PopMatters' Scores

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For 11,088 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: 7,431 out of 11088
  2. Mixed: 3,399 out of 11088
  3. Negative: 258 out of 11088
11088 music reviews
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    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Sugar
    The idea of "wounded optimism" applies to Sugar as a whole, at least from a listener's perspective. There's just enough good material here to believe that the problems with the record represent a temporary misstep, or a flawed approach, rather than a fundamental change in the band.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Feel That Fire
    The album would be an enjoyable enough lightweight ride without those moments, but when they come, they are welcome. They also give the album an air of missed opportunity.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Dandy Warhols Are Sound
    To non-Dandys diehards, these will seem like small differences. Both albums have great, sometimes danceable pop hooks. But for Warholics, the nuances will be celebrated as re-connecting with their original artistic impulses.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Metal Moon
    Adopting influences from across the musical spectrum without compromising its own rock core, Metal Moon is a flawed but encouraging piece of the puzzle.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Donkey Punch the Night [EP]
    It has its moments, but nothing outright triumphs or overwhelmingly compels.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lip Lock
    Several guests appear on the album, but they don’t make much of an impression since it’s hard to match Eve’s energy.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Three's Co.
    Three’s Co. offers enough “new stuff” to ward off complacency (and criticisms thereof) while further strengthening the sonic and lyrical groundwork the band has already laid.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Big
    While Big shows flashes of the irrepressible spirit that made Macy’s first two albums fun to listen to, there are many more instances of uninspired, boring music designed to capture a middle-of-the-road audience.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Auf Der Maur
    This album doesn't break new ground; in fact, the music is very ordinary, but the mere presence of Auf der Maur and her intoxicating voice makes the record a modest success.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    All Is Illusory
    A disjointed album, [that] lacks the weight for emotional impact.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Stupid Love
    Succinctly stated, Mindy Smith’s voice has a power and a complexity that her songs (or her perspectives) have not yet achieved. This leaves Stupid Love a pleasurable and poignant affair, but not as emotionally gripping as it could be, or wants to be.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Bittersweet World
    Predictably, adhering to the tacit rules of pop (succinctness, all star production, glossy sound and packaging with twist of street styling) has not produced any surprises but has instead cemented her position in the realm.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Portrait Is Finished & I Have Failed To Capture Your Beauty...
    These few songs ['Heron Song' and 'Shadow Falls'] are genuine highlights amidst a sea of generic acoustic balladry, a project that would make a great EP but--as a full-length--runs out of steam at a truly remarkable pace.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    ...And Star Power
    For a project that’s all about adding more and more dimensions to the Foxygen experience, something pretty basic but essential is missing here, the core of an identity for the band making the music.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    There Are Rules
    There Are Rules sounds like the product of a band that knows well where it's been, but can't quite figure out yet where it wants to go.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    10,000
    Nothing on 10,000 is bad, specifically, it's just not that interesting. Which makes it 42 minutes worth of background rock music that won't offend or, alternatively, engage the vast majority of listeners.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Mr. Impossible
    [By] stripping down their music to basics, Black Dice have lost the soul in their music. The neatly-defined order of the motifs and disorder of the noise together create a surprisingly tedious album.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    48:13
    Ultimately, the album still feels more like a cul-de-sac.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Blitzkrieg Pop
    We have a lot of good ideas and a few not-so-good ones, but none of them are developed as fully as one would desire.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Stranger Things
    While it occasionally points towards new and different paths that Yuck can follow, it also finds them returning to a comfort zone that may not be as comfortable for the listener.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Beautiful Trauma
    Although Beautiful Trauma does stick to an overarching emotional theme more than most of her excellent recent albums, Trauma is nonetheless an odd, morose beast that at times plays into Pink’s worst instincts (i.e. leaning towards cliché when she never really had problem avoiding it before).
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Giving Up The Ghost
    Giving up the Ghost is the type of album to play as background music at a party when no one has to pay too much attention to it. Then afterwards, everyone remembers how hip and cool the music sounded. It's often propulsive, sometimes memorable, but only half extraordinary.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Symphonicities
    The results are not bad, but entirely too safe. This should come as a surprise to no one, considering how classical renditions of pop music tend to be overly flat-footed and not especially risky.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    More!
