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 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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    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Homecoming: The Live Album
    Beyoncé’s ambitions outstrip those of her peers. ... Yes, Homecoming is one of the greatest live albums ever. If nothing else, the intention behind her performance makes it so. ... So much action. So many cues and rhythms, so much narrative momentum. Its melodic and rhythmic quotes need footnotes to fully absorb, and her voice resonates with history. Still, calling it the best live album of all time may be a stretch. ... Hell if I know, but it ranks way, way up there. ... So yeah, it’s fair to say that Beyoncé, and this work, is genius.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    No Holiday
    At 18 songs, “No Holiday” is basically a double album, one that sits somewhere along a continuum of epic works that includes the Clash’s “London Calling” and Liz Phair’s “Exile in Guyville.” The determination, the vision, the energy — it’s real.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Rough and Rowdy Ways
    “Rough and Rowdy Ways” rolls out one marvel after another, with killer playing from the singer’s road band.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Chemtrails Over the Country Club
    What’s inarguable is that she’s become one of the finest songwriters of her generation, with a lyrical and melodic flair that encourages an emotional investment in her music well beyond whatever it reflects of her real life. On “Chemtrails,” her singing reaches a new peak as well. ... But if the sound is familiar — think of the very sweet spot triangulated by Sandy Denny, k.d. lang and the Velvet Underground’s self-titled third album — the scenarios can still flatten you, as in the gorgeous “Wanderlust.”
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Renaissance
    Wild and ravishing “Renaissance,” which came out Friday and immediately reshaped the conversation about 2022’s most important music. ... “Renaissance” is miles ahead of the competition. ... It’s like a carefully curated library, this whole thing, with an astonishing depth of knowledge regarding rhythm and harmony that puts Beyoncé as an arranger and bandleader on a level with Prince and Stevie Wonder.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Modern Times
    This swinging, sometimes mournful, often tender set of 10 songs proves an easy album to, well, love. [25 Aug 2006]
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    In Rainbows
    The first time I listened to Radiohead's In Rainbows, I loved it, no holds barred.
    • 98 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Graceland [25th Anniversary Edition]
    The new box set does indeed help shed new light on the music and the entire project by way of the various bonus features that now accompany the original album... To paraphrase Rod Stewart, every album may indeed tell a story, but some stories are dramatically more compelling than others. The story of "Graceland" is one of the most compelling in all of pop music.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Lazaretto
    A confident, brash, inventive collection featuring songs that lock into the psyche after only a few listens, the White-produced creation is lyrically and musically challenging and filled with many fresh avenues of exploration, even as it nods to key tones and ideas from throughout the history of pre-rap American music.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    To Pimp A Butterfly
    This record is so expansive that it's tough to wrestle into shape, even as it overflows with wit, smarts and a masterful skill of the language and phrasing.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Blackstar
    Focused on bass, percussion, saxophone and various odd electronic punctuations, the new work is equal parts thrilling and devastating.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Lemonade
    On the fierce, vivid Lemonade, Beyoncé goes full shock and awe.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    FLOTUS
    He's simultaneously explored meditative electronic beat music, and on the remarkable FLOTUS (For Love Often Turns Us Still), Wagner has drenched his baritone in vocal effects and, with two collaborators, woven downtempo beat music and his effervescent lyricism into something really magical.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Triplicate
    The world is undeniably richer for his guided tour through the trove of songs that helped lay the foundation for American music.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    4:44
    As remarkably immediate as it is, though, 4:44 feels durable in a manner that few tweets do; it’s a collection of songs--sly but moving, both intricate and lucid--that we’ll be coming back to for years.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Dark Matter
    Produced with his usual team of Mitchell Froom, Lenny Waronker and David Boucher, it’s a masterful collection so rich with sonic detail that you almost hope he never gets around to making “The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 4.”
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Aromanticism
    Breathtakingly beautiful.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Golden Hour
    [A] knockout ... In a funny way, the radical optimism of "Golden Hour" feels far more rebellious than any of Musgraves' earlier work.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Roxy: Tonight's the Night Live
    Both a searing, emotional performance of Young and an ace band firing on all cylinders and a time capsule of West Hollywood in the early 1970s, the recording illuminates long-gone magic. Masterfully mixed, you can hear the delicate interplay among Young, guitarist-pianist Lofgren, the late steel guitarist Keith, bassist Talbot and drummer Molina.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    thank u, next
    Thank U, Next flaunts Grande’s emotional healing; it’s suffused with the joy of discovering that what didn’t kill her really did make her stronger. ... As eager as she sounds on Thank U, Next to embrace new ideas and attitudes, the album shows that she can still do the old-fashioned stuff--the big vocals that connect her back to Mariah and Whitney and Celine--when she wants to.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Placeholder
    What arrives is a virtually seamless country rock album, with verses moving fluidly into choruses that travel unimpeded across sparkling, architecturally sophisticated bridges. ... Duffy doesn’t leave a single loose thread on “Placeholder.” Highly recommended.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Apollo XXI
    One of the most anticipated debut albums of the year is also one of the best.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Iconology [EP]
    “Iconology” is a brief reminder of the performer’s genius. Across the five tracks here — four new cuts plus an alternate, a cappella take on one, “Why I Still Love You” — Elliott offers a crash course on what has made her a vital voice in hip-hop and R&B and an in-demand collaborator in the years since she delivered her last project, 2005’s “The Cookbook.”
    • 94 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    No Other [Deluxe Edition]
    The new version has been remastered from the original tapes, and the results are spectacular. ... Clark rightly considered it his masterwork, and decades later, this reissue has reaffirmed his belief. A seamless blend of American music — twangy guitars, a rhythm section that taps out dynamic funk and soul patterns, an understated mix of piano, synth and keyboards and lots of backing singers — it connects genres and movements with ease.
    • 98 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Fetch the Bolt Cutters
    The result of Apple’s self-imposed social distancing is the stunning intimacy of the material here — a rich text to scour in quarantine. Her idiosyncratic song structures, full of sudden stops and lurching tempo changes, adhere to logic only she could explain, which forces you to listen as attentively as though a dear friend were bending your ear.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Set My Heart on Fire Immediately
    Moses Sumney and Mike Hadreas have made the albums of our strange quarantine season — bleak but tender, sprawling yet intricately detailed, as suffused with the need for physical contact as they are alert to its dangers and prohibitions. ... Stunning art-soul record. ... Yet as busy as the music can occasionally feel, both albums keep close track of the singers’ voices, which always merit the attention.
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