Paste Magazine's Scores

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For 4,070 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: 3,634 out of 4070
  2. Mixed: 400 out of 4070
  3. Negative: 36 out of 4070
4070 music reviews
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    • 75 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    I Want the Door to Open
    West has said she intended the album to resemble a “poem or a puzzle box,” and often, the obfuscation is part of the charm. Occasionally, though, there are too many barriers between West and what she wants to say.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 71 Critic Score
    Jade Bird
    Jade Bird is an album of loose change, a pocketful of shiny, well-written nuggets that might give off a lot of flash individually but when put together don’t equal the sum of their parts. Thankfully, Bird’s singular musical style--a chalky blend of roots-rock, country and pop--and her mighty, mighty roar cancel out any thematic fumbles entirely.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Joji
    The very best kind of hot, front-porch music. [Apr/May 2005, p.134]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    B-Sides & Rarities
    With phenomenal sound quality and scarcely a weak track in the lot, B-Sides & Rarities ought to satisfy Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds fans with its fascinating, if fairly familiar, tale.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Shadow of the Sun
    Don’t expend too much mental energy on it, and you’ll dance through it all with a huge grin on your face.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Five Spanish Songs [EP]
    Five Spanish Songs is clearly more than a mere genre exercise--it’s a respectful, and very much tuneful, tip of the cap from one songwriter to another, which transcends language.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon
    Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon is Murder by Death's most beautiful album to date.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Seeker
    It finds Cronin stretching himself as a songwriter, taking risks in the arrangements and writing the best, most personal lyrics of his career. Just as importantly, Seeker finds him embracing a sort of sonic abandon that was lacking in his earlier work.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    5EPs
    5EPs is the first time this seemingly interminable project has felt completely approachable, rather than yet another informational overload in this swirling year. And though it highlights each performer’s unique strengths, it sometimes obscures the new members’ talents under tried-and-true Dirty Projectors sounds.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Recover [EP]
    [Title track "Recover" is] so freakishly great, there’s no way Chvrches can follow it--at least not on this EP.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Weather
    For the most part, Cottrell reliably prevents the listener from getting engulfed in the aural haze that has become Hansen’s trademark. That said, with her distinct vocal character, it seems like she could invest her singing with more spiked edges if she chose to—or if the music called for it.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Hour Of Green Evening
    Hour of Green Evening remains engaging even at its most lethargic. ... There’s a mystical, almost hallucinatory quality to Becker’s songwriting.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Mountain
    This album isn't merely a single peak, but a whole mountain range.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Black Moon Spell
    This time instead of competing for the throne, if feels more like a party with open guest list.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Cosmetics
    Songs like these [“Killin’ Time” and closer “Motel Room”] showcase the best of Diamond Rugs’ penchant for big riffs and bawdy entertainment, but the rest of Cosmetics ends up sounding strikingly derivative.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Mosquito
    Mosquito is where this band finally grooves, after long threatening.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Bought to Rot
    Grace doesn’t graduate from punk on Bought To Rot--she expands and elevates it with explicit revelations, fervent melodies, head-banging chord progressions and unruffled tenacity.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    OFF!
    Fortunately, they're still pushing energy and concision: OFF! is 16 songs in 16 white-knuckle minutes.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    B-Sides and Rarities
    The slight disappointment of B-Sides and Rarities is that it won’t upend or startle anyone’s perceptions of Beach House. There is nothing remotely bad on here, but there is also nothing that finds the duo lightening up or straying too far from the warm glow of their trademark sound.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Pom Pom
    Pom pom is probably the most accessible, easy-on-the-ear and enjoyable music of his career, without any asterisks.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    In the Marrow
    Despite its bleak, blustery façade, In The Marrow is a pop album at its core, and further testament to how tortured souls often write the sweetest hooks.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    SAP
    SAP does not contain a single bad song, but the record is lengthy.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Green Naugahyde
    If all seven of their previous studio works represent a layer in Wynona's castor Taco-Bell repast, then it's appropriate to say that Green Naugahyde takes a big bite of the whole thing.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Collection
    Soccer Mommy mirrors the melancholic joy of Death Cab For Cutie with the emotive songwriting of Now, Now, reworking some older demos into mournful indie-pop that are introspective, yet intensely relatable.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Otis Taylor's Contraband
    In short, it's a modern blues record that even non-blues fans can love and that blues fans can outright cherish.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Close to the Glass
    On Close to the Glass, the results are more fractured and schizophrenic than ever.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Destroyer
    Destroyer starts thumping with the first track and never stops; the tone might change, but the listener’s desire to stomp the accelerator on the open road won’t.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    It All Starts with One
    One can be a grower: The sleepy and skippable "Worship" (featuring an obtrusive duet vocal from Jose Gonzalez) finds Brun approaching a more accessible vocal territory-one annoyingly reminiscent of Feist. But it's a mostly stellar experience.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    We Walk This Road
    Burnett's production is well-intentioned, but the vibe is a little too restrained, the burn a little too controlled.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    B4.DA.$$
    Ultimately, B4.DA.$$ is a lackluster album with little appeal beyond its dry technical flourish and fleeting moments of vulnerability.
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