Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,124 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 35% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 62% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 7.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 Who Kill
Lowest review score: 0 Fireflies
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,694 out of 3124
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3124
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3124
3124 music reviews
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    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fab Four Suture
    Simultaneously a structural free-for-all and a glossy collection of diverse material.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Other Side of Make-Believe
    A half-baked pastiche of previous releases. Even the album’s highlights can’t compete with the best cuts on later albums like 2014’s El Pintor. In an attempt to move forward, the band has simply disassembled and repackaged the stylistic traits that made them special in the first place.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Silver Wilkinson
    Among the more production-heavy tracks, nothing comes close in terms of technical or intuitive savvy. Still, Wilkinson delivers solidly on the album's more organic offerings.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Spirit If...
    When Drew tones down his approach on tracks like 'Safety Bricks' and 'Gang Bang Suicide,' the result is underwhelming and seems to want for additional input.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Skelliconnection
    There's not much to any given song on the album to distinguish it from its obvious sub-genre counterparts.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    My Life II...The Journey Continues (Act 1)
    Is the album a worthy successor to My Life? Not remotely, despite being a listenable chapter in Blige's ongoing Remembrance of Joints Past.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded--the Re-Up
    The original Pink Friday was a competently crafted blend of rap and pop that, even when it skewed to one extreme or the other, did so with style and skill. Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded - The Re-Up appears to try to replicate that formula, and with predictably mixed results.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Tell Me You Love Me
    Unfortunately, an excess of downtempo tracks mires Tell Me You Love Me's momentum in its second half, concluding with a pair of refreshing but nearly identical back-to-back acoustic-driven R&B songs that might as well be a medley.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fate
    Unfortunately, it's also phenomenally uninteresting. That isn't to say that the album is bad. Put it on at a low-key party and nobody will complain--but they probably won't ask you what it is either.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Love in the Future
    At 16 tracks, the album moves surprisingly fast, with few songs outstaying their welcome, but it ultimately fails to successfully push Legend into the future.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Mojo
    The record is long on instrumentals and short on singing, with Petty showing up mostly to fill space between guitar solos and extended jams, giving Mojo a higher Heartbreakers-to-Petty ratio than any previous release. But if Mojo is meant to be the band's showcase, it's not an especially successful one.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Women + Country
    Dylan clearly set out to cut a classic country album in the tradition of Williams and Cash (and that other famous Dylan), but the end result feels more studied than spirited-somewhat like a poor period film, where the lovingly recreated sets and costumes only seem to highlight the bland performances.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    American Ride
    Though American Ride is never less than listenable, the album makes it clear that Keith needs input from outside collaborators who really get what makes his persona work to keep some of his more troublesome instincts in check.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Heligoland
    Fans who have spent the better part of a decade jonesing for exactly this kind of fix will surely appreciate the effort, but for the less dependent, the songs here offer little that the band hasn't already done better.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Spells
    Their songs are cute and brisk and, despite its foibles, Spells won't put anybody to sleep.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    In Our Nature
    These songs are never less than lovely, but they're never really more than lovely either.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Colors
    At times, it seems as though Beck is grasping at something, anything, to add conflict and tension to this effusive album. But all he comes up with are the most well-worn of sentimental platitudes.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Travellers In Space And Time
    An insufferable post-twee jaunt which represents the messy sound of a band fooling around with a studio full of toys.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Skins
    It's admirable that the band has committed to a second act of their career and have challenged themselves by tackling more grown-up issues in their songwriting, but Skins doesn't offer much more than a doggedly likable set of straightforward rock songs.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Home
    Home feels like an afterthought, the sound of Chung's craft diluted to the point where it's barely there.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Euphoric
    The album’s second half leans too heavily on slow, subdued songs, and Georgia’s ostensibly personal lyrics rarely speak in anything but the most general terms. So while singles like “Give It Up for Love” and the title track make for rousing enough dance-pop, It’s Euphoric never quite rises to the promise of its title.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    We're On Your Side
    Even though the tempo rarely climbs above a midtempo churn, there's a definite shape to each track, with the swirling, atmospheric arrangements recalling Sigur Ros. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's hard not to wish that Slaraffenland showed greater focus and ambition.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    August Greene
