Los Angeles Times' Scores

Select another publication »
For 1,599 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 0.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 73
Highest review score: 100 Chemtrails Over the Country Club
Lowest review score: 25 The New Game
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,361 out of 1599
  2. Mixed: 176 out of 1599
  3. Negative: 62 out of 1599
1599 music reviews
view
per page
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Transference
    Transference has the act experimenting more with textures and mood. The result is a collection of melodic fragments and unexpectedly welcome left turns.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Incorruptible Heart
    It's a minor miracle she's been able to make room for another Lavender Diamond outing. But when the results sparkle this brilliantly, the multi-tasking seems exceedingly worth it.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Little Red
    Rarely does a single album capture so much of what's right in a country's current moment in pop music.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Modern Vampires of the City
    A brave, surprising third effort that's both challenging and confident, catchy but progressive, expertly imagined and executed.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Relax
    Relax is Das Racist's first commercial release, yet it shares the dense sprawl and uncomfortable laughs of the group's previous Internet mixtapes.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    9
    There are not as many revelations as on Rice's acclaimed 2002 debut, "O," but it still can be sonically thrilling.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Paper Airplane
    Most contemporary country musicians steadfastly bypass the dark territory Krauss and her mates mine here, missing out on the deep emotion lurking within it. The loss is theirs.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Epiphany
    Michele is more wry than most feel-good sisters, and never sentimental. She doesn't offer any solutions to the predicament of women caught up in sweet, rough love; like those blues queens of yore, she just takes you there. The journey is gift enough.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Digital Ash In A Digital Urn
    A bold, essential chapter in this young man's inspired body of work.
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Wheelhouse
    Wheelhouse [is] perhaps his most ambitious album to date, taking on such hot-button topics as spousal abuse, Southern provincialism, racism and social justice alongside characteristically well-crafted mainstream country fare.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Power Out
    Music that at once revels in and transcends rock traditions.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Town And The City
    This is an album in the classic, pre-digital sense, in which the very sequence of songs suggests meaning and connection. [12 Sep 2006]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Stay Positive
    The sound is more varied and lighter on its feet with touches of harpsichord and banjo but anchored by the Hold Steady's signature: thick, humid arena rock, a high-pressure system of cresting guitars and pianos that injects these dramas with tension and embraces all their contradictions and ambiguities.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit
    Incisive, cutting and verbally dexterous, if a little overwhelming in a single sitting, Barnett's best new songs — "Pedestrian at Best," "Depreston" and "Debbie Downer" among them--inject memorable heft into timeless rock terrain formerly explored by Polly Jean Harvey, young and angry Elvis Costello, Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Play
    Despite the fret board fireworks, this is an honest love letter to the art of making music.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Mono
    His songs are lyrically simple yet emotionally and sonically resonant enough to envision listeners being drawn in even if they don't know the language.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Midnight At The Movies
    He organically forges those into an utterly distinctive voice that takes what's come before and artfully moves it forward with the power of a certain steel-driving man.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Annie Up
    Their switchblade-sharp vision incorporates acute observational powers about the human condition and savvy compositional skills that come together in songs that are piercingly honest, funny and sometimes both.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Christmas Everywhere
    Healthy doses of humor sit side-by-side with sincerity in this smartly conceived, engagingly executed holiday song cycle.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Swoon
    If Swoon isn't quite this year's "Tusk," the Silversun Pickups are exploring fresh territory of their own and keeping it easy to follow.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Helplessness Blues
    In its best moments, "Helplessness Blues" sparkles like some sort of divine plan, but a plan that knows the value of mistakes, surprises and even regret.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Next Day
    With 14 magnetic works, the album is so packed with vivid Bowie-isms that it seems like he's been storing away one plump specimen per year so that in the proverbial wintertime he'd be ready for a glorious feast.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Together We're Heavy
    This may not make new converts, but Spree fans will find much cause to rejoice. [11 Jul 2004]
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    I Never Learn
    A compact, nine-song, 32-minute album that suggests an artist just hitting her stride, Li's new album seems to have pinpointed the locus of power in her voice.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    How Do You Do
    The production makes stellar use of his major-label money; the sound is refined and dynamic in a way that's wholly missing from pop radio.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Kiss Land
    For an act founded in anonymity and reserve, it turns out the Weeknd's most convincing work of art is Tesfaye's own rollout as a star and storyteller.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Le Noise
    Le Noise is not an epic -– if it were a book, you could read it in an afternoon -– but it's statement enough from a man who's already said so much.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Age of Adz
    Stevens ventures widely on this 85-minute disc to find the best way to express what turn out to be basic home truths.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Post-Nothing
    Vancouver duo Brian King and David Prowse throw themselves into every song as if it's the last one they'll ever play. That go-for-broke attitude carries their third album, which is less about the songs than the sheer joy of playing them.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Crazy for You
    The songs are so good they can disarm any skeptics.
Page: