Paste Magazine's Scores

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For 4,079 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 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band [50th Anniversary Edition Deluxe Version]
Lowest review score: 10 Songs From Black Mountain
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,643 out of 4079
  2. Mixed: 400 out of 4079
  3. Negative: 36 out of 4079
4079 music reviews
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    • 84 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The King
    The most remarkable thing about The King, however, is that its synthesis of sound and vision makes it feel so thoroughly like a monumental record.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    ...And Star Power
    Whether imitation is truly the sincerest form of flattery―and other cliches―as it pertains to this third album in the Foxygen catalog is up for debate. If it’s some secret genius, the jury is still decidedly out. Either way, you’ll want to hear this one for yourself.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Thao & Mirah
    It turns out the two are even better in cahoots than they are solo, each buttressing the other with her own set of complementary idiosyncrasies.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    HITnRUN: Phase Two
    The album is a call to the kind of funk that closes over your head like too much champagne. Undulating, fizzy, and almost light-headed, this is music to induce a euphoria that lifts skirts and spirits.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Under The Covers Vol. 2
    Working out of his home studio, Sweet--joined by drummer Ric Menck and multi-instrumentalist Greg Leisz--nails every sonic nuance, buried under cumulous clouds of glorious boy/girl harmonies.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Snares Like a Haircut
    It’s what you should put on when you don’t want to think; aggressive, enveloping, and with just enough of a bite to corroborate your deeply held belief that you’re not one of them.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Where's My Utopia?
    There’s such a charming muscle being flexed here that you might not even immediately realize that, beneath massive hooks, Yard Act are performing an exorcism on the ever-so universal fixation creatives have on shit-talk outmaneuvering praise.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Valley of Heart's Delight
    The songwriting across all 11 tracks is accessible and familiar—and yet, Cilker’s world that she’s created is fully under the rule of her genius penmanship. It’s sharp and far-ranging; anyone who has run from something can tap in and find ecstasy; anyone who has stayed put can achieve the same baroque fate.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us
    The Things We Do is a record for anyone who’s ever felt, even for a moment, that music is what matters the most. For any hard-luck kid or nowhere bum who needs it, that escape is heaven.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Catching a Tiger
    On Tiger there's more than a whiff of tequila in the air-yellowy-green shots knocked back fast followed by hazy mornings filled with nagging regrets. This could perhaps be considered "folk" in some generous sense of the word, but let's not be afraid to call it what it really is: unbridled, unselfconscious, swirling, head-pounding pop.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    3D Country
    Across 11 tracks, 3D Country is gnarled, chaotic and vibrant. But, what’s potentially the most-shattering truth of all is that, amid all of this charismatic, wholehearted sonic anarchy, Geese have only just begun.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    A Love Surreal
    He’s just a great singer, backed by great players he puts to good use on a set of sticky, deceptively inventive songs
    • 66 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Everything Now
    The album is a fascinating look at the inherent danger of technological oversaturation and the detachment that comes with it.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Savage Mode II
    Savage Mode II is a worthy successor to the original, building on that initial moment that made 21 Savage a household name. Adventurous, introspective, and thoughtful, it’s just what the world needs from the rapper at this moment, even if we didn’t know it.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Jessica Rabbit
    At only 43 minutes, the album can take a few listens for adjustment. Like no other rock in 2016, Jessica Rabbit is rife with worthwhile whiplash, with some of Derek Miller’s best riffs no longer taking center stage in front the songwriting.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now
    Nothing's Gonna Change... is ultimately the kind of album you can curl up into, let the warm tones surround you and rest easy.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Joe Strummer 001
    What’s here is an excellent start. This collection gives a sense of the scope of Strummer’s career, and the passion with which he pursued it.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Americana
    Given Ben Keith's death last year, it's the perfect merge: Young's rough-hewn organics and the raucous Crazy Horse.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Dead Cross
    Each track doesn’t just bleed into the next, they hemorrhage into one another like the elevators at the Overlook Hotel.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The River & the Thread
    As powerful a witness for the region--Memphis, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas--as it is a lovely quilt of musicality, braiding blues, folk, Appalachia, rock and old-timey country, this is balm for lost souls, alienated creatures seeking their core truths and intellectuals who love the cool mist of vespers in the hearts of people they may never encounter.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Where We Were Together
    The best pure indie-pop record of 2018 (so far) is not from Brooklyn or Glasgow or Melbourne or Olympia but Busan, South Korea. The album, Where We Were Together from the band Say Sue Me, is a perfectly paced fusion of jangling guitars, bouncing bass and sighed melancholy.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    La vita nouva [EP]
    La vita nuova sounds like a collection of essentials for a soon-to-be prolific artist.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Against the Odds 1974-1982 [Box Set]
    As far as box sets go, Against the Odds is a textbook example of how to do justice to a band’s legacy.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    22, A Million
    There’s certainly a sense of urgency here, and also sublime moments on songs that overlay beauty with turbulence in a way that suggests an anguished soul reaching for solace amid turmoil.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Every Bad
    Every Bad is the nuanced album that indie rock has needed for years.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Dormarion
    Dormarion should leave returning fans satisfied and new listeners hooked as Lerner continues to refine his skills and churn out strong albums.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Midnight
    This an indie record for the ages, a wonderful listen where each song is completely essential to the project as a whole. Midnight is an incredible record, owing, but in no way indebted to her pitch perfect partnership with Toledo, one that’s further catapulted by Chura’s distinctive voice and extraordinary songwriting chops.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Mono
    Never quite forsaking what brought them, they’ve created a new world for post-country country--as musically satisfying as it is hormone-peaking.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    CHUCK
    This is a terrific, cohesive album that reconsiders past glories, reaffirms old obsessions and reflects on his waning days.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Watkins Family Hour
    That such a simple record, short on frills and long on naked aesthetic, offers such impact in a world of machined pop and beat-driven urban music speaks volumes for the power of stripping things back, then letting the talent shine.
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