    The album is admirable and at times rewarding for its sense of experimentation, but only for those willing to meet it on its own terms.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Idlewild
    It's an interesting failure, as OutKast are probably incapable of making boring music, but a failure nonetheless.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Errant Charm
    Vetiver weren't particularly freakish purveyors of freak folk to begin with, but in becoming so deliberately inoffensive, The Errant Charm makes them sound more like a Shins cover band than an act with its own distinct identity.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Good Girl Gone Bad
    Lyrics are once again an Achilles high heel for Rihanna.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Small Craft On A Milk Sea
    The album may lack consistency, but it isn't short on order, each track bearing some indelible marker of Eno's touch.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Disc-Overy
    The consistent issue with Disc-Overy is the pairing of Tempah with people who fail to elevate him.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Washington Square Serenade
    Earle racks up more wins than losses on Washington Square Serenade, but while the high points are in line with his best work, he didn't dispose of his excess baggage before the move.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Marshall Mathers LP 2
    The album's production offers little that's new. Dr. Dre and Rick Rubin have crafted, or at least enabled, a few too many of the power-ballad slow jams that Eminem has grown increasingly fond of, alongside several guitar-driven anthems that come on as subtle as Jock Jams. Eminem is no one's hack, though, and the album has tantalizing moments of vintage performance.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    And Never Ending Nights
    It's true that some of the tracks on And Never Ending Nights come across as process-oriented and unfinished, which makes sense when you consider them as exercises in Willner's attempt to develop a different aesthetic vocabulary than the one he's already proven fluent in.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Something Else
    Musically, Thicke's dick is in the right place, but when it comes to this genre, I don't trust any vocalist who spends more time eating his audience out than slapping his own engorged junk against the palm of his hand.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ciara
    As a collection of potential singles from an artist who should have more #1's, it's a modest, calculated effort.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Among the Leaves
    Among the Leaves may not be the most captivating way to spend 70 minutes, but it's a valuable effort nonetheless, a deeply felt record of one man's never-ending struggle with himself.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    King of the Beach
    A performer like Williams has a lot to lose by releasing what is, by and large, an accessible pop-rock album.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Positions
    Given the dearth of uptempo tracks on Grande’s last album, the microhouse “Motive,” featuring Doja Cat, and the breathless, disco-inflected “Love Language” are a welcome change of pace. Too many of the songs on Positions, however, rely on the same midtempo trap-pop that populated Grande’s previous two efforts, particularly Thank U, Next. What once seemed refreshing in its minimalism is quickly starting to feel insubstantial.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Revolution Radio
    On Revolution Radio, his more personal songs are far more endearing.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wildwood
    There's also no faulting the band's performances. Banjoist Chandler Holt and mandolinist John Teer remain two of country music's most unheralded musicians, and bassist Greg Readling and guest percussionist Zeke Hutchins give the songs strong rhythm sections. There simply isn't anything innovative.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    13
    13 is ultimately a solid, back-to-basics return that proves Black Sabbath is still the exemplary blueprint for heavy metal.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ruins Of Berlin
    Though his lyrics are underwhelming, his smart choice in collaborators and inventive instrumental cuts like 'Polish Work Song' and 'Grey Skies' more than compensate, making Ruins of Berlin both a testament to Romweber's ongoing influence and a compelling record in its own right.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fading West
    Jon Foreman's ability to write hook-laden melodies remains, and he's an often poetic and perspicacious lyricist, but the themes of redemption and hope on Fading West are too abstracted, frequently degenerating into cliché.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    After the Disco
    Generic enough to have been produced by anyone, After the Disco is a yawner made by two artists whose impressive discography makes its failure that much more confounding.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Costello Music
    The songs are incredibly catchy but also tediously misogynistic.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hold on Tight
    Pitched decidedly near the middle of the road, Burke's final album is a generally pleasing endeavor that might have benefited from a little more effort.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bankrupt!
    It's cool and pleasant, but easy to forget.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Collapse into Now
    Considering how the album's style draws from each era of R.E.M.'s evolution, Collapse Into Now plays as something of a greatest-hits package.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Liberation
    “Accelerate” never takes off like one might expect, content to bustle along on a perpetually shifting beat, rumbling electro bassline, and skittering trap effects, fading out while the singer sensually vamps over a minimal backing track. Unfortunately, the rest of Liberation plays it frustratingly safe, with smooth, competent R&B like “Deserve” and “Pipe.”
