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
    • 77 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Plastic Beach
    Too many of these 16 hazy, half-crazy tracks sound like undercooked studio goofs recorded in the wee hours by Albarn and his impressive circle of celebrity pals.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Pura Vida Conspiracy
    Pure Vida overwhelms as often as it inspires.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Turn Blue
    A pronounced feeling of descent pervades Turn Blue.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    The Recession
    Jeezy's sonic sins would be partially pardonable were The Recession to flash any hint of fun or humor. Instead, the street-cred-consumed caricature is more content to rip off Tupac Shakur ("Hustlaz Ambition") and write abominable hooks.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Basic Instinct
    Basic Instinct offers enough android booty bass action to satisfy those who like their rhythms complicated but repetitive and hooks foreseeable from a mile away, but pleasant enough when they arrive.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    Love, Angel, Music, Baby
    An exercise in pointless artifice. [23 Nov 2004]
    • 69 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Shakira
    Predictable and flavorless, these songs seem to realize a fear that unfairly gathered around Shakira in 2009 when her album "She Wolf" led some critics to suspect that the Colombian-born star was attempting to Americanize her sound (or had been coerced into doing so by forces in the music industry).
    • 69 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    More
    Full of dull riffs and saggy rhythms, Uncanney Valley makes you wonder why exactly frontman Travis Morrison reunited the group in 2011.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Mastermind
    Ross seems on auto-pilot here.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Brilliant! Tragic!
    The jokes are reasonably funny and the riffs rock reasonably hard. But Argos never convinces you that his unlikely persistence is paying off.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Human
    On 'Human' you can hear Brandy striving (understandably) to express herself, yet the result rarely rises above diary-entry tedium.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    747
    If Chapman restores some of Lady Antebellum's polish, he still keeps the group moving too fast with zippy pop-country arrangements that rarely allow Charles Kelley and Hillary Scott to harmonize as sumptuously as they're able.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Shangri La
    The result isn't the clean-up job it might've been; Bugg, 19, still sings with a nasal edge that wouldn't last more than a round on "American Idol." Yet the songwriting here feels more evened-out, less appealingly pugnacious than it did last time.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Salute
    Here they sag under the weight of too many wind-swept piano ballads and booming productions seemingly modeled on Katy Perry's "Roar."
    • 65 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Mylo Xyloto
    Every touch of lyrical bitterness is followed by enough sugar to mask the taste, which might be good in the short term but isn't a recipe for long-term health.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Here I Am
    She does herself no favors by choosing consistently bland material, and her third album does nothing to dispel the sense that Rowland should be more selective.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Cheek to Cheek
    Shallow, deeply unimaginative renditions [of standards out of the Great American Songbook].
    • 64 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Music Is My Savior
    Peel away the accessibility of his fluffy debut and there's nothing but major-label album fodder.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    American Central Dust
    The album's sound is raw, but "raw," even in the Americana circles that Son Volt travels in, doesn't always equate with primal power. Sometimes it's just undercooked.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    I'm with You
    The rest of it, though, is stuff that will probably sound just fine beneath NFL highlight reels but fails to gel when the volume is up and California 2011 beckons.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Last Night
    Last Night feels like a cold academic exercise, as though Moby were compiling a collection of beats for future examination by an alien race curious about our after-hours ways.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Drones
    Unfortunately, Muse's efforts can barely get off the ground and wouldn't survive a war against a fly swatter.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    The Wanted [EP]
    Though saucier and sleeker than its peers, the Wanted isn't nearly as fun....But none of the guys has an especially charismatic--or even distinguishable--voice.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Bittersweet World
    She has to, you know, sing. You can tell she's not into it.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Whatever
    You have to ask if the tween sector of the 1% just found their house band.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Paralytic Stalks
    Paralytic Stalks is downright exhausting.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Every Man Should Know
    Connick's music has none of the attitude the singer often summons outside the studio.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    TP.3 Reloaded
    Kelly's whole approach is familiar and threadbare. [3 Jul 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 59 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Uncanney Valley
    Full of dull riffs and saggy rhythms, Uncanney Valley makes you wonder why exactly frontman Travis Morrison reunited the group in 2011.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Dead Son Rising
    Dead Son Rising feels watery and without a center; it reinforces Numan's legacy, rather than his potential.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    In This Light & On This Evening
    Editors' ponderously titled third album is a disappointing reversion to form, with listless melodies, gloopy, synth-heavy arrangements and corny lyrics that might pass for sly goth-culture satire if Smith didn't deliver them with such self-serious bravado.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Title
    She doesn't give you the sense that she's thought through the opposing themes in her music: the individual versus society, modernity versus tradition, dependence versus independence. It all feels as unexamined as her use of certain vocal patterns typically associated with black singers.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    The Endless River
