in snoozy soft-rock tunes co-written by Kris Allen (''Raise Your Hand'') and James Blunt
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Human After All
    Dominated by overly repetitive, lumbering throwaways. [18 Mar 2005, p.68]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    18 Months
    His new album is called 18 Months, but it doesn't sound like it took anywhere near that long to make.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Born In The U.K.
    For every catchy valentine, there are three groan-inducing Big Statements. [20 Oct 2006, p.83]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Soulsville
    Huey and his News tackle vintage tracks from the Stax library on this good-natured but unnecessary covers disc. [5 Nov 2010, p.71]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Nov 4, 2010
    • 57 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    The Spirit Indestructible
    A wasteland of electro-funk also-rans and half-baked nods to hip-hop. [14/21 Sep 2012, p.141]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Sep 17, 2012
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Mad Season
    Especially in its ballad-heavy second half, mad season feels like the rock equivalent of a chick flick.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Let Love In
    Their punk roots are virtually nowhere to be found; now it's all overblown power chords, tambourines, and lovelorn lyrics. [28 Apr 2006, p.135]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Danelectro EP
    What was once edge now feels like random noise in place of melody. [11/24/2000, p.83]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 57 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Weapons Of Mass Destruction
    Ultimately as unrewarding as it is conflicted. [10 Dec 2004, p.93]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Revelation
    Too bad the group still winds up singing formulaic radio fodder with a near militaristic reverence.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Greatest Story Ever Told
    All things considered, we like Banner much better when he's angry. [25 Jul 2008, p.71]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Wonders of the Younger
    The idealism is admirable, but after an album of Bambi's worldview via Beach Boys strings, you'll want to put Higgenson down for a nap.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Humanoid
    This music doesn't particularly sound like it was created by human beings, but it's no doubt close enough for their many fans.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Fireflies
    Alterna-folkie Lori McKenna's contributions save Hill from schlock overdose. [5 Aug 2005, p.65]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    So-Called Chaos
    Once more, her songs become little more than cloying ruminations or sarcastic harangues aimed at those who want to squash her individuality. [28 May 2004, p.121]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Mi Reflejo
    Memo to self:... no matter how many foreign words I had to learn, I can still hit TONS of unnecessary high notes.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Minutes To Midnight
    Amid the stabs at growth, every new effect sounds borrowed.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Someone To Watch over Me
    She sounds like a showbiz bet marking time. [11 Nov 2011, p.75]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Nov 11, 2011
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Hard Way
    Serviceable g-funk for gin-and-juice-swilling house parties. [10 Sep 2004, p.164]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Seal IV
    Much of Seal sounds dated and tepid. [12 Sep 2003, p.152]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Dirty Vegas
    There's little with teeth on Dirty Vegas' snoozeworthy debut. [21 June 2002, p.84]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Scars & Stories
    Even producer Brendan O'Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young) can't save Scars & Stories from generic TV-soundtrack mediocrity.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Lotus
    Occasionally she can still power through a chorus like a Russian weight lifter (see: ''Sing for Me''). Too bad most of these tracks digitally smother her voice, draining all the emotion until she just sounds bitter.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Bionic
    Aguilera's vocal supremacy has always been her multi-octave trump card. Alas, that natural gift is too often negated on Bionic by her penchant for stock step-class beats and an aggressive, exhausting hypersexuality.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Jason Derulo
    On Jason Derulo, though, Derulo has trouble making an impression.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    The Fray
    Life had a handful of standouts, but follow-up The Fray is all blah, all the time: more minor-key melodies, more dreary tempos, more of singer-pianist Isaac Slade's spiceless sore-throat croon.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Haunted Cities
    Think of them as a slightly above-average combo of the Clash, Fun Lovin' Criminals, and some snotty band from the burbs. [24 Jun 2005, p.164]
    • Entertainment Weekly
    • 55 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Stripped
    Nearly every second of this overlong, 20-track workshop communicates the overwhelming struggles she endured -- while trying to become a superstar by age 18.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Testify
    Adds a few improved grooves and hooks to their usual numbing pummel. [3 Feb 2006, p.70]
    • Entertainment Weekly
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