Pitchfork's Scores
- Music
For 11,990 reviews, this publication has graded:
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41% higher than the average critic
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6% same as the average critic
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53% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.9 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: | Sign O' the Times [Deluxe Edition] | |
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Lowest review score: | nyc ghosts & flowers |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 9,807 out of 11990
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Mixed: 1,876 out of 11990
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Negative: 307 out of 11990
11990
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
Despite some strong ideas and a few memorable songs, Faded Seaside Glamour remains notable mostly for the vocals: the album's ups and downs follow Gilbert's voice almost exactly, best when he's hitting high notes, mundane when he's not.- Pitchfork
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The North Borders is not a bad album--for the most, it’s as inoffensive as those decade-old chill-out compilations--yet a frustration persists because Bonobo is better than this.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 12, 2013
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Lewis’ singing is one of the few novelties on AudioLust & HigherLove. The rest is all breezy grooves and cabana jams, frictionless and blemish-free.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jan 31, 2023
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When Wallumrød emerges from the long shadows of her source material, elevate Go Dig My Grave beyond the beautifully rendered, if rather pointless, collection of covers it sometimes threatens to be.- Pitchfork
- Posted Feb 12, 2018
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Unexpected Victory's sound is too lousy--and its stakes too low--to ever possibly live up to his past glories.- Pitchfork
- Posted Feb 2, 2012
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At no point does Headful of Sugar come off as cynical, though the central premise falls apart under the slightest bit of scrutiny: This is a largely beloved, well-connected, and unabashedly accessible rock band trying to be convincing as the voice of outcasts obeying their most reckless impulses.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 12, 2022
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It's easy to get the sense that the intent is to let the jangling shoegaze wash over you, and if some of the lyrics stick, that's fine. But that's the thing-- they rarely do, and neither do several of the songs.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 20, 2012
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At its best, Born Sinner, showcases J. Cole's overall musicality, pairing his ability as a lyricist with a more broadly developed production palette.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 21, 2013
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- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 2, 2024
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- Critic Score
"Hey Ray" is a sore-thumb irritant on an EP that otherwise carefully mediates between Cale's populist and deviant tendencies.- Pitchfork
- Posted Oct 13, 2011
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The story of a young female songwriter pushing back against the sexist songwriters on her major label and modern pop’s oppressive beauty standards is an impressive one. The cautious Sucker Punch could do with more of that insurrectionist spirit.- Pitchfork
- Posted Mar 15, 2019
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After two albums of post-Britpop mediocrity, Manchester trio I Am Kloot kick things up a notch (or think they do), and suffer from bipolarity and an ambition that outstrips their ability.- Pitchfork
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Magic Potion is a record where overwhelming competence meets measured restraint, but for me, sacrilege trumps sincerity, and I'd rather hear tuneful blasphemy than a tasteful snoozer of an album.- Pitchfork
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M:FANS is less reclusive, just by virtue of its premise--Cale is collaborating with himself, the ultimate glum foil--but also because it fills every swatch of white space with his later-career electro-industrial leanings.- Pitchfork
- Posted Feb 25, 2016
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The album as a whole is moderately enjoyable while it's on, but that's about it.- Pitchfork
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Where A$AP Mob’s early releases were guided by a clear vision and unifying aesthetic, everyone here is content to follow rap’s reigning trends rather than lead them, a surprising capitulation from what was once New York’s most ambitious hip-hop crew.- Pitchfork
- Posted Aug 31, 2017
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Despite the overt bleakness, Strictly a One-Eyed Jack shines when Mellencamp invites other people into his world—proof that he can still surprise us this deep into his career.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jan 28, 2022
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COW has some of the Orb’s most gentle moments to date, but in eschewing their own classic album and instead oddly reflecting on one from their peers, they fail to get beyond the Ultraworld and the world of Chill Out, at times mimicking little more than some BBC sound effects.- Pitchfork
- Posted Oct 17, 2016
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Truth is, it usually works the other way; next to this rich, peculiar music, Nicolaus' reticence to reveal too much leaves Golden Suits' story feeling a little unfinished.- Pitchfork
- Posted Aug 30, 2013
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- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 8, 2016
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The confidence in their new record is clear, if only because their vocals sound more boisterous than ever, but for the most part, the experimentation is the problem.- Pitchfork
- Posted Sep 7, 2011
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WILL THIS MAKE ME GOOD has plenty of gorgeous moments. Those moments will inspire the most generous listeners to wonder what this record could have been, if Hakim had given it more time to gestate, and maybe edited himself more.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 18, 2020
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There are brooding, rhythmically strong pop songs that fall halfway between the poutiness of Lana Del Rey and the hyperactive fizz of HAIM. The parts where it deviates from that template, however, are baffling.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 22, 2013
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For all its emotional charge, Changing Light barely feels more intimate than Share This Place.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 22, 2014
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Has its inspired moments but ultimately comes off like something of a vanity project.- Pitchfork
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The Black Album launched Metallica to superstardom because of its approachability, but in its attempts to offer something for everyone, Blacklist spreads itself too thin.- Pitchfork
- Posted Sep 10, 2021
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Expektoration is DOOM at his live-show peak, and people who go into this knowing this set's from six years back might feel a bit more charitable. But releasing a concert album with an "Act 1"/"Intermission"/"Act 2" structure instead of a telltale tracklist, and obscuring its actual place in a years-distant history? That's not supervillainy, that's antagonism.- Pitchfork
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The seven songs on In Motion #1 were commissioned as alternate scores to seven short avant-garde films, and without those inspirations unspooling in front of the listener, there's a strange incompleteness to most of them.- Pitchfork
- Posted Aug 2, 2012
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The title of Age of Transparency acts as Ashin's commentary on the way we live our lives out in the open, and his music seeks to pull you through uneasy, emotional dregs with its every turn. But what once felt intimate has started to lean to over-exertion.- Pitchfork
- Posted Oct 5, 2015
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As an experimental electronic album, Reachy Prints comes off as milquetoast. As a pop album, though, it sparkles.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 23, 2014
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