Paste Magazine's Scores

For 4,043 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 67% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 30% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 76
Highest review score: 100 Pacific Ocean Blue [Reissue]
Lowest review score: 10 Songs From Black Mountain
Score distribution:
4043 music reviews
    • 92 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The compassionate understanding of human nature, is the guiding ethos behind Channel Orange, a very beautiful album about not-so-beautiful people.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Honesty gives God’s Problem Child heft.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    This whole album is good, just know that up front.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    It's too early to start drafting up those Best of 2011 lists, but City of Refuge deserves to be shortlisted as one of the stronger folk albums in recent memory.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Rarely does a track on this set demand skipping, and even the scant missteps are worth at least a few listens--like any great band, the JAMC lived and learned.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Although cobbled from six different shows, Live at the Cellar Door sounds like a cohesive entity. The recordings have been remastered with such love; each string on Young’s acoustic rings with clarity and weight, and each crack in his voice stings with resonance. And yet, a distant haze pervades the record that could convince listeners that this is an actual bootleg on wax.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Cave’s decision to deliver this story in a falsetto-laced voice far above his register is somewhat bewildering, but his ultimate conclusion—that “everybody’s losing somebody”—is deeply sound. ... Cave’s radical openness has brought him into conversation and solidarity with this global community of people who have lost and who continue to live. For such people, Ghosteen is a sweeping and remarkable gift.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Cruise Your Illusion is a record that will likely be spinning on turntables well into the future.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    As much as it is very much a folk record, Florist is its own climate, a true suite of compositions that balance each other out and are full of bursting potential, but never overstay their welcome.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    At only 15 minutes, this Bay Area hardcore vet packs a lot in, resulting in one of the most fun and re-listenable records so far in 2019.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Soul Of A Woman offers up a piece of everything that made Jones a powerhouse up to the very end.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Watson and Taylor still communicate better than most bands or friends could hope to achieve. But they’ve finally let the listener into Slow Club’s emotional core, making the kind of songs that aren’t just meant to score feelings, but actually make the listener feel.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    In the end, Ultraviolet may not be the best metal album of 2013, but it’s definitely the 2013 metal album you’d most be a fool to ignore.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The first new Breeders album in a decade, sounds--predictably, gloriously--like The Breeders.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Alex G’s ability to widen the aperture of his work with each album, and not alienate his audience, speaks to just how much he’s able to pinpoint and define what stands out within his work. God Save the Animals is just the latest reminder that, as his tastes expand, so too does his sonic palate.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The record as a whole is a listen that’s both inviting and challenging, and it seems like it’s one that’ll keep returning rewards for a long time.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    After the End is just the type of record that could remain on a loop far longer than its running time without wearing out its welcome.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The band’s got a steady, comfortable grip on what’s make them sound great together, and Give A Glimpse of What Yer Not is, so far, perhaps the best distillation of this loud, glossy sound.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Though rich with references to the past and drawing on the timeless Hi work of his mentor, Willie Mitchell, with Al Green, Don’t Give Up on Love feels improbably fresh, suggesting one of those outlandish Hollywood fantasies in which the hero gets a do-over of his life.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The unconcealed emotion gushing out of Again is stupefying. Where Oneohtrix Point Never takes these sounds may challenge the senses, but the feelings Lopatin is drawing forward are all too familiar.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    It’s a breathtaking, immersive, often mournful exploration of the fundamentally transformative, ever-changing nature of feeling.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Pleasureland is an unexpected turn for McCallum, but an interesting exercise in autonomy and expectations. The result is a slight 27 minutes that manages to contain worlds—of emotion, texture, and feeling. No words needed.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The album sounds as current as it might have some 40 years ago. As with everything Lauderdale does, the music never gets old.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Re-sculpting many of her best loved songs, the complexity of her musicality emerges from the intensity of the originals-as dynamics are truly sculpted and the songs take on new and often more ominous colors.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Throughout Anxiety, tracks fail to resolve--“Counting,” “Promises,” “Gonna Die”--and initially I thought it was a songwriting flaw, coming on so fantastically strong there was nowhere left to go. But .... On multiple listens none of this plays accidental--songs run aground as a means of setting the next episode in motion.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    These songs sink their hooks into you immediately and, by the time you realize your foot is tired from tapping, the tracklist is three, four notches ahead of where you once were. And that is because Ducks Ltd. have such an acute knack for lulling worn-in, familiar pop tropes into exciting, bright and trebly guitar-forward arrangements. Harm’s Way is frenetic and warm, seamless yet meticulous.