    With More!, the impression is not that they're coasting on their reputation and resume. Rather, it seems they're struggling to stay afloat in a dance music world that is constantly changing and seemingly more underground than ever.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Love Lust Faith + Dreams
    Flawed yet with some redemption, Love Lust Faith + Dreams is a mixed effort.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Less You Know, The Better
    What's sometimes impossible to put into words is how, despite all an album's shortcomings and stacked odds, it's still a perfectly enjoyable listen.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tweekend
    It seems like an act of uninspired repetition.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Body Language
    Still, even though Body Language is a bit of a misstep for Minogue, there's a sense of class to it.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Birth Of A Prince
    On most of this album he doesn't sound completely off his game, just uninspired, both as an MC and a producer.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sexor
    Between the poseur stylings of Tiga’s personae on disc and the genre’s disposable cover versions, Sexor is sweet fun during the course of its run, but after little remains.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Kratitude
    Their sound is as alien and devoid of color as a moonscape, yet for all that, intermittently powerful.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    If Songs Could Be Held
    Thomas may have been perfect for a second- or third-tier Lilith Fair stage, a place where people expect slow, introspective, sweet songwriting. However, if she hopes to capture a larger audience, she may want to first capture herself a faster metronome.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Feed Me Diamonds
    MNDR's debut full-length, Feed Me Diamonds, is filled with choruses of "ooh whoa oohs" and other shots at those easy hooks that you can't stop whistling. But the material doesn't connect with the proper force.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Beautiful Imperfection
    Like Sade, she doesn't possess a voice with great range, but she uses it well and smartly maximizes her talents with solid arrangements.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Listening Tree
    Listening Tree is in Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys territory, and Exile does not have the pipes to pull it off.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Haiku from Zero
    Haiku from Zero is a statement of potential, but it may just take one more album for the band to reach the sorts of heights they’re aiming for.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Requiem for Hell
    It would have done good for the band to don the dark and take a step back from the gentle.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A
    A has moments of brilliance, so it’s perhaps all the more noticeable when not every song hits the sweet spot.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Welcome
    The problem with Welcome is that it suffers from a lack of variety. But, if you’re into the electro-dance scene, that might not bother you.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Am...Sasha Fierce
    I Am… Sasha Fierce had an opportunity to be a great record. Instead, it's merely good. And for a diva such as Beyoncé, that's not entirely acceptable.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Isness
    This is a fascinating record that doesn't quite work in all places and, in others, seems to work all too well, and maybe too well for their own good.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Neighborhood Watch
    Sounds for the most part weak and tired.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Moonwink
    Against this lack of innovation is the Spinto Band’s effortless charisma and juvenile charm.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Foundling
    If this release is David Gray's self-loathing moment of pure, unabashed misery, that's OK. Besides, where would all of that appeal go if he ever decided to get happy?
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Atmosphere
    While Kaskade’s tidy productions are a definite pro, few would object if the producer dug in every once and a while with an extra drop or two.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Indie Cindy
    So, while Indie Cindy is not an objectively bad album, it does fail to live up to the Pixies’ caliber, and a few noteworthy songs does not an exceptional record make.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Trials & Truths
    All five members of the band do cool things in various moments on the album. And they have the basics of their genre down pat. But their songwriting needs some work if they ever want to progress from playing in bars for the patrons to playing in clubs for audiences that came out just to see them.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sing Along To Songs You Don't Know
    The unavoidable truth is, Mum is struggling to find itself.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Live at the Aragon
    While not a total failure, Live at the Aragon still feels like a stopgap release rather than something that can stand alongside the formidable studio albums.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ibifornia
    The whole thing comes across as a bit of a mish- mash, a bit cobbled together. It’s an album all too reliant on the guest singers to give the songs identity.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Oskar Tennis Champion
    A chuga-chuga sort of electro-muddle, all pops and whistles and bon mots -- and no heart.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Paralytic Stalks
    It's more likely that Paralytic Stalks won't win Kevin Barnes any new fans, and may actually drive away some of his longtime followers.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Tomorrow's World
    Its peaks aren't as high as [2005's Nightbird, or 1997's Cowboy's] standouts--there's no "Don't Say You Love Me" or "Rain" here--but most of these nine songs have big choruses that sneak into your head, sometimes against your better judgment.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Press Play
