Los Angeles Times' Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Unapologetic
    While the new Rihanna record may be at times sonically exciting, what resides beneath the new bass-heavy, Skrillex-inspired music is still a fast-food burger, one with a lot of extra sauce and some very disturbing ingredients.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Music From Another Dimension!
    Music From Another Dimension delivers riffs, clichés, solos, yowls and a virtual banquet of the same one-dimensional tropes Aerosmith has been offering for years. Mixed in, however, are a few gems.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Babel
    What the album leaves you with is the image of a little lion man, rattling his ever-expanding cage.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Thing Called Divine Fits
    As a set of songs, though, Divine Fits' debut feels pretty process-oriented, more workbook than showpiece.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fortune
    Fortune reveals an artist more concerned with calculating than creating.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends
    It seldom gathers enough momentum, and doesn't feel the least bit cohesive.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dr. Dee
    But extracting a narrative from these delicate sounds can feel like more trouble than they're worth--even if you haven't half as much happening as Albarn does.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Blown Away
    Mostly, though, Blown Away finds her using her remarkable voice to deliver feel-good bromides.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    New Life
    A slickly produced collection of largely generic, meandering songs about self-affirmation in the wake of heartache and romantic disillusionment.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded
    The result is a disjointed, artistically confused release that's not only way too long but also doesn't really ring true as an "album" at all, at least if your definition is a collection of new songs with a central premise or statement that one listens to from start to finish.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tuskegee
    Acoustic guitars replace glistening synths, bittersweet steel guitars slide in to provide the patina of rural rootsiness, yet Richie still never really steps away from the polished sheen that characterized his musical heyday.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    MDNA
    The album offers evidence that the singer has fallen behind, that she is no longer setting the conversation in a genre she essentially invented - blending Top 40 pop with club music.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Home
    Home may be where the heart is, but Bentley was a lot more compelling when he was poking around up on the ridge.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Kisses on the Bottom
    Gentle on the ears and soft on the heart, Kisses might be of no greater or lesser consequence than an easygoing golf outing among friends or a weekend spent digging a garden near the back fence, but its pleasures, though small and sleepy, can be gratifying.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wonderland
    It's obvious Aoki is a better tastemaker and label boss than producer, but then, didn't we all dream so big in 2005?
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Emotional Traffic
    Emotional Traffic isn't dramatically better, worse or all that different from what he's been doing since the beginning.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Mac and Devin Go to High School [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
    Snoop and Wiz make a sweet couple, but this lightweight trifle is unlikely to cement a committed relationship.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Talk That Talk
    For all the innuendo and introspection, Talk That Talk contains little sweat, slobber or fluids and a lot of plasticized, inflatable insinuation.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Pt. 1 [Original Soundtrack]
    As with all of the installments, half are good, half aren't--all depending on your mood and tolerance for soft rock.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Great Escape Artist
    While the interplay remains incendiary, the textures freshly incandescent, there isn't much in the way of memorable choruses or hooks.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    La Liberacion
    the atypical sincerity of La Liberacion suggests that something--whether the burdens of relentless sexiness or beating pop music at its own game too soon--still does.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    LP1
    The result, surprisingly, is Stone's most conventional record yet: handsome soul singing, sturdy blues-rock arrangements, lyrics about refusing to cry oneself to sleep.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Where Country Grows
    She's clearly capable of belting a worthy song out of the park, but once again she's hampered by bloop singles and the infrequent double.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ronnie Dunn
    The duo's taller half, Ronnie Dunn, was long regarded as the more distinctive singer, and on his solo debut, there's no more sharing of the spotlight to hold him back. That's about the only difference between a Brooks & Dunn record and this similarly hit-and-miss collection of odes to blue-collar empathy, patriotism and the transformative power of love.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Suck It and See
    Suck It and See (English slang for "give it a try"), slows the pace but ultimately feels even more detached.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Arabia Mountain
    The Lips' catalog is exhaustingly long, but Arabia Mountain is a fine reassertion that its talents extend far beyond running from venue security.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Born This Way
    If Gaga had only spent as much time on pushing musical boundaries as she has social ones, Born This Way would have been a lot more successful.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Destroyed
    All the songs are encased behind such stylish glass that it's hard to feel much of anything while listening to Destroyed, much less identification with the plight of the nomadic musician.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Goblin
    The cussing, the horror, the anger, the disappointment, the alienation, the frustration, while real and scary and sad, gets tiresome. That's a lot of Tyler, and so much ego-maniacal nihilism, while fascinating and at times revolutionary, wears thin very quickly.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tha Funk Capital Of The World
    The characteristically festive result is generous to a fault: Collins triggers warm memories but leaves us with only a shallow sense of how precisely his four decades in the business have affected him as a man.
Page: