Pitchfork's Scores

  • Music
For 12,017 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 41% higher than the average critic
  • 6% same as the average critic
  • 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: 100 Sign O' the Times [Deluxe Edition]
Lowest review score: 0 nyc ghosts & flowers
Score distribution:
12017 music reviews
    • 56 Metascore
    • 44 Critic Score
    Now, for what it's worth, Dirty Vegas won't rob you of the gift of sight or make your ears bleed; it's just boring.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 54 Critic Score
    With Maladroit, Weezer has finally given the full punt to the nerd-rock label they sorta invented and always shunned, settling instead for being our generation's version of Cheap Trick.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    It seems now that the band is terrified of change, leaving them to rehash what their first five albums accomplished in lieu of actual progression.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    Problem is, where Elf Power previously made every extra instrument sound like an essential part of their songs, here, these things just sound like last-minute additions aimed at making one song sound remotely different from the next.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 46 Critic Score
    The sound and songs of [Aden's fourth album, Topsiders]... are no different whatsoever from the band's already homogenous and uncharacteristic previous three.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 49 Critic Score
    Every card Gough plays is painfully transparent from the first time you play the disc. It's elementary stuff. It sounds manufactured, refined, cosmetic and sterile; in a word, silicone, like a pair of Badly Sculpted Breast Implants.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    All of Denali consists solely of minor-key electric angst, with languid orchestration and predictable compositions. No crescendos, barely discernable choruses, a dearth of interesting dynamics. The result is stagnancy, kids, and it kills the album.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    By co-opting and debasing punk-disco's vitality and sincerity and thereby rendering the style accessible to the botox-and-bulimia set, Jackson betrays the visions of those whose ecstatically powerful music he lavishly degrades.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 49 Critic Score
    A band that displays a fine grasp of orchestral pop and baroque studio flourishes on some tracks should be delivering something better than Souljacker.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    While Rap-Metal 101 drums bang away in the background, the basslines are replaced by chugging guitar riffs reminiscent of your high school hardcore band. What remains, though, is the exceptional quality of Pharrell's voice, which, unlike the bass sound, doesn't lose its intensity due to repeated radio exposure.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The good stuff aside, if hard whiskey, hard women and aboveground pools aren't your thing-- and I would imagine not-- it's tough to recommend Lucky 7.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Is a Woman is a disappointment.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Monkey comes off resembling either a padded greatest-hits comp or an "inspired by" soundtrack for a non-existent movie. What it certainly isn't is a DJ mix where previously hidden links between seemingly unrelated songs are unearthed through the ancient art of juxtaposition.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 54 Critic Score
    You've got your acoustic guitar base, your occasional slide guitar fill, your Dylan-esque organ, your chug-a-lug drums, and your mildly catchy melodies. It would be offensive if it wasn't so obvious that Cracker doesn't aspire to much more than this sort of rustic middle-America mediocrity act.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Kittenz and Thee Glitz is Housecat watered down by trivia and outside egos.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Dead Media works on occasion, but primarily when Hefner revert to the traditional pop trio format of bass, guitar, drums.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 57 Critic Score
    Love Is Here isn't bad, and its prospect for radio play is far more appealing than, say, Train. The four just don't have the depth of their admitted influences.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 45 Critic Score
    It's all pretty silly stuff, but if nothing else, it manages to establish Flickerstick as a frontrunner for the Varsity Blues II soundtrack.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 45 Critic Score
    My biggest gripe about Lovage is that it finds a number of clearly talented artists constructing the same song continually without variation.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 56 Critic Score
    Like all of Mazzy Star's releases, Bavarian Fruit Bread works well as a mood piece and makes good background music, but it doesn't reward close listening.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    A lot of bands venture close to soft-rock territory and come out unscathed. Trembling Blue Stars aren't so lucky.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Gold comes off as clean, shiny, and over-the-top as Elliott Smith's XO, replete with strings, horns, and female backup singers. I double-checked the credits. Jon Brion wasn't listed.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 52 Critic Score
    In ten years, you'll be mistaking their superficial work here for the Chemical Brothers, Crystal Method, or Fatboy Slim's big-beat bullshit.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    All This Sounds Gas might not have been such a weak effort if Kannberg's lyrics actually had anything to say, but nonsense prose has never meshed well with lush, jangly alterna-rock.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lupine Howl essentially take the bluesiest moments of past Spiritualized records and use them as the starting point for their sound, placing the emphasis on gritty rock rave-ups, and adding another Marshall to the stack for every orchestra member Pierce hired for Let It Come Down.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Unfortunately, the efforts made by the band to expand their oeuvre on The Sword of God just fall flat. Long-winded instrumental passages, extended exploration of new instruments, and more bird noises do not a good record make, and The Sword of God makes this all too evident.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 51 Critic Score
    Go Plastic exhumes the corpse of stuttering, fast-paced percussion and arbitrary programming that was bled dry and buried in a time when the Y2K bug still signified economic collapse and nuclear meltdowns.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    Everybody Wants to Know is the kind of album that grows more rewarding the second and third times through, as the subtle hooks gradually sink in. But once those hooks have engrained themselves in those old skullbag, it's pretty unlikely they'll offer anything you can't get from any other anonymous alterna-rock record.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 54 Critic Score
