PopMatters' Scores

  • TV
  • Music
Select another publication »
For 11,078 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 43% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 53% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 69
Highest review score: 100 Funeral for Justice
Lowest review score: 0 Travistan
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7,421 out of 11078
  2. Mixed: 3,399 out of 11078
  3. Negative: 258 out of 11078
11078 music reviews
view
per page
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Rings Around The World
    Rings Around the World might be stylistically all over the place, and some people may think it sounds like Super Furry Animals are desperately trying to show the world how clever they are, but it's so much fun to listen to, that it hardly matters. It's a near-perfect album, and we all should be thankful there are bands out there willing to throw everything they've got into a record just to see what happens.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Monster [25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition]
    A lavish, deluxe six-disc version of this highly misunderstood and absolutely essential entry in the R.E.M. canon.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Age of Transparency
    Age of Transparency is as emotionally compelling and musically creative a work as has been released this year.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Broken Knowz
    At times it is reassuringly familiar but he has spun sounds in intriguing ways exhibiting Daniels unique, enigmatic vision as an artist. His self-assurance and belief have led him to craft one of the finest dance albums of this or any other year.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ma Fleur
    It’s a demanding and complex album that has proven to be one of the best albums I’ve heard in years, a universal soundtrack to a life that requires no visuals to imagine.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Rain
    Ten very good to great songs, stamped with the signature of a musician who knows what he is about. That, kids, is what we used to call an “album”, and this is a very fine one indeed.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Cassadaga
    Cassadaga is an assured and accomplished album; a classic constructed from classic elements.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    lemonjelly.ky
    Every so often there is a true musical "moment" when an act breaks through that is so complete, so utterly surprising, that as a music critic, I can't help but throw my hands up in the air and leave behind any hope of real criticism as each spin pushes me further into fandom. Lemon Jelly is that act of the moment.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Has Been
    Somehow, it just might be the pop album of the year.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Looping State of Mind
    It's the album that vaults him from burgeoning, brilliant protégé to titan in one fell swoop, and it hints at even greater things to come as he continues down the path of total artistic realization.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Architect
    Timeless, genre-defiant, and endlessly inventive, Architect is as accomplished a debut as any in recent memory.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    An American Trilogy: Looks Like Rain/'Frisco Mabel Joy/Heaven Help The Child
    This is essential for fans of Texas singer-songwriters, Americana, idiosyncratic albums, or for anyone looking to have an intimate exchange with a sensitive man during a turbulent time in American pop culture history.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Because Of You
    Because of You might end up being the best R&B album of the year.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit
    Sometimes I Sit is not just tighter and more cohesive as it should be, but it’s a more confidently proficient work as well.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Midnights
    It allows Swift to do what she has always wanted: make an album for its own sake that is received primarily as a work of art instead of a commercial entity or tabloid fodder.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Trevor Jackson Presents: Science Fiction Dancehall Classics
    A substantial number of previously-unreleased or new-to-cd tracks means that even ardent On-U Sound collectors will find Science Fiction Dancehall Classics worthwhile. For everyone else, Sherwood’s wonderful cauldron awaits, still boiling over with creativity.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Mutant
    Its bustling, condensed epics refuse to present a single, easily digestible vision of the world, yet in so doing they end up revealing this world in all its beautifully chaotic truth.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    La Grande
    It is a truly beautiful album.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Virgins
    Excavation is entirely capable of conjuring up all sorts of images in your mind while the music plays, but Virgins keeps you focused instead on what’s happening inside of it; for music with so few conventional entry points, Hecker has again managed to make his work structurally and viscerally gripping.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Sun Zoom Spark: 1970 to 1972 [Box Set]
    An embarrassment of singular and, yes, genius riches to be found in these albums, albums worth going through again and again for the steady stream of reveals, not the compounding of mystery.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Dead Reckoning
    Dead Reckoning deserves to be heard by anyone with an interest in the ongoing evolution of rock music, or the darker side of the folk songbook, or just great songs played with power and conviction.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Cocoon Crush
    Now he is ready to expose the new form of Objekt, and it results in one of the most impressive records of this year.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Plunge