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Rather than hone the traditional Appalachian discipline, the sensualist singer explores the possibilities of acoustic/roots music--conjuring songscapes, erotic tableau and enough tension to hold listeners transfixed throughout Follow Me Down.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The album is both affirmative and entertaining, addressing themes of political upheaval, reconciliation and the ignorance that so often comes with privilege.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    One of the best albums to emerge in this strange young year.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    They treat hip-hop as a universal and political language that transcends identity, relying on the mechanics of the genre as a vehicle to tell meaningful stories, even if it means driving that vehicle directly into the building. RTJ4 is the perfect soundtrack to the revolution, especially the one not televised.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    If she has more misanthropic stuff like this up her A Camp sleeve? Hey-forget the Cardigans, and bring it on.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    'It Ain't Gonna Save Me'--inarguably one of the best tracks to date from the Memphis punk rocker born Jay Lindsey--seethes melodic vitriol with its breathless guitars and lyrics about shitting clouds. It's the high point of Watch Me Fall, but the rest of the record hardly slouches.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    As with everything Lee put his songwriting mind and hands to, though, his original work quickly overshadows any marks of inspiration on these tunes.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The framework for Odin’s Raven Magic grounds the band and shows that, when they wanted to, they were more than capable of tempering their penchant for extravagant strangeness. Which is not to say that Odin’s Raven Magic’s doesn’t contain many of the band’s signature hallmarks—like the rest of the Sigur Rós discography, the album comes drenched in mood, as well as an incomparable sense of elegance.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    They may rock harder than Neutral Milk ever did, but there’s something about their sound putting them in the same category of earnest playfulness.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Amid its admirably complex compositional compressions, Skeletal Lamping feels like a triple-LP sprawler, despite clocking in at less than an hour. For those who have the patience to hang with Barnes and his freak-outs, it could be a masterpiece.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The album drags at points; with 22 tracks and a 70-minute runtime, some of this material would have been better off on a mixtape. But that’s a minor flaw in an otherwise superbly-executed gangster epic.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    For the moment, Justin Townes Earle delivers an update on roots music that fairly glows.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The Wild seems to have made good on the band’s original intent. And yet, for all its unhinged energy, ragged refrains and frayed edges (Edenloff’s punk-like ramble on “Dead/Alive”) it’s surprisingly cohesive even in the midst of kinetic compulsion. Consider this both edgy and essential.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Fortunately, Sparkle Hard lives up to the hype. It is warm and approachable, filled with punchy songs, adventurous arrangements, a few admirable experiments and enough memorable moments to demand repeat plays. This is a top-tier Jicks album, alongside 2003’s Pig Lib, 2001’s self-titled effort, and 2011’s Mirror Traffic.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Robyn Hitchcock will never unlock the mysteries of being and nothingness, but his never ending quest for existential satisfaction is supremely fulfilling in its own bracing way.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Lytle remains adept at worming his weary melodies into the hidden folds of broken hearts, and through a bit of grin-and-shrug relation, can take aim at the enigmatic roots of a dangerous generation with little more than three chords.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    At 23, Dacus has already made a career album with Historian, and she’s really only just getting started.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    [“Desert Blues” is] a lovely and lightweight ending to an otherwise brooding work by two collaborators who seem just right for each other.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    It's the lyrics that make Smart Flesh truly shine.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The band emphasizes Mayfield’s heroic message, fueling their instruments with triumphant riffs and raw, stopping-for-no-one licks.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    MAGDALENE is the sound of an artist gluing together the million tiny shards in which she found herself after an explosive breakup. ... FKA twigs broadcasts her pain just as vividly on less metaphorical MAGDALENE tracks.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    bEEdEEgEE makes it apparent that Brian Degraw has a future with or without Gang Gang Dance, as this solo album can rival any of his previously released heights.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    This album is their strongest, longest collection of songs to date, and it is enormous, but the HAIM sisters have tamed that ambition into something effortless.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Like a lot of Reich’s work, the music suggests forward momentum, but with Radio, the movement is in a much more oblong fashion.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Don’t Tell The Driver spends the whole of its hour-long running time in what feels like a slow melt, with melodies sliding down its surface alluringly.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    As serious as they clearly took their playing, the music never lost its sense of playfulness and joy, with an inviting quality that draws people in to respond to it with movement or their own instrumental contributions. It’s an entourage you want to be a part of.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Provincial is fully formed-far closer to a Weakerthans album--and with some different collaborators to add some new textures, especially chamber arrangements.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Each track seamlessly flows into the next, making the album kind of just one long song about transitive early age....It's beautiful.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    On MASSEDUCTION, Clark remains as unpredictable as ever, though there’s one thing fans will have gotten right: so far, at least, Annie Clark has proven incapable of writing anything less than a knockout pop song.