    It’s definitely an enjoyable listen, although that’s due to hot beats and great collaborators as much (or even more) as it’s due to Diddy himself.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Best Little Secrets Are Kept
    If anything, we should reward them for reminding us that glam rock is dead, and so be it.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Free Somehow
    Stylistically and harmonically, Free Somehow is a departure from Widespread Panic’s recognizable sanguine Southern rock.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Go With Me
    They seem to know how they want to say something on Go With Me, and it's a formula that could work in its humble way. They just need to figure out what they're saying first.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Panic Movement
    The Hiss are not bad per se, but they add yet another corpse to a coffin that should have been nailed shut months ago.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Topsiders
    While there's nothing on Topsiders that's outright bad (except perhaps "Mango Tree", but maybe that's just me), it is, all in all, a frustrating record.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Sun And The Moon
    The group’s first album had hooks in abundance, and they are only slightly less plentiful here. These hooks are the source of the pleasure, while Endicott’s sometimes questionable lyrics give us our feelings of guilt for being drawn in, in spite of ourselves.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Free Your Mind And Win A Pony
    Eisner and Beecroft are both competent players and better-than average singers, but their songs just don’t stand out.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    1000 Palms
    Surfer Blood tease at a break away from the formula, but because 1000 Palms is a mostly unsatisfying grab for a standardized sound, even the most interesting moments fade away into the gray motionlessness.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Do Things
    Although there is a lot to like on Do Things, there is one major flaw: it all sounds so much alike.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    XI Versions of Black Noise
    Fans of Pantha du Prince could be drawn in to hear how other artists interpret as the vital elements of his work, but many of them will leave XI Versions of Black Noise wondering why all these producers seem to think his music's so boring.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Alphabutt
    Maybe kids need these adult-perspective, comparatively more serious songs as a break from the goofiness, but I like Alphabutt most when it’s straight-up silly.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Do You Know Squarepusher
    A couple of the tracks have a very strange motionless ambience, and others initially seem like failed attempts at post-jungle. And I'm ashamed to say that the final track, a remix/cover of "Love Will Tear Us Apart", is actually without a soul.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Great Depression
    The most depressing thing about this album is that DMX's passion for rhyming seems to have been eclipsed by his success.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Someday World
    The things that’s most frustrating about Someday World, then, is not that some of the songs are great and some aren’t. Instead, it’s that there seems to be another, much better album lurking in here.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Neighbourhood
    Musically, The Neighbourhood continues in the same realm as their past work. It's moody, down-tempo rock with a little R&B; tinge: think sad Weeknd with occasional synths leads and a little Auto-Tuned Kanye thrown in.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Famous Graves
    Lovers of guitar-driven rock music looking for a smoother Two Cow Garage or more stripped down the Hold Steady would do well to visit Famous Graves.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Blood
    Really, the only audience for Blood is the utter completist who’s going to need “Be Afraid” or the latecoming devotee who missed out on Blood as a pack-in with Tonight.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Thick as Thieves
    The Temper Trap strive to create similar landscapes throughout Thick As Thieves and, while they’re not always successful, they manage to fashion a few moments of sublime vastness.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Robotique Majestique
    Gone is the lo-fi, sometimes dirty feel. In its place are over-produced tracks that lack any feeling of emotion.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Andy and His Grandmother
    The album does get better as it goes along, perhaps as Kaufman got used to the idea of the new technology, but still much of the content is either the start of an idea or what could be considered unfinished business.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A New Testament
    Without the flair for the unexpected that Owens made his reputation with, A New Testament feels like a counter intuitive statement for a songwriter whose known for having such a distinctive personality.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Not Without A Fight
    It doesn’t mean they’ve made a bad album here, just a predictable one. Attempting a traditionalist record in any genre is a game of constraints, and those constraints are fully felt on Not Without a Fight.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Open Door
    If the album serves any particular purpose, in fact, it’s to highlight the shortcomings of Amy Lee without her former bandmate.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Fork In The Road
    The rough, grinding quality of the instrumentation fits with the intended immediacy of the project, but the songs themselves sound half-finished and half-considered.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    On Your Sleeve
    On Your Sleeve acts only as a fine stopgap until Malin’s next release proper. This late October disc still plays as more treat than trick for his loyal fanbase.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Have Hands
    I Have Hands would make an excellent primer for anyone wishing to experience the joy that can come from mixing sounds together.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Everybody, Come Outside!