    It's impeccably recorded-- pretty at some points and vaguely somber at others-- but it never distinguishes itself.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    I Believe is one of those albums that hardly anyone could bring themselves to hate, but almost no one could truly latch on to.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    From a production standpoint, the record sounds great, but at its core, it comes up empty, lacking a solid foundation of good songs to rest its adventurous studio trickery upon.... It's the most frustrating type of album there is-- one that's full of promise and shining moments, but never fully delivers.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Average from beginning to end.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    What makes Reveal so disappointing is that the additions to the classic R.E.M. sound are all merely superficial. The increased reliance on burbling, jittering synthesizers actually makes the album a less engaging listen, turning many of its songs into messy sonic muddles.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 52 Critic Score
    Considerably tamer than their stadium-rocking, chart-topping previous albums, Just Enough Education to Perform sounds less like a band voluntarily growing into their new-found maturity, and more like a pet's first, forced visit to the castration clinic.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 49 Critic Score
    Really, if your parents don't dig this, there's something wrong with them. This is music for the drive to pick up the kids from soccer practice, or to the doctor for dad's yearly prostate exam.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Lemonjelly.ky's nine tracks consist largely of samples from atrocious Nana Mouskouri songs and soundclips nipped from 100 Strings mood music albums. What binds these samples together is a series of predicable hip-hop beats and root-note basslines.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 48 Critic Score
    Everyone needs to have a doomed romantic stage, but Lloyd's is going on twenty years.... The lyrical juvenilia is a bit of a shame, because this is a solid collection of pop songs otherwise.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Posies, if you'll recall, used to compose entire songs of understated pop brilliance, instead of just moments.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 52 Critic Score
    Sorry, this is decent pub-rock, but there are 1,000 albums released every day. Buy another one.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 52 Critic Score
    The formula of acoustic arpeggios, light drumming, tender pianos, and the occasional subtle horn or string section makes for an album that's as slight and gentle as Saltines and mineral water. The boys never deviate from this, and thus Quiet is the New Loud, inane title and all, never reaches higher than saccharine easy listening.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    Slipping dissonant, screeching bleeps into a placid, space-age bachelor pad schema seems oddly passive-aggressive, though not enough of either to pass as legitimately interesting.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 49 Critic Score
    Sleepwalking doesn't have a startling track like Northern Sulphuric's "Spellbound" to lift it out from the polite sludge of trip-hop mush.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 41 Critic Score
    Run-DMC wind up overwhelmed by the guest stars and the schizophrenic nature of the production.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    If there's one positive remark to be made about What's Next to the Moon, it's that it sheds revelatory light on the subjective nature of lyrics. Yet, that might be the only truly positive remark this album deserves. Sure, Kozelek's voice is still smooth and sad, and his guitarwork is still deft, yet modest. But these are standard factory settings.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 49 Critic Score
    While it is by no means a good album, The Sleepy Strange is a small step up from its brain atrophy-inducing predecessor. On the album's closer, "Vinyl Fever," the band almost attains a tight, Tortoise-esque instrumental groove. But after over 40 minutes of boredom and frustration, odds are the album will most likely be occupying a precious spot in your septic tank before you get there.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Sadly, the album is a few years too late in coming. As an example, the guys, while opening for Lou Reed sometime back in 1996, pulled off an amazing rendition of the Velvets' "Ride into the Sun" with Reed and Wareham handling the vocals together. Where were all the tape recorders back then?
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Mostly, From the Desk of Mr. Lady comes off like sub-standard material that didn't make it on to last year's full-length.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 49 Critic Score
    Every song drips with bawdy attempts at sexually shocking the listener. But just as Vince Neil screaming "girls, girls, girls" and name-checking strip bars is unlikely to whip a woman into a frenzy of amour, the Donnas attempt to titillate and fail miserably.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 52 Critic Score
    When Delerium forego the listless Gregorics and stale beats employed by their more renowned contemporaries, they truly shine. The beat-heavy "Aria," for instance, and the salsa-esque "Fallen Icons" are arguably Poem's strongest tracks. But these moments occur only now and then, and are often sandwiched between songs that, while helping you survive the subway's rush-hour crunch, won't meet your needs at any other time-- unless you're about to have a mid-life crisis.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    Fifth follows the same Bacharach/Gainbourg/Motown thread as its superior predecessor, 1999's Playboy and Playgirl. But nothing new happens here, not even within the duo's derivative sphere. The beats are still bouncy as hell, and the string-laden melodies are still layered ear candy. However, this fullness is less Wall of Sound and more Vegas showroom.... What makes Fifth most unremarkable is the fact that it's nearly bereft of the great, catchy songwriting we've seen from Pizzicato Five in the past.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    It's a soundtrack to a '70s made-for-TV movie, but a damn fine one.... But ultimately, Pelo is a triumph of average-- a zero-sum game. The few noteworthy tracks are negated by the bombs. For every standout, rare as they are, there are embarrassing nadirs like "Tom of Finland (An Homage)."