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Broken Bells
    At its very best, when the collaboration clicks, Broken Bells boasts some truly marvelous songs, but these peaks are sandwiched between tracks that struggle to exceed colorless tedium.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wonder Where We Land
    ["New Dorp. New York"] lends a refreshing dose of personality to an album that's otherwise stoically straightfaced.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes
    Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes is throwback after throwback, the album where the roots-rock traditionalism that has always been the counterweight to Ness's punk modernism finally comes crushing down on the whole Social Distortion enterprise.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Turn Up the Quiet
    Her [more traditionalist approach] certainly doesn't raise the bar, but it does offer an alluring elegance and low-key appeal.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future
    Perhaps executed a tad more carefully than it was conceived, Ray Guns is ultimately a flawed gem.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tron: Legacy
    It's all too clear Disney wanted the cachet, not the daft nor the punk. Trick yourselves into thinking the robots are twisting some radical new spin on the form if you wish, but I'm logging off now.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Codes and Keys
    Thanks in no small part to Death Cab, there's now a permanent niche for indie pop that's smart, sad, and refined, and Codes and Keys fills it nicely.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Man On The Moon: The End Of Day
    From its bombastic title to Common's annoying narration, Man on the Moon vies for both a bigger pop platform and indie credibility.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Night the Sun Came Up
    The Night the Sun Came Up fails to back up her claim that she's more than just a Ke$ha clone.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hot House
    At both its best and its worst, the album is essentially inoffensive.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Profound Mysteries III
    Despite several standout moments that are worthy additions to Röyksopp’s illustrious catalog, Profound Mysteries III can, like its two predecessors, sometimes feel too indulgent for its own good.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Automaton
    Musically, Automaton possesses a freewheeling swagger that's energizing and intensely danceable, and Jamiroquai updates their familiar brand of disco and funk into something that feels fresh and progressive. But unfortunately Kay doesn't have anything new to say, as his views on society, technology, and relationships are trapped in a bygone era.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Epiphany
    The entire album is executive produced by Ne-Yo, which gives Epiphany both a more modern R&B edge as well as a more unified sound than Michele's 2007 debut--which could be good or bad, depending on how you look at it.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Album
    Crammed chockfull of crowd-pleasing EDM pyrotechnics and cheeky one-liners, The Album is undeniably a product of a well-oiled, state-of-the-art pop machine, but it feels stuck looking back to tried and true trends in both K-pop and Western pop music.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    A Strange Arrangement
    Arrangement proves that he has the skill to make for a phenomenal writer and producer, but he may not be cut out for a solo career.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    You're Welcome
    There was an inherently intriguing incongruity between his Brian Wilson-inspired melodies and the unfathomable level of DIY grime with which he rendered them on the first couple of (self-recorded) Wavves albums. Absent that tension, Williams's melodies must be judged by their own ingenuity, and on that count, the ones on You're Welcome, especially those in its back half, too often fall short of the mark.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Robed in Rareness [EP]
    Despite the fact that Robed in Rareness runs about the length of an episode of your average sitcom, its songs are so vaporous that one may have a difficult time remembering them. Put bluntly, the album underscores just how much Shabazz Palaces is running on fumes.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Angles
    Angles is a document of the Strokes operating more as a task force than a real band; even though the album's allegedly fractured recording sessions resulted in the first Strokes LP to feature writing credits from every member of the band, this is more of a show of individuals tinkering with each track rather than any true cooperative effort.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Still Standing
    It's pop at its most unembellished and bland, which is especially disappointing for an album that enlists big-league producers like Jermaine Dupri and Missy Elliott.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Who We Touch
    Who We Touch works best when the band revels in their sense of adventure, but it suffers dramatically when overtly appealing to days gone by.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Defend Yourself
    Defend Yourself still suggests a creator with an obsessively huge record collection, only the heady variation of explored genres seems more boilerplate, a sense of variety for variety's sake rather than a desire to put a unique stamp on old musical tropes.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Synthetica
    For a large chunk of the album, the band seems to assume that Haines's ice-queen snarl somehow lends Synthetica's bland, hookless milieu a cool irreverence, but more often than not, what's supposed to be punk-ish detachment often plays like the group is bored by their own material.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Warrior
    Most of Warrior sticks to Ke$ha's tried-and-true formula.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dame Fortune
    In short, a breezy DJ set attuned for meditative easy listening. When this approach clicks, the results are nothing less than sumptuous, a rich panorama of material organized by an artist whose greatest talents seem to lie in curation.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Fame
    Gaga's lyrics alternate between cheap drivel and nonsensical drivel, and her vocal performances are uneven at best....The songs that work--and there are plenty, including 'Poker Face,' 'Starstruck,' 'Paper Gangsta' and 'Summerboy'--rest almost solely on their snappy production and sing-along hooks and reveal Gaga as the Xtina/Gwen/Fergie hydra monster that she is.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Champ
    Give them a couple more albums, and this thoughtful young band might become a touchstone for the next generation of prematurely nostalgic indie-rock upstarts.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Closure/Continuation
    Its weaker moments suggest a group that’s struggling to find something new to say, both thematically and musically. But when the band stretches out and explores their full dynamic range, capturing the dystopian overtones wafting through Wilson’s lyrics, they’re still capable of reaching cathartic heights.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    AudioLust & HigherLove
