Los Angeles Times' Scores

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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
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    • 82 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    America
    Though America is an explosive document, half the time it's a lot of smoke and bang, and it treads on territory that others have explored more thoughtfully.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Centipede Hz
    Recording together in a room (as opposed to assembling songs online) for the first time in years, Animal Collective also reengaged the primal aggression of its early work.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Chapter V
    Indeed much of Chapter V finds him going about that business as determinedly as an infantryman.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Rebirth
    For an album so indebted to artists he inspired, Rebirth still feels thoroughly and essentially Cliff's.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Coexist
    Rather than exerting an effort to advance a conversation or craft unique circumstances in which to present notions on love, most of the lyrics on Coexist are one-dimensional planes floating through the group's oft-glorious 3-D spaces.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Uno!
    ¡Uno! feels like the work of a band that has painted itself into an aesthetic corner.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Jake Bugg
    Accompanying himself on a guitar that probably cost 10 quid, Bugg holds two fingers up to yesterday and moans about being stuck in Speed Bump City in scrappy early-rock ditties as full of Buddy Holly as they are of Bob Dylan.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Former Lives
    Gibbard's songwriting holds up in the gently varied sonic settings here though nothing feels as immediate as his day job in Death Cab for Cutie.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Until Now
    It sounds more like a beginning than an end.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Hope on the Rocks
    The Oklahoma country singer and songwriter who's reached the top of the country charts with such quaff-minded odes as "Beer for My Horses," "Whiskey Girl" and "I Love This Bar" clearly hasn't exhausted that wellspring of musical inspiration yet, returning to the corner watering hole several times in the 10 new songs on Hope on the Rocks.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    R.E.D.
    You get some of that [back to basics feel] from the first two songs on R.E.D., both of which Ne-Yo co-wrote with Shea Taylor, who also produced.... After that, though, R.E.D. doesn't really stick to the idea of less is more.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    18 Months
    Despite that variety [of male collaborations], 18 Months only deepens the impression that Harris is best when linked with a lady; his skills in that area are several times more developed than they are anywhere else.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Global Warming
    Though the approach here precisely mirrors that on "Planet Pit"--think big beats and bigger cameos--he's using his increased power to venture even more daringly beyond the limits of good taste.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Girl on Fire
    In spite of that fresh blood [of collaborators], Girl on Fire basically delivers the same payload as Keys' other albums; it's a collection of handsomely crafted, gorgeously sung ballads interrupted by several overworked anthems about the value of perseverance.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Jesus Piece
    Game makes a better villain than he does a good guy, however, and on this often-earnest album he seems hard-pressed to accept that.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Finally Rich
    The 17-year-old Chicago thug offers infectious odes to nihilism and tirades against haters that are as simple-minded and catchy as they are brutal.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Lysandre
    Lysandre is a fresh start for a writer with a fine ear for the way happiness and heartbreak intertwine.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    The Bronx (IV)
    Now the group has shed the charro suits and returned to its original sound with 12 serrated hard-core jams about wasted youth and suicide.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    A Love Surreal
    The album washes near the end with a series of spacey slow jams, but then Bilal clears away the atmospheric clutter for "Butterfly," a stark ballad built around his soaring falsetto and rippling piano by recent Grammy winner Robert Glasper.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Chelsea Light Moving
    None of it adds much to Moore's legacy as a guitar innovator and post-punk aesthete, but you leave the record feeling as sweaty and beat as you would hauling a couch up to a sixth-floor walk-up.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Welcome Oblivion
    Unlike Nine Inch Nails' big radio hits, the majority of the songs here don't brandish catchy hooks or compact slogans designed to grab you in passing. They start out quiet and often stay that way, forcing you to lean in and immerse yourself.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Mala
    The indie folk darling's brand of Latin- and electronic-tinged pop yields a broad range of musical and sonic textures here.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Based on a True Story...
    With its easy rhymes and hummable choruses, the album doesn't ask the listener to work any harder than Shelton himself is prepared to work.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Bankrupt!
    The album feels like a predictable progression, too logical an evolution.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    More Than Just a Dream
    There's a fine line between evolution and de-evolution, and which process Fitz and the Tantrums is experiencing on its sophomore effort, More Than Just a Dream, depends on what you liked about the L.A. band's breakout debut.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Trouble Will Find Me
    To the National's credit, its exploration of the dour has never been this subtle, but by never shifting the mood, the band has also never been this draining.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Personal Record
    A record that feels wonderfully askew, making Personal Record a challenge worth taking.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Kveikur
    In moving away from the band's stultifying idea of beauty, Kveikur gets at something livelier--and far more lifelike.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Born Sinner
    Cole's not an especially charismatic MC, but he has a welcome self-awareness and good taste in backdrops.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Stars Dance
    Stars Dance is exactly the kind of album one makes in 2013 if you want to keep the pop sugar of the Disney tween cabal but mix in some broken glass and a club bathroom nosebleed.
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