Rolling Stone's Scores

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For 5,910 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 34% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 62% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 6.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 Magic
Lowest review score: 0 Know Your Enemy
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,628 out of 5910
  2. Mixed: 2,242 out of 5910
  3. Negative: 40 out of 5910
5910 music reviews
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    • 85 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This Right Here Is Buck 65
    As an introduction to Buck's weird world of lovable losers, hugely endowed centaurs and insomniacs, Right Here is right on.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Moonshine in the Trunk
    It's not his greatest LP, but it's one of his most fun.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Beautiful Revolution, Vol. 2
    There’s enough evidence on A Beautiful Revolution, Pt. 2 to suggest that he still cares about music, but it may take more than mellow bromides and Obama shout-outs to truly convince us.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    For Your Entertainment
    The songs sound great but feel strangely stuffy--Entertainment seems like a disc that was overthought.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Faded Seaside Glamour
    Genteel, eminently tuneful. [24 Jun 2004, p.179]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Howl
    The songwriting on mellower numbers like "Promise" isn't as finely crafted as the expansive sound. [25 Aug 2005, p.99]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Final Frontier
    Maiden have long had a knack for the lung-busting chorus, but what impresses here are the complicated arrangements.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bring Ya To The Brink
    Brink never reaches a full serotonin explosion like "Confessions on a Dancefloor," but at least Lauper has taken after the competition and found a new groove.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    It's Not Me, It's You
    It's Not Me, It's You is far from perfect, but it sounds fantastic.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fork In The Road
    It's messy, funny and pretty crazy at points.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond
    Too often the pervasive mournfulness tilts more maudlin than high-lonesome.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Driving A Million
    Ultimately, Gwenmars is a Xerox of a Xerox, but this melodic, very big facsimile remains very listenable, indeed.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Smash Mouth
    Goofy, head-bobbingly hummable.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    OST
    Cold Mountain's salvation is the Sacred Harp Singers at Liberty Church, a shaped-note choral group that delivers its two hymns with an otherworldly intensity.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Big Red Machine
    Big Red Machine sounds like Bon Iver and The National freestyling with friends, drinks and vape pens.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Bravery
    The Bravery do a jockier version of the New Wave competition, pumping the drums in straight-ahead tunes such as "An Honest Mistake" and "The Ring Song."
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Anteroom
    The Anteroom sometimes creeps and lurches like an old car stuck in rush-hour traffic.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dark Lane Demo Tapes [Mixtape]
    The project, a grab bag of new songs, leaks, and material previously teased on Instagram Live, is often bittersweet and deeply contemplative, even by Drake’s standards.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mr. Brown
    Many of Sleepy's songs sound oddly unfinished, relying too heavily on his insistent falsetto.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fall to Grace
    The material, featuring production by U.K. soul vet Nellee Hooper (Soul II Soul), could be more memorable.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sun Structures
    What's lacking are the fun and wit of a great Summer of Love 45.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Yes
    On their excellent 10th album, the music leans toward the ornate, with snatches of Tchaikovsky and spaghetti-Western atmospherics enveloping the synths and house beats.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lucky Day
    The faster Shaggy's music gets, the better it is.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Underneath the Pine
    As Bundick reveals more of his esoteric pop sensibility, comparisons to Beck feel increasingly apt. Whatever wave Bundick is riding, he's likely to be at the front of it.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Early Times
    Berman and the Jews may have gotten higher-fi and easier on the ears, but never more casually charismatic and deeply urban.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Duke
    Even when it's too adult-contempo (see Steve Vai grating new age cheese all over "Isfahan") this album always has one thing going for it – it makes you want to listen to some Duke Ellington.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    2000 BC
    The big difference this time out is that the beats are as aggressive as Canibus' lyrics...
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Human
    Although Human occasionally slides into easy-listening soul, the still-spiky star delivers assured, remarkably smooth vocals throughout.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Brave And The Bold
    Sometimes mesmerizing, often depressing. [23 Feb 2006, p.68]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I'm Having Fun Now
    The mood may be dark, but the record is a model of musical egalitarianism.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    On Your Own Love Again
    Pratt's jazz-steeped singing and rich guitar harmonies can recall early Joni Mitchell, or a nimble, less overbearing twist on the psychedelic folk of 21st-century artists like Joanna Newsom.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Remember Me
    Three-quarters of Remember Me, which is mainly produced by Gemini or his like-minded associate P-Lo, sounds great on iPhone speakers. But the rest of the album is too slow and soggy.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Harsh Light of Day
    The only significant change from their breakthrough effort, 1998's All the Pain Money Can Buy, is more expensive, expansive-sounding production and an increasingly overt Beatles influence in both the songs and sonics.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rendezvous
    It's a fitting, if slightly sleepy, send-off.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Time To Love
    Almost half of the fifteen songs recall Wonder at his prime.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Breaker
    At the top of their game, Little Big Town are taking an unlikely path: respectable, mid-career album artist.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It
    Despite opening big, bright and airtight, I Like It When You Sleep... gets boring-melty during dream-gaze reveries like "Please Be Naked" and "Lostmyhead." Even so, when they hit the right kind of moody sheen ("Somebody Else," "Loving Someone"), the 1975 are an enjoyable balance of desire and distraction.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip
    Can be madcap and zany, darkly hilarious, and just plain weird. [May 2020, p.89]
    • Rolling Stone
      • Posted May 12, 2020
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Do To the Beast
    The stylishly sleazy intensity is still there on their first record since 1998's excellent 1965, only with a wider palette.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Glowing Man
    While their long, drawn-out, circling dark clouds remain potent, ultimately The Glowing Man is the weakest of the three powerful epics they've released since 2012. It can be muted and jammy, the build-ups are not as dramatic and it brings little in new ideas for Gira's dead-eyed yowl.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Is A Woman
    With repeated listens, what feels at first like unmelodic obduracy reveals some hidden charms.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Anthem of the Peaceful Army
    There’s an element of the ridiculous in this. But there’s also a charm to their guileless, retro-fetishist conviction. And dudes have chops.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    SZNZ: Spring [EP]
    Grading on a curve, the composition, “Opening Night,” deserves a solid B. It’s dorky, catchy, and whimsical. ... The rest of their springtime retreat sounds generally more Weezerish. ... As with the corniness of “Opening Night,” Cuomo’s strong knack for vocal melodies throughout saves a lot of otherwise half-baked or cliched lyrics.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    So Amazin'
    The beats and some sharp songwriting keep Milian's unremarkably airy voice from having to stand on its own. [18 May 2006, p.229]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Title
    While the 21-year-old singer rocks more sass and self-empowerment on her full-length major-label debut (which, confusingly, shares a name with the four-song EP she released in September), she's also charmingly old-fashioned.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Demons: The Nomad Series, Vol. 2
    The music of the late Vic Chesnutt radiated black humor, ragged charm and a vulnerability that was often alarming. Cowboy Junkies successfully retain those qualities on Demons, a collection of Chesnutt covers that sets his striking lyrics against coiled guitars and baleful church organs.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Prophets of Rage
    12 hardrocking lefty diatribes against government conspiracies ("Drones – they got ya tapped, they got ya phone," Chuck D raps in "Take Me Higher"), civil injustice ("We fuckin' matter," he declares on "Who Owns Who") and, in the case of B-Real's rhymes, restrictive weed laws ("Legalize Me").
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Time Skiffs
    Time Skiffs splits the difference between the pop and the avant, spaced-out family-pad music with solid drumming, deep-distance percussion, wobbly melodies, and harmonies somehow more blissed out than anything else.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    After the End
    Crescendoing tracks like "True Monument" sound positively lush--at least if you ignore the dopey lyrics about "the cruelty of kindness" and other clichés.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Version
    An audacious set of... left-field covers (Radiohead's "Just," the Jam's "Pretty Green") turned into dance-soul tracks.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    My December
    The tunes come up seriously short on choruses and heavy on the Alanis Morissette references.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Thousand Suns
    With Rick Rubin co-producing, the band embraces not just synth-pop clamor but also dancehall-style chants and U2's grandiosity. It's the sound of Linkin Park feeling their way toward a new identity, but their skill for melody is obvious.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Saints Of Los Angeles
    The trip down memory lane helps the Crüe connect to their old sound: Much of Saints rocks with the same raucous fun as their Eighties albums, delivering glam guitars and arena-size choruses on cuts like the wickedly catchy 'Down at the Whisky.'
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Time Of The Assassins
    The Strokes-ish quality is in the music's rigor: Assassins combines groove and melody with the same machinelike precision that sets Fraiture's other outfit apart.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    American III: Solitary Man
    The onus here lies on the production... Rick Rubin's work is too timid; mostly, the shy combos of guitar, fiddle and accordion, or Benmont Tench's subliminal contributions on keyboards, make up the kind of severe meal that one is forced to think of as "tasteful."