    • 72 Metascore
    • 53 Critic Score
    Pretty, lovely, fine, fair, comely, pleasant, agreeable, acceptable, adequate, satisfactory, nice, benign, harmless, innocuous, innocent, largely unobjectionable, safe, forgettable.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Subtle breakbeat drumming and glistening guitar be damned, Bono will ruin a song. And so the story goes for the entire album-- one of the band's finest, if not for the tweeting and hooting of The Fly and his grating lyrics.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The kind of music that Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, La-La and Po might enjoy kicking back to after a hard day's romping with bunny rabbits.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    On her fifth solo release, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, she may be maturing, or more vulnerable, or more vulnerable to her maturity. But regardless, the sheen gets slicker and her music gets duller as the time passes.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 45 Critic Score
    Plays Music offers up breezy, instrumental jazz-rock that seems to be little more than the reheated leftovers of Tortoise's TNT, The Sea and Cake's The Fawn, Dave Pajo's Aerial M debut, and occasionally, Gastr del Sol's Camofleur.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 43 Critic Score
    But without the name recognition and expectations that go with the first new Meat Puppets album in five years, Golden Lies likely wouldn't even see release. And I can't say that I'd consider that such a bad thing, having heard it.... It's representative of the sad state of affairs that the best moments on Golden Lies transparently recall highlights from later albums already past the Meat Puppets' prime.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 49 Critic Score
    Private Suit shows the band taking some risks. They continue to write catchy and cute guitar rock songs, but also experiment with backing vocals and strings, a noble ambition that raises the bar higher than "the little band that could" is able to reach.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The biggest difference between the two 6ths records is obvious: Wasps' Nest allowed some of indie rock's finest vocalists to lend their talents to a grade-a batch of Merritt tunes; Hyacinths and Thistles pairs remarkably average Merritt songs with largely substandard vocalists.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    One of Excuses for Travelers' greatest weaknesses is that the album is too uniformly boring to be affecting in the least.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 56 Critic Score
    Infuriatingly sub-standard...
    • 62 Metascore
    • 51 Critic Score
    Fragments of Freedom is a consistent and predictable stylistic overhaul into hyphenated hipster pop for people who actually liked Cibo Matto's last album. It fits the form to a T, right down to the brief, pointless Biz Markie cameo.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Future Bible Heroes frontman Chris Ewen just isn't a Merritt-caliber composer, and this EP suffers in comparison to the Magnetic Fields.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    So, essentially, this is the pop record '70s prog bands would make in the '80s-- Big Generator and Power Windows for a new generation. Aside from two major blunders nothing is overtly offensive, but simply lachrymose and lactose.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 51 Critic Score
    Try listening to Brian Eno's Music for Airports in choppy RealAudio. Hear that? Digital clicks, random bursts of static, and underwater compression swim over icy electronic drones, numbing your mind into a state of paralysis. Now imagine spending $12 for it. That's the Oval experience in a nutshell.... As always, Ovalprocess isn't bad for what it is, but it's certainly not clever anymore.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Sasha and Digweed appear to be suggesting that, along with setting an NYC club aflame, they can also bore you to tears in your living room.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 46 Critic Score
    On Gung Ho-- much like 1996's Gone Again and 1999's Peace and Noise-- Patti and the band aren't exactly bad, but they hardly rock like they did back in '77.... when you listen to Gung Ho and forget about myth, legacy, mystique and all that crap, you have to wonder-- does Patti Smith really matter anymore?
    • 72 Metascore
    • 41 Critic Score
    Winners Never Quit plugs along on two gears-- the "ballad" and the "rocker." The ballads rely on obvious signifiers like acoustic guitars, brushed cymbals, and pianos. Moody!
    • 66 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Billy Corgan needs someone on his shoulder to whisper "no."
    • 74 Metascore
    • 57 Critic Score
    The album updates the trio's sound without the forced experimental quality of some of the weaker material on Yes or the unsuccessful lounge-pop sleeper, Like Swimming.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 49 Critic Score
    Most everything you'd expect from Cornershop pops up somewhere on Disco and the Halfway to Discontent. You get your guitars, sitars, and Singh's tasty subcontinental breakfast of a voice. But you also get slapped with a dosage of bad opium.... For the majority of its duration, Disco merely simmers when it should be sizzling.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    It's all good enough, but how many times, really, do you need to hear the term "rock the mic" in an hour? Not this many.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    In short, it's fun and functional, yet disposable.