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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    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hurricane Bar
    Mando Diao has one-upped classmates The Hives and Sahara Hotnights with its superior songwriting and musical depth. [#14, p.109]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Story Of My Life
    Evokes Juliana Hatfield more than Shania Twain. [Apr/May 2005, p.127]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Frances The Mute
    Frances bursts at the jewel-case hinges with Comatorium’s trademarks: musical inventiveness and wildly emotive vocals.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    In The Clear
    Filled with dreamy pop gems. [#14, p.105]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    In Between Dreams
    Listening to the surfer/artist’s third album is like sitting on a barstool alongside a good friend, knocking back pints and rappin’ it down about, y’know, life and whatever.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Make Do With What You Got
    Make Do With What You Got is proof he still has the mojo to deliver the goods.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Solarized
    At times convoluted, Solarized can be a bit of a puzzle, but there are precious few pieces missing from this set. [#14, p.115]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Aha Shake Heartbreak
    In song after song there are moments where it sounds like the band is weaving its way into a fantastic instrumental jam section, only to have the new idea abruptly cut short by the track’s end or an obligatory return to the next verse.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Transistor Radio
    Ward's lo-fi (and utterly charming) ditties make you long for a past you never lived. [#14, p.123]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    End Of Love
    Triangulates the common ground between Luna, American Music Club and Red House Painters. [#14, p.105]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 57 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Awake Is The New Sleep
    With Awake, Lee has become a writer so adept at communicating his personality through song, that it’s easy to feel like you know him after just a few listens.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Cosmic Game
    Like much of Thievery Corporation's work, it's enveloping if not terribly galvanizing. [#16, p.138]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Woman King [EP]
    Producer Brian Deck understands that Beam's music is fragile. [Apr/May 2005, p.132]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Government Commissions: BBC Sessions 1996-2003
    A terrific treat for the faithful and a fine portal for Mogwai newbies. [Apr/May 2005, p.127]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Feathers
    An elongated, spacey drone of acidic riffage and flickering psych-rock ambience. [Apr/May 2005, p.135]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Nashville
    Decidedly a pop record. [Apr/May 2005, p.150]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Mysterious Production Of Eggs
    An eminently pleasurable album that reveals more with each spin. [Apr/May 2005, p.148]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Room Noises
    Eisley has developed its own unique, almost anti-populist sound, and a healthy, inquisitive sensitivity, to boot.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Am A Bird Now
    Antony flourishes like a rare orchid in a New York hothouse, brandishing his voice like so many delicate petals. [#14, p.120]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Happiness In Magazines
    Sounds more ambitious than Coxon's effortless riffs let on. [Apr/May 2005, p.131]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Emoh
    Barlow fails to write an indie rock standard, something he usually manages once per album, but EMOH still exceeds expectations.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Knuckle Down
    DiFranco always throws her heart into her songs, and Knuckledown gives her a chance to reflect on it.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Great Destroyer
    Songs like “California” and “Walk Into the Sea,” by far the sunniest, poppiest material Low has ever produced, shatter the mopey mold the band has so carefully cultivated, and to thrilling results.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Before The Dawn Heals Us
    A lusher, synthier and all-around grandiose slab of shoegazer emoting and New Age cinematics. [#14, p.120]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wilderness
    Prewitt's songs take their time unfolding, giving the album a meditative quality that's pretty admirable. [#14, p.105]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    I Sold Gold
    Narcissistic, repetitive, underpowered and yet strangely compelling in its quirky construction and directness.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Superwolf
    Superwolf is Americana at its most grim. [Apr/May 2005, p.134]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Valende
    An esoteric, wonderfully eccentric psychedelic record. [#14, p.123]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    All Rise
    Reaffirms George's place as a star in the making. [#16, p.138]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black Mountain
    Black Mountain indulges that old-school rock ’n’ roll craving.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    One
    When so much music is so bleak, a little unlikely optimism might be a crucial palliative measure, rather than Pollyanna-ish head-burying, and it’s sanguinity that Dirty Vegas delivers in spades.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Nothing's Lost
    The songs are stronger than ever. [Apr/May 2005, p.139]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lonely Runs Both Ways
    Lonely Runs Both Ways is spit-polished to a high, Nashville sheen, airbrushed into perfection and loaded down with layer upon layer of gooey gloss. Ultimately, all that shine holds Krauss back.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
    Unabashedly grand and inspirational.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    With The Lights Out
