Paste Magazine's Scores

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For 4,067 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: 3,631 out of 4067
  2. Mixed: 400 out of 4067
  3. Negative: 36 out of 4067
4067 music reviews
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    • 76 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Imani, Vol. 1
    Imani is less appealing when it treads too close to feel-good platitudes (“Inspired By,” “Twist of Time”), though Gab’s conversational flow still packs enough sincerity to get away with lines like “Family will have your back when everybody else will skip.”
    • 74 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Gone by the Dawn
    Gone by the Dawn deftly blends a joyful escape musically with the weighty emotional journey of the lyrics, and Shannon and the Clams have more than topped themselves on the record, pushing to a whole new level.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Crosseyed Heart
    Honor among thieves, love amongst scoundrels... Keith Richards has carved an encompassing survey of his own spirit and set it to a vast set of influences for all to see.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Ones and Sixes
    Low’s always been good at making records where it sounds like every note and beat contains some degree of pain and hope you’ve felt. So hopefully it’s compelling when this one stands out even more as one of their best.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    La Di Da Di
    However you decipher the 1s and 0s, the songs comprising La Di Da Di are timeless vestiges of sound, and by that virtue alone are going to be around for a long time.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Thunderbitch
    The record is consciously straightforward and unapologetically so. And there ain’t nothing wrong with that.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Faith in the Future
    While the songs here aren’t as instantly stick-in-your-head catchy as much of The Hold Steady’s catalog, they have a subtler staying power of their own.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Good Sad Happy Bad
    Good Sad Happy Bad is a collection of intriguing sketches that might have been developed into a record; instead, they’re left to suffer in demo-like ambiguity.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    The Book of Souls
    As it stands, The Book of Souls is the best Maiden record from Dickinson’s second act, and an impressive achievement from one of metal’s greatest bands.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Perfect World
    The furious yowling on each track off Uniform’s Perfect World belies some pretty arresting compositional finery.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Compton
    The listenability and creativity of Dre’s grand scheme almost save Compton from itself, but it’s the final song of the album that brings down the house.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    Too
    FIDLAR know the record’s subject matter has been a part of rock ‘n’ roll since long before they were born, but they seem content to put the same stamp others have on the situation.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Depression Cherry
    Depression Cherry doesn’t always have the emotional heft, or melodic impact, of their 2010 breakthrough Teen Dream or its follow-up, 2012’s Bloom, but the duo’s knack for crafting thoughtful, enveloping songs makes their return more than welcome.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    And the Wave Has Two Sides
    Lyrically, ON AN ON tells moody stories of loss and loneliness, without actually conveying very much emotion.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Stuff Like That There
    As a treat for the most passionate fans, it’s a winner, but by focusing on only one aspect of the band’s identity it doesn’t register as much as almost every other record they’ve ever released.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Trackless Woods
    Mostly, it’s just an intense record, one that beckons listeners to sit down with the liner notes and lyrics, much like the canon of poetry off of which it’s based.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    The Expanding Flower Planet
    She understands the properties and possibilities of an expanding flower plant and lets the idea of such possibility guide her songwriting. It channels the ancient and mythological without succumbing entirely, and supersedes it with the daring spirit of a 21st century woman.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats
    While the singer and his band are drawing on a classic form, their interpretation makes for an exciting and contemporary sound.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Dry Food
    On Dry Food’s eight heartbreaking observations, she teeters between aching insecurity and crushing tenderness.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Skeleton Closet
    While expanding his sound, however, Nourallah doesn’t stray for too long from a core concern of his writing--how to move brightly through a crumbling world.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Imaginary Man
    Mostly, Imaginary Man sounds like Baxter composing a conscious push to the mainstream. It’s just that his previous, strange, and wanderlusting alter-ego seems to capture more curiosity.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    1 Hopeful RD.
    Although the slower 1 Hopeful Rd. likely won’t affect Vintage Trouble’s exuberant live performances or reputation, they’d do better to return to their high-energy recordings.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Coda [Remastered]
    Like Jimmy Page’s previous deluxe remasters, these new sets are fitfully revealing, littered with extras that even obsessives will write off as fluff. But the albums’ scattered brilliance has only deepened in the past four decades. [Coda (Remastered Album): 7.5 / Coda (Deluxe Material): 7.0]
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In Through the Out Door [Remastered]
    Like Jimmy Page’s previous deluxe remasters, these new sets are fitfully revealing, littered with extras that even obsessives will write off as fluff. But the albums’ scattered brilliance has only deepened in the past four decades.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Presence [Remastered]
    Like Jimmy Page’s previous deluxe remasters, these new sets are fitfully revealing, littered with extras that even obsessives will write off as fluff. But the albums’ scattered brilliance has only deepened in the past four decades.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Another One
    Even songs which seem at first like throwaways take turns which end up redeeming their back-to-basics structure.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Positive Songs for Negative People
    Turner leaves behind considerable wreckage with Positive Songs--in ways both cathartic and clumsy. And as usual, he goes down swinging.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Goes Missing
    What Kelly has summoned is a shot of the good stuff from the wellspring of material everyone has to work with, and in the process he’s produced one of the best albums of 2015.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Amused to Death [Reissue]
    The meticulously crafted music is bold and robust, with same panoramic sweep as The Wall, Waters’ magnum opus he created while with Pink Floyd.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Star Wars
    They make “tossed-off” and “slight” sound like the utmost virtues, and most of these songs sound like they were recorded in real time.
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