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: | Chemtrails Over the Country Club | |
---|---|---|
Lowest review score: | The New Game |
Score distribution:
-
Positive: 1,361 out of 1599
-
Mixed: 176 out of 1599
-
Negative: 62 out of 1599
1599
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
-
- Critic Score
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.- Los Angeles Times
- Posted May 19, 2020
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Song for song, “Folklore” does not quite rise to the heady level of albums like “Red” (2012), “Reputation” (2017) and “Lover” (2019). There are no dance floor bangers, no irrefutable earworms, no songs likely to stampede to the upper reaches of the Hot 100. As a collection of songs, though, it stands alone in Swift’s discography. It’s her most album-y album, a creation of and for life in the summer of 2020, ideally experienced alone, late at night, in a single sitting, through noise-canceling headphones.- Los Angeles Times
- Posted Jul 24, 2020
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
“Club Future Nostalgia” calls to mind “The Immaculate Collection”: Like that 1990 classic — a greatest-hits comp sliced and diced by Madonna and producer Shep Pettibone to resemble a killer club set — Lipa’s record uses carefully designed pop tunes as raw material for a breathless new creation.- Los Angeles Times
- Posted Aug 28, 2020
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
“30” offers deep thoughts on love’s causes and consequences. ... Adele’s singing — soaring yet pulpy, gorgeous even at its rawest (as in “To Be Loved”) — gives these musings the blood-and-guts believability her fans crave. There’s some of the brainy energy of Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” here, though it’s filtered through the homey wisdom of Carole King’s “Tapestry.” ... Until people stop breaking one another’s hearts, we’ll keep needing ugly-cry ballads — and nobody does those better than Adele.- Los Angeles Times
- Posted Nov 16, 2021
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
“Motomami” practically throbs with the freedom of someone flush with creative capital; its stylistic sprawl shares something with Beyoncé’s “Lemonade,” while the album’s mix of harsh noise and sculpted pop melody can recall the music M.I.A. made after “Paper Planes” became a left-field hit in the late 2000s.- Los Angeles Times
- Posted Mar 18, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The songwriting and the vocal performances here are so strong — she’s playing with cadence and emphasizing the grain of her voice like never before — that eventually you stop caring what’s drawn directly from Swift’s real life and what’s not. It’s just a pleasure to get lost in tunes like “Labyrinth,” in which the singer explores her fear of falling in love again, and “Snow on the Beach,” a gorgeous duet with Lana Del Rey with some of the album’s most affecting imagery.- Los Angeles Times
- Posted Oct 21, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
In its emotional sprawl — not to mention its diverse assortment of styles, from dusty soul to throbbing trap to trippy psychedelic rock — “SOS” evokes natural memories of “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” and “Beyoncé.”- Los Angeles Times
- Posted Dec 8, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Line by line, her lyrics deliver a staggering blend of the profound and the vernacular. ... At 77 minutes in length, “Ocean Blvd” risks tiring the listener’s ear, which is why Del Rey and her co-producers — Antonoff along with Drew Erickson, Zach Dawes and Mike Hermosa — keep folding unexpected sounds and textures into the album’s largely piano-based arrangements.- Los Angeles Times
- Posted Mar 27, 2023
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
“Teenage Dream” recycles a song title of Katy Perry’s and echoes a twisty-turny melody of Lana Del Rey’s. Yet Rodrigo’s emotional presence is so strong throughout “Guts” — so believable even at its most unrelatable — that you never lose the sense of a specific young person navigating a trial of her own making.- Los Angeles Times
- Posted Sep 18, 2023
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s as sprawling and as rigorous as we’ve come to expect from the most intellectually ambitious artist in music.- Los Angeles Times
- Posted Apr 1, 2024
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The songs are structured firmly in the classic tradition, evoking Dylan, the Band, Hendrix and Beatles. They're enriched by a bottomless well of melodic invention and find an emotional core in Tweedy's shy, plaintive vocals. [20 Jun 2004]- Los Angeles Times
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The album is a bit daunting and demanding. But it's also compelling and rewarding. [22 Aug 2004]- Los Angeles Times
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
This may not make new converts, but Spree fans will find much cause to rejoice. [11 Jul 2004]- Los Angeles Times
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
"Crow" is a striking redefinition, an album that roars and twitches with the raw, aggressive, fury of urgent rock activism.- Los Angeles Times
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
This is no more a perfect album than "Come Away With Me," but its highlights again carry the stamp of a singer whose talent is strong and whose vision is true.- Los Angeles Times
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Filled with just the kind of unpredictable twists and turns that you'd expect from someone who lists Doris Day as one of her idols and hopes someday to be compared to Bob Dylan. [29 Feb 2004]- Los Angeles Times
-
- Los Angeles Times
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It's Em's show, for sure, and being surrounded by a talented, fast-talking crew has made him even more engaging than he is on his own.- Los Angeles Times
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
By sticking to a single subject, "Stone Love" lacks the range and ambition of her splendid "Mahogany Soul" album in 2001, but it is still a joy. [11 Jul 2004]- Los Angeles Times
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
With deft, powerful strokes, the singer-songwriter chisels emotions, impressions, yearnings and regrets, giving these 13 songs exactly as much room as they need and no more.- Los Angeles Times
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
A dance syncretism made of menacing beats skittering from dark dancehall to mashed-up jungle, super-warped bass frequencies, stark anti-hooks, and a voice that is the most authentic to emerge in years. [18 Jan 2004]- Los Angeles Times
-
- Los Angeles Times
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
A couple of songs (including the goofy "Condi, Condi") seem out of place, but the heart of "The Revolution" carries the stamp of an artist and a patriot. [22 Aug 2004]- Los Angeles Times
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The production is as dry as old wallpaper. But as a kind of Art Brut storytelling, it is magnificent.- Los Angeles Times
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It's largely a tour de force that speaks of love and life with an honesty and clarity recalling the optimism of Curtis Mayfield and the occasional dismay of Marvin Gaye. [5 Sep 2004]- Los Angeles Times
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
In a few tracks, you sense this band is still at the mercy of influences as it searches for its identity, but the best moments are wonderfully promising.- Los Angeles Times
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The luminosity of her performance counters the album's tendency toward dry formalism. [5 Sep 2004]- Los Angeles Times
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Even Trail of Dead's slightest moments speak with the purpose and ambition of genuine rock 'n' roll intellect and desire. [6 Feb 2005]- Los Angeles Times
-
- Critic Score
A bold, essential chapter in this young man's inspired body of work.- Los Angeles Times
-
- Critic Score
An evolution in big beat and sweet dance-pop loyalty as hard-hitting as their mid-'90s works "Exit Planet Dust" or "Dig Your Own Hole." [23 Jan 2005]- Los Angeles Times