Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 1,598 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 62% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 35% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 73
Highest review score: 100 Dear Science,
Lowest review score: 25 The New Game
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,360 out of 1598
  2. Mixed: 176 out of 1598
  3. Negative: 62 out of 1598
1598 music reviews
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    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Nightmare
    With imagery haunted by death and lyrical allusions to alienation and angst, Avenged Sevenfold's fifth full-length is almost impossible to appreciate unless you fit the prime demographic: tormented teenage boys.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Surfing the Void
    Klaxons, if you're going to shout in our ears a bunch, can you at least have something to say?
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Interpol
    As meticulously as these sounds and instruments are recorded, as beautiful and haunting as they sometimes sound, they don't add up to more than one or two truly memorable songs.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    I Am Not a Human Being
    It's unclear whether the creative languor stems from the inherent commercial pressure of being the Young Money meal ticket or whether Wayne has exhausted his ideas after compressing a career's worth of songs into three years.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Going Back
    Collins takes on 18 tracks in an outing as understandable as it is unnecessary, a high-priced karaoke spin for the ersatz prog-rock-percussionist-turned-master-of-the-'80s-pop-single.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Charleston, SC 1966
    It's all familiar stuff - too familiar - to warrant sustained attention.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Beginning
    Consider it a musical Snuggie for tottering Valley party girls--it will feel marvelous in the cold, drunken and lonely hours of the night.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    No Boys Allowed
    In glimpses it reaches that goal--like in maybe half of the sticky and finessed "Breaking Point"--but it's undone by the album's many other contradictory messages.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The King Is Dead
    The King Is Dead clings so closely to formula that it doesn't sound like homage or even truth; it sounds like the studious but unconvincing work of an extremely gifted mimic.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Some Kind of Trouble
    Despite all the work put into his workmanlike pop, it ultimately comes off as agreeable, but not memorable.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    American Tragedy
    The downside is that along with heart and brains, Hollywood Undead has filtered out any sense of humor from its music, which makes American Tragedy virtually impossible to listen to for longer than a few songs at a time.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tha Funk Capital Of The World
    The characteristically festive result is generous to a fault: Collins triggers warm memories but leaves us with only a shallow sense of how precisely his four decades in the business have affected him as a man.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Goblin
    The cussing, the horror, the anger, the disappointment, the alienation, the frustration, while real and scary and sad, gets tiresome. That's a lot of Tyler, and so much ego-maniacal nihilism, while fascinating and at times revolutionary, wears thin very quickly.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Destroyed
    All the songs are encased behind such stylish glass that it's hard to feel much of anything while listening to Destroyed, much less identification with the plight of the nomadic musician.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Born This Way
    If Gaga had only spent as much time on pushing musical boundaries as she has social ones, Born This Way would have been a lot more successful.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Suck It and See
    Suck It and See (English slang for "give it a try"), slows the pace but ultimately feels even more detached.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Arabia Mountain
    The Lips' catalog is exhaustingly long, but Arabia Mountain is a fine reassertion that its talents extend far beyond running from venue security.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ronnie Dunn
    The duo's taller half, Ronnie Dunn, was long regarded as the more distinctive singer, and on his solo debut, there's no more sharing of the spotlight to hold him back. That's about the only difference between a Brooks & Dunn record and this similarly hit-and-miss collection of odes to blue-collar empathy, patriotism and the transformative power of love.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Where Country Grows
    She's clearly capable of belting a worthy song out of the park, but once again she's hampered by bloop singles and the infrequent double.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    LP1
    The result, surprisingly, is Stone's most conventional record yet: handsome soul singing, sturdy blues-rock arrangements, lyrics about refusing to cry oneself to sleep.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    La Liberacion
    the atypical sincerity of La Liberacion suggests that something--whether the burdens of relentless sexiness or beating pop music at its own game too soon--still does.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Great Escape Artist
    While the interplay remains incendiary, the textures freshly incandescent, there isn't much in the way of memorable choruses or hooks.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Pt. 1 [Original Soundtrack]
    As with all of the installments, half are good, half aren't--all depending on your mood and tolerance for soft rock.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Talk That Talk
    For all the innuendo and introspection, Talk That Talk contains little sweat, slobber or fluids and a lot of plasticized, inflatable insinuation.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Mac and Devin Go to High School [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
    Snoop and Wiz make a sweet couple, but this lightweight trifle is unlikely to cement a committed relationship.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Emotional Traffic
    Emotional Traffic isn't dramatically better, worse or all that different from what he's been doing since the beginning.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Kisses on the Bottom
    Gentle on the ears and soft on the heart, Kisses might be of no greater or lesser consequence than an easygoing golf outing among friends or a weekend spent digging a garden near the back fence, but its pleasures, though small and sleepy, can be gratifying.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wonderland
    It's obvious Aoki is a better tastemaker and label boss than producer, but then, didn't we all dream so big in 2005?
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Home
    Home may be where the heart is, but Bentley was a lot more compelling when he was poking around up on the ridge.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    MDNA
    The album offers evidence that the singer has fallen behind, that she is no longer setting the conversation in a genre she essentially invented - blending Top 40 pop with club music.
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