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The results, especially when they give equal time to his natural charm and knob-twiddler Bobby Harlow's clearly natural talent ("Keep On Movin'"), are nothing short of spectacular.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Romantic Piano is an endless reliquary of devotion, self-kindness and wonder; an impressive, beautiful third act for one of our most-daring and interesting songwriters.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    If this is a new avenue of self-loathing for Kasher, it’s a welcome change of form from the perhaps more angular output of his screaming past. His gifts for wrangling emotive detours from unlikely sonic realms is his best talent, but he couldn’t do that without his crafty capacity for language, too. Stripped of the angry adornments of his yesteryears, we now may take him at his word.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Although this album probably won’t be his last, it nestles itself nicely among the singer’s existing body of work. Serpentine Prison displays infinite promise from an artist who has already given us a catalogue that has made a lasting impact on rock music as we know it.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    As both a quintessential entry into his catalog and a striking entry into mainstream popular culture, Colors once again cements Beck as a clever, ever-dynamic and enduring artist.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The duo impressively join a raft of other legacy artists (David Bowie, Black Sabbath) in proving that getting older doesn’t mean you have to lose your passion for creativity or, in the case of Electric, your libido.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    As a whole, Queens of the Breakers holds fast to hope and shows both a continuation and an evolution for one of the most creative bands out there today.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Triplicate allows us to experience the rare and intimate pleasure of listening to an artist connect with, and express the subtle and infinite joys suggested by a great song.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Privilege (Abridged) takes on immediately recognizable appearances, but Pennington doesn’t just walk through each number; he partners with them, parading the words and music in and out of dynamic perspective.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    After 11 tracks of carefree sex jams, it’s good to hear the guy stretching himself into a different direction. That’s something Miguel has always done, sonically speaking. And he always sounds amazing doing it; that hasn’t changed on War & Leisure.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Not only is LEGACY! LEGACY! one of the best albums of the year with its incandescent power and hooks that never stop giving, it achieves the remarkable feat of crafting a cohesive whole out of a dozen disparate stories.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    There is most certainly a parallel universe in which Emilana Torrini is the Next Big Thing.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    It’s always been about the process of making music for this band, and after a decade of critical busts and two years of a global pandemic, the passion that’s present here begs the belief that they’ve finally regained that unbridled joy, once again finding something really sweet happening amongst themselves.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    An undeniably hooky record that strays from its grunge-rock roots and finds the band in a place where they’ve found the fun in their craft once again.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Teeth Dreams is the first time since Boys & Girls in America that The Hold Steady toes that perfect line between adolescent, backseat make-out sessions and stoned, intellectual discourse on the human condition.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    It’s a long way from his turns as go-to Disney film composer, but on Dark Matter, Newman’s versatility, as ever, transcends pigeonholing and illuminates the smart aleck-y nature (with the emphasis on smart) of one of the world’s great songwriters once again.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The album’s meditations on what follows the mortal coil are as sweeping as the gulf between its genres, but both are handled with rewardingly nuanced subtlety.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Toxic City Music still leaves its mark, if only by reinforcing on listeners how sharp Caminiti’s musical mind is and how he applies it judiciously to work that heaves and menaces like grey storm clouds.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    With We Fall, Josephine Wiggs has built a picturesque bridge between ambient chamber music and pop songwriting. Artists have been peering from one stylistic shore to the other for decades, but Wiggs travels between them with exceptional agility and poise.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    This record isn't simply a record, it's an emotional, intricate experience that keeps on after the instrumental break.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    While it's not perfect, CoCo Beware is a strong, cohesive opening statement from a group of talented musicians that only gets better with repeated listens.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    This is the album that finally cements Braids’ role within Montreal’s accomplished indie artists and Raphaelle Standell-Preston as one of the most uniquely artistic forces in music today.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Creative movements make Bitter Rivals an exciting and powerful record, because it reminds the listener that sometimes it’s okay to follow an idea into unexpected territory and shake things up.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    One of her best, most perfectly-produced projects ever. In folklore, she wrote a quieter, more thought-provoking chapter in her constantly shapeshifting story.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Sharon Van Etten was already one of the great lyricists of the ‘10s, but with this breathtaking new project, she’s proved an artistic pliancy her contemporaries may not possess. She hit her stride with Are We There, but here she’s not even on the ground.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Her best-sounding record yet, it shines a bright light on Holter’s strong, clear voice and literate piano--plus occasional electric piano and harpsichord--giving plenty of space to longtime accompanists Devin Hoff (double bass) and Corey Fogel (percussion), and new collaborator Dina Maccabee (viola).
