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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    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Front Row Seat to Earth
    Breezy and sunset-hued, the tone of the album is calm--a reassuring piano buoys the melody one moment, and, later, delicate woodwinds fade a song to black.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Yes Lawd!
    Yes Lawd! maneuvers through its 18 tracks with a gleeful sense of abandon. Like the work of the late producer J Dilla, Knxwledge’s rhythms take a few measures to lock into place, but when they do, weird patterns emerge.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Big Baby D.R.A.M.
    With Big Baby D.R.A.M. he comes into his own, rapping with verve and sensitivity while fully capturing 2016’s loopy, soulful moment in hip-hop. No wonder he’s smiling.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    All Wet
    The album is a hoot, and it adds to the allure with guest spots from Canadian performance artist Peaches, L.A. beat producer Skrillex, avant-pop singer and songwriter Charli XCX and others.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Joanne
    Working together, they [Mark Ronson, Beck, Father John Misty and dudes from detail-obsessed rock bands like Queens of the Stone Age and Tame Impala] assemble some gorgeous pieces. ... Yet other songs, for all their vivid sonic color, lack strong stories.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    22, A Million
    Vernon is in no rush to clear up any of this--to harden ideas about himself or his art--on 22, a Million, which represents an even bigger leap than Bon Iver’s previous record.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Seat at the Table
    It’s her exploration of the nuances of black life that makes this one of the year’s standouts. Even in a time when black pop artists have grown especially political, the work feels critical.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    ArtScience
    Though an occasional fondness for quiet storm R&B weighs down tracks like “Let’s Fall in Love” and the Herbie Hancock funk ballad, “Tell Me a Bedtime Story,” there’s plenty here to show Glasper’s Experiment is still driven toward discovery.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    AIM
    It’s an unpredictable mix of sharp, artful commentary, wildly creative song making and, despite the album’s title, plenty of aimless, indulgent meandering.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Glory
    Spears is back at 34 with an album that carries her one-of-a-kind electricity without depicting her as a victim or an avenging force; here she seems in control, a grown woman having a laugh on her own terms.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blonde
    This surprising effort answers breathless hype not with shouts but with one long exhalation.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    SremmLife 2
    Throughout the album, the duo is still working with Mike Will Made It and his stable of producers, who provide Rae Sremmurd with infectious beats set at precisely the right shoulder-rocking tempo.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Detour
    Whether Lauper will replicate the commercial success of “Tuskegee” is doubtful, but this is Cyndi Lauper we’re talking about, so only a fool would bet against it.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Black Bubblegum
    For Black Bubblegum Copeland turned his ear toward electronic pop music, but in a typically oblong way.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Take Her Up to Monto
    A curious, engaging work that mixes electronic and acoustic elements to create kaleidoscopic tracks.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Into The Light
    Though never flaccid or soft, Into the Light possesses a lightness of touch, a deft empathy, a dreamlike aura.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Modern Country
    Tyler explores the boundless opportunities within a few great riffs, while drifting from time to time to explore odd structural detours.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Freetown Sound
    [A] lovely but searing new album that weaves 2016 racial, sexual and political tension into an album of immaculate, Prince-inspired funk and R&B.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    GØGGS
    By the time the band rumbles into album-closer “Glendale Junkyard,” its engine may be glowing and the radiator overheating, but somehow the wreckage has stayed intact, no worse for the wear.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    blackSUMMERS'night (2016)
    Maxwell’s transcendent falsetto and the soulful jazz, electronic and soul arrangements need no cohesive story line to make them resonate.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Stranger to Stranger
    A distinguished and captivating extension of, rather than a dramatic departure from, his rich body of work.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    7/27
    7/27 mostly rises to the occasion.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Fallen Angels
    He’s back with a second deeply felt, imaginatively reworked batch [of songs from the Great American Songbook] on Fallen Angels.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    If I'm Honest
    The default setting is polished professionalism; rawness actually takes time. And here Shelton seldom pushes beyond that finesse to reach something less smooth. Which doesn’t mean If I’m Honest isn’t pleasure.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dangerous Woman
    Given that she started out as an actress, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Grande can work convincingly in more than a single mode. But it’s still impressive how fully she inhabits the emotional environment of each song here, even when one directly contradicts another.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Moon Shaped Pool
    An album that reaches for something far more organic and immediate [than 2011's The King Of Limbs].
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Take Me to the Alley
    Throughout the album, which the singer produced with Kamau Kenyatta, Porter matches these cozy sentiments with modest, small-scale arrangements--mostly keys, bass and drums--that sound shaped more by the gigs he's played over the last three years than by any desire to experiment in the studio. But Porter’s resting state is a compelling one.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    VIEWS
    ["Redemption" is] just one of the many deeply beautiful tracks here that further dismantles whatever barrier was left between rap and R&B following Drake’s earlier albums.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Lemonade
    On the fierce, vivid Lemonade, Beyoncé goes full shock and awe.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    TWENTY88 [EP]
    Sean and Aiko make for a convincing couple. But what makes Twenty88 such a compelling listen is the startling honesty and rawness it captures--even if it's just fantasy.
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