Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,121 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: 1,691 out of 3121
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3121
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3121
3121 music reviews
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    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Remember [Live]
    Remember will not win the Fiery Furnaces very many new fans, but as it is likely the closest thing to a greatest hits album the unconventional Friedbergers will ever produce, it goes a long way toward definitively documenting their trippy, ingenious maunderings.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Fall
    Given that Albarn recorded the album solely using iPad applications, and that this seems to be a ubiquitous suffix to any discussion of the album, it's difficult not to dismiss The Fall as a gimmicky concept album or even a shameless 45-minute Apple advertisement, but there are just about enough interesting moments here to dispel that cynical view.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    We Are The Night
    We Are The Night, like most high school reunions, fails to kick-start anything other than nostalgia.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Continuum
    With no edge to the songwriting and with such spit-polished, tasteful production, Continuum just doesn't convince as a heady, soulful rock album or as Mayer's creative quantum leap forward.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Big Whiskey And The GrooGrux King
    Produced by Rob Cavallo, Big Whiskey is a step back toward the more polished sound DMB explored on 2001's divisive "Everyday"--that is to say, a step away from the 2005's return-to-form "Stand Up."
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tomorrow, In A Year
    A truly revolutionary piece of work, the album is also an awfully hard sell that begs for an "even for the Knife" qualifier.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Joanne
    Although Joanne lacks the indelible pop hooks that those two influences [Elton John and Prince]--not to mention Gaga herself--are famous for, the album is more sonically consistent and thematically focused than the singer's last solo effort, the regressive Artpop.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Firewater
    Much of Firewater has a blast-from-the-past feel.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Repo
    The only negative here is a lack of structure between songs, which makes Repo feel like something dropped in a pile at your feet.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    What Did You Expect from the Vaccines?
    "Post Break-Up Sex" feels like the album's centerpiece, and is certainly its most complete track, playing like a compromise between the saccharine punk and the sullen balladry that often polarizes the collection of songs.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Songbird
    An enormous disappointment.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dark Hearts
    Annie broke out in the mid aughts with cheeky, indelible dance-pop like “Chewing Gum” and “Heartbeat,” but Dark Hearts luxuriates in an unapologetically moodier palette.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    8701
    Acoustic guitar work, live drums by Stokley of Mint Condition (remember them?), and a cameo by the law-brushing P. Diddy ("If making hits is a crime, I plead guilty") also lend a surprising amount of variety to what could have been an otherwise homogenized set.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Milk White Sheets
    All of Campbell's vocal blemishes could be forgiven if Milkwhite Sheets boasted just a little oomph.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Recovery
    Since Wainwright is such a clever and insightful lyricist, even his weakest material is worth a listen, so Recovery is never unpleasant, but the song selection is unjustifiably uneven.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Evolver
    For a change, Legend doesn't constantly sound as though he's trying to impress the VH1 cognoscenti with his impeccable musicality. Sure, that's to say it's occasionally dumb, but oh so approachable.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Monsters Exist
    This contrast, however, between bouncy or turbulent beats and contemplative or cosmic ambience, which recurs throughout Monsters Exist, is so dissonant that it effectively gets in the way of the album making a cohesive statement.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    WUNNA
    At 50 minutes, the album’s length isn’t an issue, but one wishes that Gunna had selected a fraction of these 18 tracks and expanded them past the two-minute mark and cut filler like “Blindfold,” “Met Gala,” and “I’m on Some.”
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Brilliant! Tragic!
    With fewer memorable songs than superior efforts like Art Brut vs. Satan or Bang Bang Rock & Roll!, Brilliant! Tragic! is neither as good nor as bad as its title suggests. In the interest of accurate advertising, I propose that the band renames the album Decent! Enough!
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Hundred Million Suns
    A Hundred Million Suns, aims to recapture the success of 'Chasing Cars' and finds the Scottish quintet continuing to hone the sound they introduced on 2003's "Final Straw."
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Cleopatra
    Ultimately, though, Cleopatra is simply Americana pastiche we've heard a hundred times before.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everything Is 4
    Occasionally, the more ambitious nature of Everything Is 4 reveals some of Derulo's weaknesses, like his insistence on indulging straight R&B (which feels basic compared to the unique mode of genre-bending he usually works in), but stretching musically also leads to arguably the most exciting moment here, the funk rave-up of album-closer "X2CU."
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    No World
    The results are dark and slinking, but also highly exquisite, as No World boasts a moody set of tracks that are neither loud nor aggressive, but still possess a very raw and beautiful power lurking behind the whispers.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Heartbeat Radio
    Sometimes willfully precious, sometimes more solid, Heartbeat Radio is largely at the mercy of its orchestration, which further hurts the weak moments while improving the good ones.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Loud
    Like Janet's last hit album, Loud is a decided step away from its über-personal, melodrama-drenched predecessor.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Femme Fatale
    The success of a Britney song rests almost entirely on the quality of other people's songwriting and production, and almost every track on Femme Fatale succeeds or fails on that basis. Longtime collaborator Max Martin and his partner in auricle-crime, Dr. Luke, produced the bulk of Femme Fatale, and their contributions are mixed-to-shoddy.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Unexpected
    Unexpected is a fairly decent album and by far the least pretentious, unashamedly pop record to be made by a DC member so far.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    High Hopes
    Morello appears on most of the tracks here, and he's largely an enlivening presence, electrifying Springsteen's revolutionary spark, but he still hasn't figured out how to open up a solo without changing the entire tone of a song. Springsteen himself has a similar problem, struggling to deliver pointed social critique without sliding into his comfort zones.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Ducktails III: Arcade Dynamics
    Arcade Dynamics, then, falls somewhere in between the cleaned-up Real Estate sound and the noisier aesthetic of Landscapes.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Secret Life Of The Veronicas
    The Secret Life Of The Veronicas won't ever be considered anything more than what it is: utterly disposable, shamefully enjoyable, and transparently unoriginal music that, in a just world, will spend its brief moment in the sun entertaining the 11 year olds who wouldn't dare miss an episode of That's So Raven.
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