    As a whole, the album is doggedly consistent and relatively pleasant, which is its major problem: There is nothing particularly surprising or interesting here.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Flowers
    There are actually some great moments in this jumbled incoherent mess. The problem is that Kinsella’s had ample time to convince me that his post-Cap’n Jazz stuff is somehow better, more-relevant, or even worthy of my time.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Espoi
    If we’re playing the game of comparing him to well-known people then how about a mellower and less expensively equipped Kanda Bongo Man minus the trademark hat? See, I’m stretching too.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Bricolage
    Stuart Murdoch loves Felt, but his records didn’t ape its sound. The members of Bricolage (wherever they are) could take a lesson from its fellow Glaswegian.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Optimist
    The Optimist is an album for people who don’t enjoy reading too far into their favorite songs or who don’t analyze lyrics and think deeply into melodies. There’s no way to really do that on this album. It’s a poor attempt at a follow-up album. The band is too caught up in being serious to even realize that there’s not a whole going on beneath the surface.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    What Doesn't Kill You, Eventually Kills You
    Gay for Johnny Depp's Sex Vid Singles Club lacks a certain clarity in vision and sound. Or maybe that's the point.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Figurines
    There are bits and pieces of song craft that are touching, but, as a whole, the whole album just kind of sits there and never really coheres into something remarkable.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The R.E.D. Album
    A lot of what initially made Game an intriguing artist is missing from this release, replaced instead by fleeting moments of great music and extended periods of mediocrity or whackness.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Bird Is Coming Down to Earth
    Songs about death and mysticism are intriguing, and Matt Brown's production work gives a sense of atmosphere, but the album is bogged down by tracks ("Return to Eden", "It Won't Be Long") that feel aimless
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    New Relics
    At once sprawling and implosive, New Relics is simply just a relic for fans and other curious parties who want to plunge headfirst into this cascading and widescreen sound with a clutch of some great songs; the rest of it being little more than filler.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Northern Shore
    There's a fair amount of stuff here that does work here and works well.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Odeon
    Though it’s a well-produced record overall, it failed to hook me.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Woolen Men
    The Woolen Men is a band that knows well the sounds it wants to make, though what the bands says with those sounds, what they reveal, is still unclear.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Like It Never Happened
    As good as Like It Never Happened can be, it’s ultimately less a cohesive entity of its own and more like a mishmash between great pop songwriting.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Shady XV
    The “Greatest Hits” CD is made up more of deep cuts than big hits, but with a few well known tracks included. There is substantially less Eminem than on the first side.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Brava
    As it stands, Brava is mostly just a reminder that Brodinski helped plant the seed but is perhaps not the right gardener to helpp it grow.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Black Market
    It’s populated with misguided love songs (“Sorry”, “Can’t Say No”) and paranoid musings (“Crocodile Python”) that on previous Ross albums would’ve instead been replaced by devoted brag fests.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Rat Film [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
    It’s alarming as a fan to hear something so different, and the Rat Film Original Soundtrack has little to offer fans of Dan Deacon or fans or soundtracks. Separated from the film it is unable to generate interest.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Staying at Tamara's
    Staying at Tamara's is upbeat and light to a fault, a microcosm of cheer mostly blissfully unaware of the chaotic world around it. This is by design, sure, but it also makes the album feel unapologetically, yet unforgivably inconsequential.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Death Race for Love
    The ratio of bangers to duds, however, is not great, and Death Race for Love feels an awful lot like an unabridged teenage diary; while the occasional clever turn of phrase and moment of profundity is sure to bubble up, most of it is simple self-indulgence, an onslaught of pure emotion whose sincerity is never in question, but all of which starts to blur together after a mere few pages or songs.
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