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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    • 82 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    Bubblegum
    Each and every song sticks out musically for one reason or another--whether it’s the groovy bass line of “Sick of Words,” or the various movements of “Somewhere Unoccupied.”
    • 82 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Starter Home
    He takes a minimalist approach to the nine songs on Starter Home, focusing mostly on acoustic guitar and his warm, slightly rumpled voice. There are adornments here and there from violin, keyboards and steel guitar, which add texture and atmosphere to songs that seem unassuming until you listen closely enough to hear just how devastating they are.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ice Cream Spiritual
    Not recommended for people with heart conditions or pregnant mothers, but for those of you looking for visceral thrills, this is it.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 93 Critic Score
    Transgender Dysphoria Blues
    Transgender Dysphoria Blues is a perfect storm of great songwriting paired with some timely, frank admissions from Grace.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Weathervanes
    It may not be perfect from start to finish, but Weathervanes again affirms Isbell’s place as an Alabama legend—right there next to Saban.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Blood Mountain
    A study in elemental force that rides the line between thrash and plod with enlightened originality and compositional skill to spare. [Dec 2006, p.89]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Full Communism
    This is the relentless effect of Full Communism: an album that makes you think, an album that urges you to take action, an album encompassed by an energy that cannot be summarized.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Pearls to Swine
    The instrumental work by the session musicians on Pearls To Swine may be rather remarkable, as is the production work by Erik Wofford, but at the end of the day, it’s Torres’ natural soundscapes and elaborate imagery that brilliantly twinkles throughout this piece of art.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    At the Party with My Brown Friends
    Pretty much every song, when listened to individually, is far from lacking emotional impact, indicating that Paul’s sweet spot exists within the realm of midtempo, linear songs. To have nine such hymns packaged into one album is itself a gift—call it a token of friendship.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Active Listening: Night on Earth
    Active Listening: Night on Earth is a both resplendent listen and an acquired taste. Not every listener will take pleasure in the band’s blustery dissonance, but those who do will be rewarded with dense pop riches and deeply poignant, poetic lyrics.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    When I Say to You Black Lightning
    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.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Teen Dream
    Dream is a go-for-broke collection that not only creates and sustains a hi-fi drowse-pop drama throughout its 10 beguiling songs, but comes across like a logical and gorgeous extension of all the band’s previous dreams.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Foundling
    Mary Gauthier is a natural-born yarn-spinner, and her latest album--an autobiographical account of childhood abandonment and failed reconciliation--is quintessential Gauthier: tender and pained, yet ultimately harmonious.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Ramble at the Ryman
    On live disc Ramble at the Ryman, with a characteristically exuberant blend of rock, blues, country, and folk, Helm proves himself once again to be one of our most vibrant conservators of traditional Americana.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nine Types of Light
    They've been freaks; they've been lover-boys. Now they're spaced-out romantics.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    Why Do the Heathen Rage?
    The results of these experiments can be on the nose, like doing a gender switch on Brazilian extreme metal act Sarcofago.... Others take a little bit of unpacking.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    (a)spera
    It’s a Giving Tree scenario, spun out with strings and a subdued power-ballad build, and it sets the stage for the worldly decay catalogued throughout (a)spera with the help of several gifted collaborators.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Major/Minor
    Major/Minor is nothing short of very good (with emphasis on "very").
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pang
    The most sublime moments on Pang match the all-cylinders feeling of falling into new love, each neuron so stimulated by the feeling that they threaten to overload and collapse entirely.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Reset
    Much of the joy in Reset comes in instances like these where Lennox and Kember wholeheartedly embrace the sounds of the past with a distinctly contemporary approach.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Shattered
    A boldly traditional, and fantastically well-rounded album of rock ‘n’ roll.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END!
    Having zigged for a while, Godspeed zags (of course) on G_d’s Pee, bringing back some of the inscrutable elements that made the band so interesting in the first place.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    American V: A Hundred Highways
    From beginning to end, it's as heartwarming and heartbreaking an album as you're likely to hear this year. [Aug 2006, p.86]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 82 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    A Creature I Don't Know
    She's closely attentive to the particulars of her folk songs, which allows them to reveal deeper and darker secrets with each listen and to resonate long after the record has stopped spinning.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 95 Critic Score
    Servant of Love
    Servant of Love--Griffin’s first new work since both 2013’s reflective American Kid and Silver Bell (recorded in 2000 but released 13 years after the fact)--takes the Maine-born songwriter to more complex, yet spare musical planes.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Touch
    What keeps every song on Touch so engaging is how they all change moods at the drop of a hat.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Years
    As an exercise in exploring the various strains of left-of-center country and roots music, Years is spot on.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Crawler
    It’s a remarkable, haunted and resonate touchstone for rock and roll, a record unafraid of its own emotions and openness—full of stories worth returning to and untangling a hundred times over.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    When Horses Would Run
    When Horses Would Run comes as close to that perfect commendation as a debut album can possibly get.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
    When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? has its faults, not quite hitting its full potential, but it gets damn well close, delivering an infectious record for the post-party hangover.
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