    The aimless fragments on The Endless River, on the other hand, are so excruciatingly dull (even by Pink Floyd’s often-dull standards) that the band’s name on the cover feels like a straight-up bait-and-switch.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Fallen Empires
    Yet for all the textural variety they provide, those welcome cameos rarely succeed in leavening Lightbody's pervasive gloom.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    David Archuleta
    The record is larded with awkward modernist R&B, Christian semaphore ballads like 'You Can' and warm-milk mewling that makes David Cook, Archuleta's "Idol" foe, sound like Robert Plant.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Stir The Blood
    Endicott had a hand in penning the excellent title track from Shakira's new album "She Wolf." Perhaps he can preserve some of that creative spark for his own band's next endeavor.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    Paris
    Like cotton candy, the food group she most resembles, what may seem like a mouthful for a moment is gone in the blink of an eye, leaving a sweet aftertaste and empty calories behind. [22 Aug 2006]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 55 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Based on a T.R.U. Story
    Contrasted with Lil Wayne's easy, seemingly effortless guest verse, 2 Chainz sounds like a rank amateur whose topics of choice -- strippers, money, drugs -- have been examined to death in hip-hop by others with a much more varied vocabulary.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Life In Cartoon Motion
    His music... exerts the allure of the most seductive pop, but does so with the calculation of a predator.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Wild Ones
    Wild Ones has two of Flo's top 40-obliterating recent singles, "Good Feeling" (in which he hijacks Avicii's "Le7els") and the title track....The rest is serviceable work for the clubland meat grinder.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Saints Of Los Angeles
    There is some of the old energy here, thanks in part to the presence of drummer Tommy Lee, who drives 'Down at the Whisky' and 'Chicks=Trouble' like somebody with a head full of stimulants. Yet the album lacks the tune-craft that once made vintage Crüe such hits as 'Dr. Feelgood' and 'Kickstart My Heart' so appealing.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Kris Allen
    Most of the material, though, tends toward a flavorless pop-rock sound that doesn't even do much to flatter Allen's appealingly rumpled vocals.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    The Circle
    The Circle shows off Bon Jovi's still-sharp knack for wedding blandly optimistic sentiments to predictably soaring choruses. Unfortunately, it's getting pretty hard to tell one song from the next.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Sounds from Nowheresville
    The mediocrity taints the entire record and makes one wonder how it all went so wrong.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Doll Domination
    Doll Domination is a series of signifiers to other, more interesting, moments in recent pop culture.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    A Little More Personal (Raw)
    For most of the album, she sounds like any other self-absorbed teen, yearning to be Alanis, Gwen and even Stevie Nicks. [6 Dec 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 50 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Revival
    But where Jay-Z raps with style and elegance to spare, Eminem hits clunker after clunker on Revival, his clumsiest record to date. It’s not just the corny jokes and goofy puns, either, although those are plenty bad
    • 50 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    The New Game
    The album's gooey, mid-tempo grind at best evokes System of a Down stripped of ambition and eccentricity, and might elicit sympathy with whatever culprit is running around that no-stoplight town.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Britney Jean
    Much of Britney Jean devolves into an abyss of electro-neutral bangers produced by the reigning kings of danceable obviousness, Will.i.am and David Guetta.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Paula
    The record is a failure, a virtual what-not-to-do guide for both songwriters and spurned lovers.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Moon Landing
    He does manage to out-Mumford and out-Sheeran his countrymen on the rustic single "Bonfire Heart" (ironically, co-written with super-pop penman Ryan Tedder). Whether you want to hear James Blunt plowing that field is a conversation between you and your god.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Guilty Pleasure
    There are a few glimmers of hope; Tisdale has said her heroes are Pat Benatar and Kelly Clarkson. But to succeed in the crowded hallways of teen pop, she'll have to be as fearless a misfit as those two bad girls--and not feel guilty about it in the morning.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    Concrete Rose
    For all her lovesick panting, pleading and purring, Ashanti is never emotionally engaged with the songs, which aren't worth the trouble anyway. [2 Jan 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 46 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Fan of a Fan: The Album
    Overwrought with rap cliches, Fan of a Fan is a formulaic heaping of bouncy bangers primed for the strip clubs that likely inspired it. There isn't much here, besides expletive-filled musings on sex, drugs, cars, money and dangerous misogyny.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Love?
    Coming from a star whose weekly "Idol" pronouncements emphasize the value of charisma, "Love?" definitely disappoints.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Authentic
    Authentic not only misses the mark, it doesn't even come close.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 38 Critic Score
    I Am Me
    Her singing is not convincing in the least. [16 Oct 2005]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 42 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Scream
    The idea of Cornell's sex-god wail over Timbaland's mechanized funk is appealing. But Scream draws out the worst tendencies in both of them.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    Graffiti
    A handful of lovingly arranged power ballads were evidently designed to illuminate the singer's remorse over the Rihanna incident. Yet Brown doesn't seem up to the task of contrition.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 37 Critic Score
    I'm Back! Family & Friends
    Three new tracks (including a dreamy take on the gospel standard "His Eye Is on the Sparrow") provide a glimmer of what Stone might accomplish if he ever rouses himself more fully.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Rebirth
    "Rebirth" deserves its reputation as one of the worst albums of the year so far. With luck, Wayne will return to what he does best -- and soon.