PopMatters' Scores

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For 11,071 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 Desire, I Want To Turn into You
Lowest review score: 0 Travistan
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7,414 out of 11071
  2. Mixed: 3,399 out of 11071
  3. Negative: 258 out of 11071
11071 music reviews
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    • 96 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Siamese Dream [Deluxe Edition]
    The bonus CD makes it alarmingly clear that the Pumpkins could have assembled another cracking album from the Siamese Dream castoffs before embarking on the road to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995)...The new editions of Gish and Siamese Dream (especially Siamese Dream, which handily outclasses its companion release in all areas) are sumptuous reminders of the heights the group once attained back when it had everything to prove and nothing to lose.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Fully Qualified Survivor
    It's heartfelt. It's dark. It's intricate but immediate, rocking but lush. It does all those things at once, and it does them better than most artists could hope to do any one of them.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything: 1970-1975 [Box Set]
    This is material that has, and will continue to stand the test of time.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Histoire de Melody Nelson
    This is genre-defying music, but anyone with an interest in hearing a blueprint for trip hop or a master class in the depiction of desire in pop music, should be sure to listen to this mysterious, timeless, contradictory album.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The SMiLE Sessions
    This release reorients us around familiar material, but outdoes all previously existing versions in the scope of its execution and comparative completeness.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Warner Bros. Years [Box Set]
    The album [El Corazon], and by relation the whole Warner Bros Years boxset, is a confident announcement not of return but of complete rejuvenation.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    American Radical Patriot [Box Set]
    This box set illuminates the complicated, tangled bits of history and ideology and personality that connect that man to that myth. Those threads are frayed, tough to follow at times, but strong.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    DAMN.
    An album that resembles a focused collection of small, brilliant things.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rough and Rowdy Ways
    Rough and Rowdy Ways has little, if any, rock 'n' roll, but the sneer remains. Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits might vaguely peek in a little. Dylan has long lost interest in conforming to expectations, so it's no surprise that on a new record, he either satisfies all of them or none of them. He sounds like Dylan, whatever that is.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Black Messiah
    Black Messiah is less throwback funk and more a vision of the possibilities of modern post-funk, although it’s clearly rooted in soul and funk traditions.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Wildflowers & All The Rest
    What makes Wildflowers & All the Rest worth perusing is the home recordings. As the record takes shape in Petty's home studio, we understand how Petty managed to make Wildflowers so uniquely devastating.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Definitely Maybe [Remastered]
    Don’t be surprised if this box set doesn’t drastically change your preconceived notions of what this already-iconic album is about, but for those who think the Gallagher’s never got better than this, consider this the only Oasis box set you will ever need.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Homecoming: The Live Album
    Long segments don't even feature Beyoncé, which can be trying on the album but in the film are understood as the accompaniment to dance routines and skits.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Boy From Tupelo: The Complete 1953-1955 Recordings [Box Set]
    This is not for the casual Elvis fan. The best stuff, his Sun 45s, have been available on CDs for decades. This is for those who want to hear the mistakes, the experiments, and the growth of a young singer defining his sound. Many of the recordings here are rough and partial. They have archival more than aesthetic value.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Skeleton Tree
    Skeleton Tree offers little solace, but as the Bad Seeds’ 16th album, it gives the listener an experience that is unshakable.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Copper Blue [Deluxe Edition]
    Exciting and stellar... What a way to show the kids both in 1992 and in 2012 how it's done, Bob.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Dopesmoker [Reissue]
    Cryptic and daunting, "Dopesmoker" is the quintessential stoner metal track. Sixteen years since its birth, it remains unsurpassed.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Satan Is Real/Handpicked Songs 1955-1962
    In their catalog, though, no album stands out more than Satan Is Real, their 1959 masterpiece that outlines and encapsulates the fragile fine lines of good versus evil, and spirituality versus the mundane.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Promise
    The Promise hits a ceiling just below what you'd call essential listening, but it's still more than just a fan-only release. These 22 songs show a band at the height of their powers stretching out and trying new things, indulging in their musical loves to bright and catchy results.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Savane
    This final record shows Touré still brimming with vitality. Savane is his wonderful farewell gift.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
    Whether or not this is the best Kanye West album, this may be the one he's remembered most for, the one that may finally trump the version of him we cringe at on the red carpet.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Icky Mettle [Deluxe Edition]
    Icky Mettle might have a reputation for containing a one-trick pony and the band's singular best known moment in the form of "Web in Front," but there's a wealth of material to really dig into and enjoy.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    No Other [Deluxe Edition]
    It's these [early takes] stripped-down performances that hint at what this album could have been, without the expansive and expensive production. ... If you've listened to Steve Earle, the Jayhawks, and Wilco recently, you'll be ready for it. The world might finally catch up with Gene Clark – it only took 45 years.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Live at the Whisky a Go Go: The Complete Recordings
    He may be nearly half a century gone, but the music of Otis Redding remains in 2016 as thrillingly vital and perfect as the moment in which the words first left his lips. Live at the Whiskey a Go Go is a testament to his brilliance and status as the King of Soul and is thus, in a word, essential.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Motomami
    MOTOMAMI is experimental in a way that does not sacrifice function over form. These songs have a pop purpose: they are fragmented, but they are laid in catchy hooks and enthralling beats. MOTOMAMI doesn’t fail to entertain.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Desire, I Want To Turn into You
    Desire, I Want to Turn Into You is one of these future classics. ... Engaging at every turn and carefully calibrated to its point of view, it represents art pop hitting yet another dizzy apex.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Madvillainy
    The problem with Madvillainy, if it can even be termed a problem, is that Doom and Madlib just have too many ideas.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Life's Rich Pageant
    Commemorative repackage or not, Lifes Rich Pageant is a must-listen rock record that is too often overshadowed by more chatted-about releases.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    A Crow Looked at Me
    A Crow Looked at Me is a masterpiece in the manner of A Grief Observed and “She Will Find What is Lost”. All of these works create a special communion between creator and observer, artistic experiences that join individual circumstances of loss with whatever the listener/reader/viewer brings to the work.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Room 25
    This is vintage neo-soul and future rap hand in hand; a soulful sanctuary for those turned off by the austerity of mainstream mumble rap. Noname stands front and centre of the movement, existing in the same historical moment as Kendrick Lamar, Toni Morrison and Nina Simone; sincerely engaged with social realities--redefining the contours of rhyme.
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