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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    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    A Healthy Distrust
    At once stern and playful, wildly scattered and yet sharply honed by the artist's sheer will and reach. [6 Feb 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 88 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    I Am A Bird Now
    With this second full album, the singer and songwriter stakes a claim on a unique and fascinating turf, a sort of avant-cabaret musical theater that embraces a David Lynch-like moodiness and experimental-folk mystery, intimate confession and theatrical grandeur. [20 Mar 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 65 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Beekeeper
    She's been de-emphasizing hysterics for a while now, and here she mostly sings prettily, but still powerfully. [6 Mar 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Transistor Radio
    There's such a casual, old-timey feel to much of the CD that it's easy to get caught up by the album's charms and forget to focus on Ward's writing, which would be a mistake. [6 Mar 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Blinking Lights And Other Revelations
    Calling an Eels album personal and somber seems redundant, but compared with the guitar-rock discord of the two preceding albums, this return to meticulously crafted pop miniatures seems even more inward-directed. [24 Apr 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 73 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Live @ The Fillmore
    Williams sings tunes... with such openness and character that it's like hearing some of them for the first time. [22 May 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Demon Days
    It's Albarn's evocative words, compelling if understated melodic sense and subdued vocals that are the emotional center, transcending the gimmick even more than on the first Gorillaz album. [22 May 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Chavez Ravine
    Cooder manages to make his work both cynical and idealistic. But most importantly, it's authentic. [12 Jun 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    In Your Honor
    Loud, anthemic, joyous and bitter, it's easily the best Foo Fighters album in a decade. [12 Jun 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Tales From Turnpike House
    If it's pop craftsmanship you are after, few can equal this melancholy concept album and the sheer virtuosity of its hooks. [22 Jan 2006]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Apologies To The Queen Mary
    The music reinforces Wolf Parade's edge-of-desperation outlook by refusing to offer the comfort of conventional pop music's reassuring repetition. Even if some choruses recur during a song, the music behind them is never the same as the last time around. [23 Oct 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 90 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Z
    "Z" moves away from the more overt Band and "The Notorious Byrd Brothers" references, closer to a convergence of Who-like playfulness and drive with R.E.M. mystery. [2 Oct 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 69 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Day After
    The real story here is Twista's rapping. [9 Oct 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Kicking Television: Live In Chicago
    It embraces both Tweedy's classicism and his refusal to settle for the familiar. [20 Nov 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Hypnotize
    "Hypnotize" has some of the circus-is-in-town surrealism that links System to the Frank Zappa avant-rock tradition, but overall it's more of a fundamental rock album. [20 Nov 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 64 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    See You On The Other Side
    While some recent Korn records sometimes got lost in the sludge, "Twisted Transistor" and other new tracks reach back to find harsh, and intimate, hard-rock hooks. [6 Dec 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Greatest
    Never so flatly confessional as to be artless, her plaintive sentiments are still nakedly honest, strangely restrained yet unfettered. Still, Marshall's singing occasionally feels distant, negating the intimacy. [22 Jan 2006]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Comfort Of Strangers
    Orton's determination to dig deeper into song and vocal expression instead of toying with a stylistic bauble has paid off in her best album since her debut. [7 Feb 2006]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 69 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Showtunes
    This suggests that a full focus on inventive musical theater may be where his talents will flourish. [19 Mar 2006]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Hello Young Lovers
    "Hello Young Lovers"... ramps everything up with witty, even more densely packed compositions that are more pop arias than songs.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Show Your Bones
    This is minimalist rock with real feeling and a subversive, epic range. [4 Mar 2006]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 88 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Fishscale
    Will certainly stand as one of the best rap albums of the year. [26 Mar 2006]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    At War With The Mystics
    The weird part is how well this stuff holds together, a delirious jumble of android psychedelia and Coyne's elliptical wordplay that goes down as easily as warm milk (spiked with acid). [26 Mar 2006]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 64 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Peeping Tom
    It works equally as a setting for his quieter moments (the tropical "Caipirinha") and for the melodic vocal rages that defined Faith No More's hits. [4 Jun 2006]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 52 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    In My Mind
    "In My Mind" sometimes settles for the conventional, but overall this one is too hot to drop. [23 Jul 2006]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    FutureSex / LoveSounds
    "FutureSex/LoveSounds" isn't an easy listen at first. Its crazy layers meld together into a sticky bit of a mess, and the lyrics are mostly standard love stuff. But repeated listening helps the tunes unravel. [11 Sep 2006]
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Kelis Was Here
    Few artists could line up an ode to bondage right next to a love song so sweet that it could be played at a wedding or invoke Joan Jett right after sharing a cosmic trip with Cee-Lo. That's what Kelis does here. [20 Aug 2006]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain
    You can file it alongside another notable album about finding light in the darkness, "Electro-Shock Blues" by Eels.
    • 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
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Once Again
    "Once Again" seems almost monotone on first impression, diminished by the middling tempos that weigh down many a ballad-driven album.... But peel back the layers of this suburban soul, and you'll find … more layers.
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