    This is a record that revels in the chaos of electronic music, its crazed rhythms and its infectious grooves.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990
    The collection is a warm, poignant, deeply immersive set that is sure to please fans of the genre but quite honestly belongs in every home. It's that beautiful.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Sprinter
    Ellis’s production creates little tornados of reverb and percussion to surround Scott’s voice; the song gains sinister power from its slow, anxious simmer and its carefully chosen mini-explosions.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Forgiveness Rock Record
    Forgiveness Rock Record is not the sound of Broken Social Scene dumbing themselves down; it's the band taking their sound to its logical conclusion. Few people would've guessed that in doing so, they've stumbled upon their second straight-up masterpiece.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Pura Vida Conspiracy
    If there ever was a Gogol Bordello album that deserves to launch them onto American radio waves, it’s Pura Vida Conspiracy.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    This Sweet Old World
    Redoing an entire album is a surprising and bold move, but on This Sweet Old World the gambit pays off. It’s anything but a retread. The album offers the pleasures of familiarity--we Lucinda Williams fans have loved the songs for a quarter-century--while giving these gems new settings that make them shine all the more brilliantly.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Trials Of Van Occupanther
    The Trials of Van Occupanther is such a nuanced, finely layered work that Midlake has certainly crafted one of the best releases of 2006.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Heartless
    Heartless will kick your ass during its entire running time. It’s a product of a rare band that, through dint of hard work and sincerity, will certainly be a huge crossover success.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Arca
    Arca likewise refuses to ossify into a legible and easily recognizable shape, defying our expectations of the artist’s output while remaining untethered even to a clearly delineated internal logic. All of this evasion paradoxically pays off, and the resulting album is both emotionally enrapturing and conceptually thrilling.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Super
    It seems the combination of the Pet Shop Boys and Price is a match made in pop heaven, as he’s back for SUPER and once again presents the duo at their very best.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    M3LL155X [EP]
    The vocals still send chills down the spine and everything becomes more grand and obtuse with every song. FKA twigs is striking, stunning weird and if her debut album assured that, this follow-up only strengthened her case.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Real Animal
    Music this rich and evocative should be heard by everyone, and one can only hope that more and more people will hear as Escovedo continues to write his own story.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Leaving Eden
    For it's diversity, experimentation, and excellent performances, Leaving Eden is even better [than 2010 release, Genuine Negro Jig].
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Shake The Sheets
    If Shake the Sheets lacks the subtle, nuanced excursions of its predecessor, it's redeemed by an urgent, unrelenting focus.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Biokinetics [Reissue]
    Biokinetics remains their unequivocal masterpiece.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Tomorrow's Harvest
    Though demanding repeated listens, Tomorrow’s Harvest distinguishes itself by making intense commitment (e.g. What’s the better way to enjoy it, headphones or stereo, broken-up “side” listens on vinyl vs. one full immersive CD spin?) a welcome task for the summer of 2013.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    As Days Get Dark
    A comeback that not only beats expectations but has an excellent claim to be the band's crowning achievement (so far).
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    M!ssundaztood
    A tougher, funkier, and downright rocking album.... M!ssundaztood deserves to be the pop album of the year.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Showtime
    Aside from a couple of hiccups (the clunky R&B of "Get By", the silly call and response of "Knock Knock"), it's every bit as good as Boy in da Corner, and sometimes even better.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    If I've Only One Time Askin'
    No mere album, If I’ve Only One Time Askin’ is a career milestone for Daniel Romano, one that should see his music reaching a wider audience.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Drift
    The Drift--in all its nightmarish, bloody glory--is as bold and profound a comment on our times as has emerged so far this century.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    North Star Deserter
    It’s one of the richest and most satisfying of his storied career.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future
    It’s both pretty much anything you could ask for as a long-term fan and the kind of late-period album that is actually worth spreading beyond the faithful.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Alice
    Tom Waits has never made an album quite like Alice before.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Long Way To the Beginning
    This is a well-oiled, veteran operation, with a fiery leader capable of carrying the torch of Afrobeat to far borders and bringing the music to new heights.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Bright Phoebus [Reissue]
    Lal and Mike Waterson’s Bright Phoebus more than lives up to its legendary status. Long lost, it’s a necessary purchase for fans of British folk.