    • 84 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Modern Vampires is Rostam Batmanglij’s album. Like a character actor stealing the movie from the lead, he pretty much owns these songs, filling them with eccentric flourishes of sound that are both jarring and perfect.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    “one sick plan,” an acoustic performance presented through an intentionally lo-fi style that crackles like a demo and feels like a stick-figure drawing dropped into a pile of Picassos. It’s a good song, but an odd production choice. These are minor quibbles, of course, within the context of an otherwise brilliant work. basking in the glow is not only the fulfillment of the promise Lilitri showed on the yunahon mixtape, it’s one of the best pop-rock records of 2019.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The result is the purest late-night album that Camera Obscura has recorded yet.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The album is cinematic in its own right, carving out a singular vision with moving musical choices, impactful delivery and evocative lyrics.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Call Me If You Get Lost doesn’t strike the same emotional resonances as Tyler’s last two LPs, but it isn’t meant to. ... hat’s the crowning achievement of this record—the way it sharply reminds every listener that the early entries in an artist’s discography are not parts of their past meant to be forgotten.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The cadences, demeanors and vocal tones certainly add an interesting wrinkle to Eno's dynamic, but a few exceptions aside, I'm generally too enraptured in his rich compositions to decipher the staggered wordplay.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    The meticulous nature of After You’s dreamy and frequently cathartic soundscapes suggests Peñate spent years perfecting these 10 songs, maybe ever since Everything Is New was released. That’s a long time to work on a record, but after finally—finally—hearing the finished product, it’s obvious the wait was worth it.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    A fun-as-hell pop-punk romp for listeners of any age.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Reznor’s letter paints Ghosts V: Together as hopeful and Ghosts VI: Locusts as fearful, but the moods evoked by both are too richly layered to just dichotomize the two records along such bold lines. ... Locusts harbors pockets of peaceful reflection (such as the one-two respite of “Trust Fades” and “A Really Bad Night”).
    • 76 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    Their experimentation reaps triumphant results.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    All of Houck's southern eccentricities remain gloriously intact, from his eloquently hangdog vocals to his minimalist songwriting on "Hej, Me I'm Light."
    • 79 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    With almost every track featuring very direct first person, Life After Youth is an extremely personal collection from Powell, but with some help from her friends and collaborators Sharon Van Etten, The Besnard Lakes, Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) and Sal Maida (Roxy Music/Sparks), she has not only made the best record of her career, it’s also one of the strongest solo releases from any past or present Broken Social Scene members.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    It is precisely this linkage between systematized death and riches that makes the album such a mortifying listen and perhaps the most essential of 2024.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    These tracks are among Lenker’s most striking and emotionally nuanced. While it lacks the musical dynamism of abysskiss, songs’ lyrics are more potent and detailed.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    The duo’s recent fascination with 21st-century disconnection continues, but the bombast is louder and the tranquility is quieter, and in focusing on lucid melodies and unobscured fidelity, they’ve created their most visceral work yet.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    With No Burden, Lucy Dacus challenges the little boxes everyone seems forced into at one time or another, exposing them for the weak material they’re built from. In the process, she’s created a debut record with an abundance of heart that should speak to anyone with a pulse of their own.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    The album is overflowing with upbeat, Americana gems.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    Black Lightning is rife with minimally detailed yet fully rendered character sketches, and Naggar’s deftness at seamlessly weaving dissonant guitar lines into her riveting stories elevates her music well above much of the crowded folk-adjacent field.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    Veracity makes Django and Jimmie a marvel, mixing novelty, pathos and classics. What emerges is a core sample of what made these men endure for half a century.