    So by all means pick up With the Lights Out, but go ahead and trash the curiously un-Nirvana-like packaging, discard the heat-sensitive (!) box, pitch the liner notes, maybe even throw away the DVD.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Want Two
    Where Want One emphasized his ability to soar, Want Two drowns him in costumes; his range actually sounds restricted when you hear the same droopy-lidded croon against such varying backdrops.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    White People
    The songs are sprightly but not riveting, the beats competent but not galvanizing.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Tigers Have Spoken
    She’s in perfect form.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Joji
    The very best kind of hot, front-porch music. [Apr/May 2005, p.134]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Key
    Whatever Key lacks in ramshackle charm, it compensates for with deft musicianship and winds up just as achingly fine as the band's sepia-toned debut. [#13, p.119]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Abattoir Blues / The Lyre Of Orpheus
    Aside from the power of the music and lyrics, the set draws on Cave’s compelling persona: part priest, part sideshow barker--crooning one moment and eviscerating the next. While this has always been the core of his talent, on Abattoir/Lyre it is particularly rich and rewarding.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rendezvous
    Ranks with Lunapark and Penthouse as one of its best. [#13, p.119]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shake The Sheets
    Leo’s vision has crystallized. The songs are shorter and tighter than anything he’s seared onto tape, and his complex melodic phrasing arrives pitch perfect.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Welcome To The North
    The Music has cranked propulsive garage psychedelia to stadium-rock decibels. [#14, p.127]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 88 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    From A Basement On The Hill
    A fitting farewell to a distinctive voice silenced too early.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Frank Black Francis
    Unfortunately, disc two’s cache of amorphous, New Age-y, re-recorded Pixies standards falls flat.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love Songs For Patriots
    Their best since 1991’s Everclear, and a glittering statement of purpose from an institution reinvigorated.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    New Danger
    Unfortunately, irrational moments like “The Rape Over” make you question the entire 17-track outing.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Spooked
    Hitchcock deals with present-day anxiety whimsically rather than specifically, while Rawlings and Welch provide an uncharacteristic but fitting mise en scene with their solemn plucking and barely suggested grooves, which function much like the shadowy cross-hatching you see in Edward Gorey’s drawings.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ray Ray
    Ranging from funk, R&B and soul to gospel and hip-hop overtones, Ray Ray delivers the goods.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Nancy Sinatra
    She's still got class and sass to spare, but among so many collaborators, Sinatra sounds too malleable and impersonal. [#13, p.111]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Antics
    These songs feel heavy and significant enough--due to dynamic production and hooky choruses--even if we don’t know exactly what they mean.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Night On Fire
    Night on Fire is going to need a gifted remixer to transform it into the dance-floor-packer it aspires to be.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Dreamed We Fell Apart
    Campbell's particular sense of catchy pop melody is a nightlight in the darkness. [#14, p.111]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Delivery Man
    Staggered between full-on rockers like "Needle Time," "There’s A Story In Your Voice", and "Bedlam," the softer material sounds excessively genteel.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    American Idiot
    As pretentious a concept as that might seem, Green Day pulls it off brilliantly.
    • 100 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    London Calling [25th Anniversary Legacy Edition]
    With the 25th anniversary edition of London Calling, Epic/Legacy has outdone itself.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Let's Bottle Bohemia
    Let’s Bottle Bohemia is a triumph.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Funeral
    Musically dynamic and emotionally complex. [#13, p.132]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 89 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    HoboSapiens
    Like a Fellini movie, filled with rich textures and intriguing characters.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Folker
    Raw and revealing.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Living Things
    A sunny, neo-psychedelic outing. Unfortunately, this translates into overly busy, fussy arrangements that sometimes mar the impact of the songs. [#13, p.119]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Weightlifting
    It's a welcome, bliss-smacked comeback. [#13, p.121]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Medulla
    Björk weaves into Medúlla a palpable longing for a simpler world--a world predating smart bombs and collapsing towers, a world in which life revolved around the expressive raising of one’s voice, both solitarily and in concert with others.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Winchester Cathedral
    A brand new bag of impossible shapes, rumbaing in esoteric formation. [#13, p.121]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Green Imagination
    It's surely a treat for fans of Olivia Tremor Control. But while interesting in its own way, the album is an inessential psychedelic-pop diversion for most everyone else.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Forget Tomorrow
    Wander[s] into engagingly curious sonic territory. [#13, p.125]
    • Paste Magazine
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