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    End Times
    Everett keeps these ballads and rockers short, spare and pretty; his sad reportage is straightforward to the point of being guileless.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Drums Between the Bells
    An album of poetry set to music might not be what the world wants from Brian Eno.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Going Way Out With Heavy Trash
    Like his fellow goth-punk godfather Nick Cave, Spencer is a master of the offhandedly irreverent blues move, turning riffs like 'Crazy Pritty Baby' into prime perversion.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    You & Me
    The songwriting has never been stronger or more eclectic.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Blue Neighbourhood
    The relentless lightness can get predictable after a while, as one plush ballad blurs into another, but Blue Neighbourhood, like all the best young loves, is full of promise.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Taylor Swift
    Swift came out of the gate sounding bright-eyed but remarkably seasoned. [December 5, 2012]
    • Rolling Stone
      • Posted Aug 29, 2022
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Covers Record
    While we await her next album of new material, due next winter, The Covers Record provides a stopgap fix of her unnerving, coldblooded voice and shaky acoustic guitar.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Use Me
    Bromberg still makes every track shine, like the A-list session man he's always been.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Coming Apart
    Titles aren't exactly subtle ("Murderess," "Last Mistress"), even if the twin-guitar jams are opaque.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Milk White Sheets
    Campbell is not going to escape the "twee" label anytime soon, but at least she's putting new twists on her familiar sweetness.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Belle and Sebastian Write About Love
    Frontman Stuart Murdoch entreats over a soul groove on B&S' eighth disc, which loads up on Sixties-pop goodies without diluting the group's willowy kink.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hotel Surrender
    Stretches further into his trademark laid-back R&B. [Jul/Aug 2021, p.133]
    • Rolling Stone
      • Posted Aug 3, 2021
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mondo
    It's unclear if the sentiments are intended as poignant or as punch lines. But on a set wired with this much sonic wit, the sincerity question may be moot.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Blue Songs
    Like Arthur Russell, the late disco visionary whose work his music recalls, Andy Butler makes club jams that transcend the club.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Cookbook
    Elliott's least cohesive, most conventional album yet.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Here We Go Again
    Lovato has chops and spunk akin to a fellow Texas pop singer, though her voice doesn't churn with Kelly Clarkson's gutsy heart yet.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sonic Boom
    Will it provide decent accompaniment for a Gene Simmons blood-belching performance in a packed arena? This big, dumb, catchy record passes that test.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Release The Stars
    Only a slight improvement [over Want Two]. [14 Jun 2007, p.102]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Get Closer
    Urban radiates psyched-ness - about his awesome marriage or the gathering power of crossover country - on summer jams and magnolia-scented ballads.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Witness
    Throughout, Perry is less like the so-unusual, candy-coated Cyndi Lauper of "Teenage Dream," and is more an anonymous disco crooner, a breathy moderator leading us through passionate but muted songs of longing and empowerment.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mind Body & Soul
    As on her last album, tasteful retro organs and wah-wah dominate this batch of originals. [28 Oct 2004, p.99]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dirty Vegas
    Dirty Vegas' earnest lyrics can get in the way, but they make up for that by rejecting the desultory repetition of much electro.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    When It Falls
    When It Falls is akin to a fabulous one-night stand: It feels great, it's very easy, and it requires absolutely no love or commitment at all.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Jeff Bridges
    Sure, this album gains depth from his film history - these laid-back country-rock songs suggest a cleaned-up Bad Blake, or a Dude with ambitions beyond the bowling lanes.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Big Mess
    Until the band fully embraces their ping-pong guitars and surly one-liners ("I wish I saw myself the way you see me now"), Grouplove will likely remain a singles band rather than the new-R.E.M. their ambition hints at.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Aureate Gloom
    Sometimes his hydrant flow of ideas reveals a lack of good ones (see the proggy slog "Monolithic Egress"). But when Barnes figures out how to focus his brain dumps, dude gets more with less.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Gutter Rainbows
    Gutter Rainbows is unabashed conscious-rap classicism, with a luscious, string-swamped soul sound and rhymes that tout the MC's left-of-center cred.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ta-Dah
    Every song is rooted in some long-gone Seventies AM-radio hit... doing for disco what the New Pornographers do for rock & roll.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Know It All
    There's nothing quite as sharp here as, well, "Here."
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Six Cups of Rebel
    More color than meaning, but seductive enough to lure you in and keep you there.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Beginning
    This much serotonin in four humans can only mean they'll get carried away all over the place, and Beginning bubbles with the kind of slobbering excess that drives Peas haters bonkers.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Attention Deficit
    The darker moments like 'Contemplate,' where he explores insecurity against an elegiac Rihanna sample, prove he's best as a doubter, not a hater.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    California 37
    It's all catchy enough to keep you listening, slack-jawed.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dead Man Shake
    The songs aren't as urgent or as memorable as the cracked gems he used to write, but his voice is wonderfully ragged. [13 Nov 2003, p.99]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hidden Vagenda
    Childlike and catchy. [28 Oct 2004, p.103]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    At War With The Mystics
    The Lips' spacious attack feels a little tired. [6 Apr 2006, p.64]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Myth Takes
    Tedium is a problem, but danceability is a given.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Piece by Piece
    The OG American Idol manages to pull off that clock reversal, flooring her DeLorean back to the Eighties on her seventh studio album.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Cloud Nine
    His debut album, Cloud Nine, is naturally very same-y--deep house wasting away in Margaritaville--but unfailingly gorgeous.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Southern Style
    On his fourth solo country album, Rucker is warm and easygoing, more buddy than bro, winningly carrying bar-hopping honky-tonk ("Good for a Good Time"), down-home anthems ("Half Full Dixie Cup") and low-sung ballads ("You Can Have Charleston").
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Love for Sale
    A superhero team-up that has produced another album of rock-solid takes on the American songbook.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bury Me in My Boots
    Lead singer Jaren Johnston is a top Nashville writer, but he’s a bit too enamored of good-ol'-boy clichés. Luckily, he's an excellent singer.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Try This
    After Missundaztood, her choices were to repeat herself or to try more material outside her realm of expertise. She does a little of both on Try This, with mixed results.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Documentary
    If you're going to be literal and heartfelt, you'd better have something to say, and that's where the twenty-five-year-old rapper often falls short.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Unpredictable
    When the album works, it's because of Foxx's easy charm and A-list confidence.
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