    • 99 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Basement Tapes Complete: The Bootleg Series Vol. 11
    The Basement Tapes Complete is more historical document than album, one more interested in being comprehensive than being moment-to-moment marvelous.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Prophet
    World, take notice- Prophet is your latest masterpiece. While it may be too complex to ignite a full-blown movement in the alternative genre, the fact that it exists as all is cause to celebrate.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Lovers
    It’s that sense of timelessness--and, yes, mood--that makes Lovers such an essential collection both for Nels Cline fans and anyone who believes in the beauty and power of jazz.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Private Lives
    Private Lives is a killer. ... Although he utilized the studio instead of on-stage performances, it has the feel of a live record. Every song seems to want to break out from the constraints of the workshop in a positive way. This keeps the vibe taut and suggests the promise of liberation.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Cripple Crow
    At once hip-shaking, high-brow, heartfelt, hallowed, and a hell of a good time.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Amputechture
    Amputechture is the most complete, most listenable, and most accomplished album from the band to date.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ire Works
    The rest of us will continue to drink in the boldest, most thrilling album of this supremely talented band’s career.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Old Ideas
    The new album is a willfully modest affair, its tracks stripped to their most basic elements: a synthesized keyboard and drum machine here, an acoustic guitar or violin there, meticulously arranged female voices everywhere as a counterpoint to Cohen's own increasingly cavernous growl.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    D-D-Don't Don't Stop the Beat
    They are basically just the Archies for our generation, a transcendent bubblegum band that works its ass off to make all this stuff look easy.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Day of the Dead
    It would be easy for me to pick apart Day of the Dead track by track, giving all 59 parts their own unique analysis. The collection is that strong, and even when there are rare moments when the covers don’t particularly work, it’s hard to not at least admire what the artist is attempting to do.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Slow Focus
    Visceral but poised, mannered but emotionally lucid, seductive but astringent, cacophonous but, yes, focused, the album finds Hung and Power charting kaleidoscopic tableaux out of giddy contradictions with the confidence of dancefloor pros.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Box
    As great as Box is, it’s yet another incomplete box set as Nah Und Fern was before it. There’s a GAS release album out there somewhere with a perfect 10 nailed to it, and it’ll have all six releases inside, waiting for us.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
    Fresh and familiar is a consistent hallmark of the Austin band, and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga proves to be no exception.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Emily's D+Evolution
    Esperanza Spalding’s new recording, Emily’s D+Evolution is an astonishing beauty, a set of a dozen songs that artfully and persuasively bridge genres.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Keep It Hid
    Dan Auerbach was responsible for helping make one of the better albums of 2008, and Keep It Hid is already a contender in 2009.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Pattern Is Movement
    Pattern Is Movement is over before the listener is ready to be left alone. Not since Kid A has an album used its last song to create such an intense engagement with subsequent silence.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Geneva
    Russian Circles, with their instruments well-used and dynamic, leaders in their own right, guide the listener through the varying courses of each song with nary a misstep.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Loops in the Secret Society
    Two things stand out here to make this album so very enjoyable and fulfilling: the sequencing and the flow of the songs, and the increased clarity of these versions as compared to their originals. The sequencing and the flow of the songs here are extremely satisfying as if re-casting earlier songs and punctuating them with those connective ambient interludes allow them to breathe.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Nothing's Gonna Stand in My Way Again
    We get to hear that continuous struggle that she chronicles in all of the songs on Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way Again. She faces these issues with brilliant songwriting.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Wounded Rhymes
    Wounded Rhymes has her belting her heart out over Yttling's maximalist arrangements to thrilling effect.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Space Is Only Noise
    Jaar's emotional honesty is not without lenses though, and, just when you think he's going to address the listener directly, he draws on electronic music's endless sound possibilities to clutter and even drown voice, rhythm and melody with spontaneity and a young dreamer's aimless drift.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Gentle Confrontation
    Gentle Confrontation has moments that feel like they can fit in the palm of your hand; just as often, it calls for total immersion. Longing builds to tender catharsis, loss to acceptance. Loraine James plunges into open water and keeps going deeper, charting an evanescent path and dwelling in every electric step of the journey.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Life...The Best Game In Town
    It’s a grim journey, and often creepy as hell, but it’s by no means depressing. Mediocre music is depressing. This stuff is exhilarating.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Koi No Yokan
    This fit and lean version of Deftones have turned negativity into vibrant positivity and channelled it into their cohesive and textured seventh full-length, Koi No Yokan--a record that will forever sit high upon Deftones' burgeoning list of impressive achievements.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Rio [Live]