    An assemblage of enjoyable ingredients that doesn’t coalesce.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rocket Juice & the Moon
    Rocket Juice & the Moon is a sincere and charming homage to Afrobeat, one that provides a glut of alluring moments, if a shortage of truly memorable ones.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hurts 2B Human
    Pink’s eighth album, Hurts 2B Human, finds the singer peddling the same boilerplate pop-rock songs about self-empowerment and existential angst that have defined her career for almost 20 years.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rockferry
    Rockferry is a pretty nifty party trick of a record, but it's not enough to justify Duffy's Next Big Thing billing.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    End Times
    E seems to walk a fine line between triumph and disaster on every album he releases, and even if on End Times Mr. Everett falls pretty obviously over the wrong side of that line, it's as easy to blame the flop on a trick of probability than on a clear artistic trajectory.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Moody Motorcycle
    Moody Motorcycle is easily Thorburn's least ambitious effort, evidenced by the inclusion of song sketches like 'Ode to Abner' and tracks that seem like outtakes from his Islands work (for example, the title cut and 'Pretty Hair'), and yet in its many moments of off-the-cuff beauty the album proves, perhaps even more than the meticulously executed "Arm's Way," the extraordinary talents of this oft-misunderstood Canadian.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Interpreting The Masters, Volume 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall And John Oates
    For now, the musicianship is there, and I can't fault them their enthusiasm in the Hall & Oates back catalogue. It's just that Sara's smile gets lost in the interpretation.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Mi Plan
    While Mi Plan is by no means some excruciating disaster, it is heartless, with forced sincerity and awkward posturing uncharacteristic of Furtado's previous work.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Junto
    Even in their diminished current form, Basement Jaxx still have a facility for turning pure cheese--dusty pianos scales, boilerplate diva-soul squawking, and tacky synthetic brass sections with "Yamaha" stamped on the side--into unabashed cheesy fun.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    99 Cents
    More often than hitting a sweet spot in between, the songs here are overly busy (like “Big Boss”) or short on ideas (the by-the-numbers “Before the Fire” and the psych-rock “Outside the War”), and the album's title turns into an unfortunate allusion to a warehouse stocked to the brim with cheap toys, none built to last.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Content
    Gang of Four, who came up in the same scene and strove for a similar brand of smart, prickly post-punk, has a little harder time with the transition to modernity on Content, a weirdly anachronistic album that retains some of the band's signature qualities while landing on a strange new sound.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Bury Me in My Rings
    While the band's previous record, Sun, Sun, Sun, was a pleasant and occasionally inspired set of summer pop, Bury Me in My Rings plays too fast and loose with its genre pastiches and is a scattershot affair as a result.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Department of Disappearance
    It's difficult not to get swept away by, and even admire, the unrelenting sweetness of the songs [for much of the album's first half]. Eventually, though, it becomes equally hard not to gag on the twee preciousness.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Live It Out
    Think of Metric as a poppier Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Breeders and think of Live It Out as another step toward indie-pop splendor.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Beautiful Thing
    While there's certainly no shortage of sonic experimentation woven into this relatively more adventurous album, the British singer-songwriter struggles to find an effective balance between the added electronic accoutrements and the minimalist core that informs his solo work.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    With Teeth
    While With Teeth satisfies in all the expected ways, not much has changed in Reznor's world.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Thr33 Ringz
    Thr33 Ringz emerges as such a polished and self-fulfilling collection of hip-pop singles that it almost makes one wonder why T-Pain insists on drawing attention to the most derivative aspect of his musical career at the expense of some of his other, modest but real talents.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ego Trippin'
    While the Neptunes' 'Sets Up' fits nicely alongside tracks like a nearly note-for-note cover of the Time's 'Cool,' the album ultimately suffers from both sonic and lyrical inconsistency--to say nothing of the misleadingly dark cover art.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Lollipop
    While the band maintains a glimmer of their former selves, writing sturdy, comfortable songs with a minimal capacity to surprise, Lollipop still sounds a little tired.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Stay Dangerous
    The rigid codes of masculinity governing hardcore rap, though, keep YG's lyrics from showing as much range as Mustard's beats.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Pale Emperor
    Whereas the Duke represented the pop icon's most aggressive experimentation with composition and style, Manson appears content simply to polish up the usual antisocial stompers.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Together
    There's quite a bit of work involved in bringing so many points of view and instruments together, and that's precisely the problem with Together.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Are You In?
    De La Soul has always worked better in lo-fi, and the cheesy Rock Band-like guitars and drums in the middle section sound suspiciously like Moby's disastrous collaboration with Public Enemy a couple of years ago, but this is still an album that clearly belongs to De La Soul, and they're not shy about it.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    so sad so sexy
    So Sad So Sexy is a sleek, homogenous pop-oriented album that feels both conceptually half-formed and technically fussed-over.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Lo-Fantasy
    Whether drudging up stale '80s-rock signifiers or indulging in lifeless electronic frivolity, this is an album that attempts to skate by on pure surface appeal in order to distract from the obtuse social commentary at its core.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    One More Time...
    It doesn’t exactly reinvent the pop-punk wheel—it also could’ve stood to lose about half a dozen songs—but its brightest, most exhilarating spots are a welcome reminder of what made the trio so iconic in the first place.
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