    Rio is a full range of emotion, created on the spot. All these years later, Keith Jarrett remains great.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Emerald City
    The entirety of Emerald City seeks to elevate to the personal and the timeless, and top to bottom it is a success.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ali & Toumani
    This is a deep, darkly beautiful work. The interplay between these two men is exceedingly rare in any type of music. Ali and Toumani is profound and powerful, with a soft accumulating force, like the individual drips of ice that form a river.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Teenage Hate
    Teenage Hate expresses the beginnings of Jay Reatard with the kind of clarity many missing him desired to see. Here was a boy on the verge of becoming a man. Pissed off with the world around him, he clearly had the maturity to express this anger with punchy songwriting. What remains truly important about the release is how happy he was at being able to do just that.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Celebration Day [Live]
    Celebration Day, it pleases me to say, is a resounding triumph.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Santogold
    This album is a place to crash, boots to wear, pepper spray to fight back with and charcoal to dirty your hands. If the struggles of urban artists sound like this, these 12 anthems ensure that starving will never go out of style.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Unflesh
    This album, with its pristine interiors, captures the intimacy of her trauma perfectly. It’s as immaculate as a hotel in a JG Ballard novel, and just as bloody scary.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Hang
    Hang is truly something to behold in all its grandiosity and pompous pure pop bombast.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Uyai
    Uyai doesn’t sound like aimless dabbling. What it sounds like is a band that has found its groove and knows how to run with it in any direction it pleases. Ibibio Sound Machine is now in full control of its sound, and it’s that knowledge that allows the group to truly let loose.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Budos Band III
    It's hard to pick highlights, but it's always a good sign when you listen to an album for the first time and stop to replay the opening track three times. It's that good.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Cloudward
    Cloudward is a shimmering, deeply satisfying example of a jazz sextet firing on all cylinders. Prepare to be astonished.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Old Kit Bag
    Thompson is more comfortable than ever with his musical abilities and songwriting craft, and you hear the experience and the confidence on every track.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Dissociation
    In all its clean and high moments, in all its jagged dreams and nightmares, Dissociation is an album that will not only make music lovers think about the Dillinger Escape Plan, but will remind music lovers the gift that music is.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    House of Balloons
    Here, the Weeknd thumbs its nose at mainstream R&B's hollow hedonism while simultaneously creating a flawless soundtrack to a blackout house party. What you should do with the track, ultimately, is press play.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Elephunk
    Elephunk drops non-stop hook and hump, an album with almost no missteps and more than its share of undeniable, thumping joy.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Decoration Day
    Few bands today are as good at telling a simple, straightforward, from-the-gut story like the Drive-By Truckers are.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    All My Heroes Are Cornballs
    All My Heroes Are Cornballs is not only angry but also gracious, humble, worried, and self-conscious. In other words, it is human.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Book Burner
    Incendiary and intelligent, it is an album that propels an already lauded band into the realms of the truly legendary.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Wild Wild East
    Creatively and ideologically, this is a perfect storm for Jain. Even in his already formidable body of work, Wild Wild East stands out as an album that not only deserves to be heard, but needs to be listened to.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Odd Couple
    The Odd Couple is an emotionally and musically provocative album. Despite its weighty subject matter, it’s also one hell of a fun listen.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Parc Avenue
    The lyrics are blunt and relatable, and their song construction is arguably on par with some of the greatest names rock music has ever known
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings
    These eight tracks positively bristle with energy and exuberance.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Seasons of My Soul
    While the record maintains a strong sense of uniformity, it never lapses into monotony, thanks largely to the poetic turns of songs such as "Blackbird" and "Slow" but also Rumer's consistently powerful performances which culminate in a singular and impressive artistic statement.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Americana
    Americana is, finally, Neil Young's best and most complete record since 1994's Sleeps With Angels.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Margerine Eclipse
    This is without question their finest hour since the classic Emperor Tomato Ketchup.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Brainfeeder X
    Brainfeeder X is an important collection for those who are new to the label's output and for those who want to revel in its glories. A worthy celebration of a genuinely groundbreaking label.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Freakout/Release
    They excite, inspire, and energize, but also soothe, amuse, and comfort on this incredibly varied album, leaving practically no time to get bored. So whether Hot Chip continue in this finely-crafted-pop mode or not, it was definitely worth investing in that new recording studio.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Pedals
    Maybe I'm just a sucker for simultaneously fleet-footed and heavy, anthemic rock songs that veer towards warm, wry humanism rather than either empty platitudes or snide cynicism, but as far as I'm concerned Pedals' 35 minutes contains more wisdom and beauty than most records twice its length.
Page: