Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,119 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: 1,689 out of 3119
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3119
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3119
3119 music reviews
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    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Not Music
    It's an aspect of the band that surely deserves recognition, and Not Music, uneven and understated, is its fitting epitaph.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    All I Ever Wanted
    Taken in isolation and out of the context of the album as a whole--say, on the radio--nearly all of these songs work well enough, despite the production choices that don't always play to Clarkson's strengths and which draw too much attention to themselves.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sounds Of The Universe
    They might not be affecting musical culture the way they did in their prime, but at least half of their latest effort is as strong as anything they've written.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Gravity the Seducer
    Gravity the Seducer is by some measure more focused than Ladytron's previous efforts. Or a little more fatigued. It's sometimes a little hard to tell when the music is so resolutely detached and android-vague.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dos!
    While the album is agreeably jejune in a way that recalls the band's Dookie era, only a handful of its tracks are truly essential additions to the Green Day catalogue.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Different Me
    Like Blige, Cole luckily possesses the vocal talent to carry the album through weaker moments.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Jessica Rabbit
    Jessica Rabbit‘s greater emphasis on melody, along with its more diverse, if occasionally too random, structure, clearly comes from savvier musicians who are more aware of their own tendencies and flaws, even if they can’t always overcome them.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bring It Back
    A cohesive whole that bursts at the seams with a barely contained exuberance, Bring It Back finds a happy family unleashing sonic sunshine, spilling out of the speakers with unchecked abandon.
    • 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.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Peace And Love
    If the album would benefit from more variety in its tempo and range, Peace & Love is, at the very least, a successful mood piece that proves how well maturity suits Hatfield.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    "Awaken, My Love!"
    A maddening ride with an authenticity problem, Awaken, My Love! finds Glover confusing his idols for muses.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Return Of Dr. Octagon
    The Return isn't the return we were waiting for, but it's another explosive collection of anti-hits from hip-hop's most unique voice.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Strays
    Strays continues in the classic rock-inspired direction of 2020’s That’s How Rumors Get Started, breaking from the neo-traditional country music that put Price on the map. The arrangements employ slide guitar and keyboards—even xylophone on “Time Machine”—with a punchy yet spacious mix, but the album flaunts its influences a bit too transparently.
    • 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
    • 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.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Witness
    The album lacks both the big hooks that propelled Perry's past hits up the charts and the conceptual and sonic focus to give her pop real purpose.
    • 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.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Midwinter Graces
    As a subversion of religious themes, Midwinter misses the mark entirely; as a traditional holiday album courtesy of one of Christianity's most astute pop cultural critics, it's an ironic, pleasantly competent oddity.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Planet Her
    With the liveliest songs bookending the album, though, the middle stretch of Planet Her gets swallowed in a celestial soup of midtempo R&B and trap trends like the pitched-down vocals on the narcotic “Been Like This.”
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Evil Spirits
    While Evil Spirits isn't a late-career masterpiece, Visconti's production chops have at least ensured a warm and rich listening experience.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Art Official Age
    Art Official Age's main takeaway is that His Royal Badness has started to make peace with being past his prime.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Merry Christmas, Baby
    Verve chairman David Foster, who serves as arranger and producer, demonstrates laudable discernment in choosing the album's 13 songs, and the same goes for the requisite cameos: Cee Lo Green, Mary J. Blige, and Trombone Shorty provide little boosts of energy to Stewart along the way.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Voyager
    Too many songs here feel slackly constructed, and the overall musical mood only rarely connects with its lyrical content, leaving The Voyager as a moderately successful testimonial effort.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Long Wave
    Love songs and brazen nostalgia are the album's bread and butter, and it's hard not to be drawn in by the comfort of Lynne's layer upon layer of pleasant melodic attention.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Love After War
    Though his feathery coos and whispers have long been his calling card, Thicke spends most of Love After War singing in full voice, with mixed results.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Start and Complete
    Somehow, with an expansive medley of guitar licks and swirling organ solos, everything clicks into place here and the band settles into an irresistible groove. Unfortunately, though, that isn't enough to stop one from hoping Taylor returns to his day job sooner rather than later.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    It's a Corporate World
    Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.'s dedication to branding has earned them plenty of attention, but on It's a Corporate World, their music too often feels like an afterthought.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Camp
    The overall result is a messy jumble that, in its inability to find a consistent tone, ends up in a place that hasn't really been explored before.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mondo Cane
    Patton has spoken about his interest in revivifying and reinterpreting these songs, but here they sound mostly like Patton songs, affected by the same fascination with the quirks and power of his voice that colors most of his work.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Clear Lake Forest [EP]
    The previous six songs sounded like they were made by a group of guys who'd spent years absorbing the rock music of the '60s deeply into their bones. "Linda's Gone" feels like it was made for stoned 16 year olds who just discovered The Velvet Underground & Nico for the first time.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Speak Now
    Speak Now is no pop masterpiece, though it's sure to be hailed as such in some circles.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    So Far Gone [Mixtape]
    For a beginner, even one whose big-time endorsements seem to have cemented a promising start, So Far Gone is a pretty brave effort, and Drake's ability to juggle standard bling-and-bluster narratives with intelligent narratives bodes well for his future.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Looking 4 Myself
    Unavoidably uneven but fresh.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Long.Live.A$AP
    So like A$AP's debut, Long. Live. A$AP is an intermittently dazzling collection of slinky, mutated R&B helmed by an unsteady, half-interested voice.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Theater Of The Mind
    Luda has suggested he wanted this album to have a cinematic through line, maybe in order to consolidate his diversified media representations, but Theater doesn't cohere in a manner that would satisfy anyone short of Paul Haggis, or anyone who has listened to an album by Prince Paul or Madvillain, for that matter.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mission Bell
    Mission Bell [is] a pleasant record, but Lee should be aiming for more than just "pleasant" by this point in his career.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Funk Wav Bounces, Vol. 1
    By showing little interest in challenging the clichés of men fixated on conquest and status symbols and women focused on “feels,” Harris undermines what could have been an inspired creative reinvention.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Yeezus
    From a production perspective, it's a smash. The beats remain head-spinning. But 'Ye's lyrics feel lazy rather than merely drawled, and he's seeking social-commentary cred that he hasn't earned--a posture that can't help but grate.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Love Is Dead
    The formulas employed throughout Love Is Dead are often trite but the undeniable excitement and awe with which she approaches them is just as frequently refreshing.
    • 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.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pretty.Odd.
    Every song on Pretty. Odd. is played and sung with the exuberant delivery of Rent on Broadway. But when the hooks are this good, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Beautiful Imperfection
    The compartmentalization of its exotic elements confirms Beautiful Imperfection as a ploy launched at a specific target market, listeners who want to be gently and non-confrontationally challenged, able to enjoy Asa's spongy neo-soul with the stranger portions served on the side.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dos
    Dos works as great background music, but simply isn’t consistently engaging. On the other hand, it succeeds as an exercise in minimalist rock deconstructivism, so choose your poison.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    When You See Yourself
    With the band’s musicianship in peak form, it’s Caleb’s songwriting that limits the album’s impact. Marriage and fatherhood have expanded his inner monologue beyond fratboy misogyny and rock-star posturing. But he still doesn’t have much of interest to say.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Spot the Difference
    The game at the core of Spot the Difference may be mostly meaningless, but it tricks us into a different kind of comprehension, granting a new face to songs that now no longer seem as stale.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Shine
    Unfortunately, these effervescent uptempo tracks give way to same-y filler including 'Back In Love' and 'In the Rain,' but songs like 'Pretty Please (Love Me)' are sure to appeal to fans of retro-revisionists Amy Winehouse, Duffy, and even Gnarls Barkley.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Magpie and the Dandelion
    Too many edges have been sanded off the brothers' music, and whether the blame lies with Rubin's influence or the accelerated writing pace, the result is an album devoid of the band's usual charming lyrics and adroit melodies.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Theology
    Unlike many other Christian rock albums, Theology is for the oppressed, not the oppressors.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    High As Hope
    Welch widens the song's [Hunger's] scope from a specific personal battle with an eating disorder to a broader emphasis on universal craving for love and acceptance, but trite statements about the destructive nature of fame and drugs are emblematic of the album's overall tendency to retreat into sweeping, generalized sentiments. Welch strikes a more effective balance between the personal and the universal on “Big God.”
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sweetheart of the Sun
    While it may not be as perfect a pop album as All Over the Place or Different Light, the Bangles get an awful lot right on Sweetheart of the Sun.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fab Four Suture
    Simultaneously a structural free-for-all and a glossy collection of diverse material.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Countrypolitan Duets
    When the album is less successful, it's generally because her collaborators let her down or because she's played it too safe and too deliberately tasteful.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Desire Lines
    By no means their best effort, Desire Lines is nevertheless a pleasurable listen.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Love On The Inside
    What gives the duo character and what salvages the album, then, are frontwoman Jennifer Nettles's performances and a handful of cuts that rise above the middlebrow songwriting and production.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    True Sadness
    While the experiments in modern techniques here vary in effectiveness, they at least spur the band to capture the spontaneity and jubilance of their often rapturous live shows--a spirit that often gets lost when they pack their albums with painfully sincere, stone-faced balladry. In fact, it's when the Avetts lean back on their standard neo-bluegrass style that True Sadness is at its dullest.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Unplugged
    An abbreviated "You Don't Know My Name," truly a producer's creation, falls flat here, and she treats covers of Gladys Knight's "If I Was Your Woman" and "Every Little Bit Hurts" like vocal auditions and not the blank canvases of an interpretive artist.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Kintsugi
    Where Kintsugi falters is in its sacrifice of momentum for structure.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Catastrophist
    Too often, The Catastrophist leaves its themes in the lurch, spinning its wheels when it should be charging forward.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sometimes, Forever
    Though Sometimes, Forever is more sonically diverse and lyrically cohesive than Soccer Mommy’s previous albums, its lyrical themes and melodies aren’t nearly as indelible.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    AIM
    AIM finds M.I.A. content to simply make an album, not craft a definitive statement to punctuate her career.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Loved Me Back to Life
    Dion's cover of Janis Ian's rueful "At Seventeen" comes off less like a lament for childhood dreams that didn't come to pass and more like a lilting word of advice from someone old enough to know better, which is precisely the zone where the album excels: when Dion drops the act and embraces her manic, Hallmark card-brandishing guru of schmaltz.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Liked It Better When You Had No Heart
    The whip-smart hooks and spot-on production on Heart mask Walker's vocal deficiencies, which might otherwise be a more serious liability.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    My Favourite Faded Fantasy
    Bombast, buoyed by self-doubt, gets in the way of the finer sentiments, especially in the album's over-inflated middle. But subtle pleasures can still be found.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    awE naturalE
    THEESatisfaction can't be accused of not bringing themselves, but it's a shame to imagine the album awE naturalE could've been if they'd just brought more.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    American Classic
    If not on the same level as "Stardust," American Classic nonetheless finds Nelson sounding as soulful and youthful as he has in years.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dye It Blonde
    Dye It Blonde may be a more accomplished production than Smith Westerns, but it's also a roundly enervating creation, drained of the fuzzy promise that defined the band's debut.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    There's No Leaving Now
    While There's No Leaving Now doesn't accomplish anything new, it never drags down the upbeat timbre of the singer's attractive moodiness.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Corinne Bailey Rae
    Rae's amiable competence marks her as a talent worth keeping tabs on, but the strength of Corinne Bailey Rae is fleeting, a triumph of mood over tangible substance.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Face Control
    Fans of off-kilter pop will enjoy at least a few of the stronger cuts, but too much of Face Control sounds like the unfinished blueprint of a much better album.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Fall
    Following "Not Too Late," a more nakedly ambitious effort, and her terrific side project with the Little Willies, it's disappointing that The Fall aims for growth but feels so reigned in and restrained.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Free
    The album may not have any standout hooks to give him another inescapable radio hit, but it does suggest that DeGraw has finally found a style that suits him well.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Streetlights
    Meaningfulness is a noticeable rarity on Streetlights, and the absence of a talented foil like DJ Quik is felt throughout, but the album nonetheless basks in breezy contentment.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bottle It In
    This affinity for aimless trains of thought applies to the whole of Bottle It In, an album where Vile is quick to conjure up a bevy of interesting images or ideas but struggles to find a compelling way to contain them.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    No Line On The Horizon
    Such is the album as a whole: a compromise between the experimental and the pedestrian that makes for an excursion almost as tricky as walking a tightrope stretched between two distant towers.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Light the Horizon
    This is a solid album with a truly woeful centerpiece.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Laurel Hell
    ["Should’ve Been Me" is] a fascinating, fresh take on relationship dynamics that makes much of the rest of Laurel Hell sound boilerplate by comparison.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    4 Your Eyez Only
    4 Your Eyez Only‘s low-key production, favoring muted live-band grooves, occasionally reaches a boil, but mostly it provides scaffolding for Cole to rap. He does the heavy lifting without ever doing anything flashy--or, some might say, anything especially interesting.
    • 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.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Reggie
    Yet for all the patchy unevenness that comes out in places, the album is also a consistently likable effort.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Battle Born
    With their simultaneous emphasis on the pedal-to-the-metal triumphalism of rock's yesteryear and their ultimate submission to tomorrow's grinding machinery, the Killers' new album may as well be called Battle Born This Way.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fool
    If Fool doesn’t quite measure up to Jackson’s sterling early work, it’s still more concise and punchy than 2015’s Fast Forward and less self-consciously arty than his late-‘80s and ‘90s work.
    • 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.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Thunderheist
    It's erotic and in your face without being campy.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Music For Men
    It's hard to hear Men as anything but a letdown, the sound of a genuinely talented band struggling to take the proverbial next step.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wilder Mind
    Wilder Mind may be something altogether worse than divisive: unremarkable.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Savage Hills Ballroom
    On Savage Hills Ballroom, Powers seems much too concerned with slick sophistication that doesn't quite suit him.
    • 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.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Interpol
    Interpol may not be quite self-parody, but it's also not the sort of thing that's going to make them hip again anytime soon. Not that they would even care.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Necessary Evil
    The pastiche of styles on Necessary Evil is quintessential Debbie Harry, but diamonds in the rough aside, it also makes for a wildly uneven, often jarring collection of songs.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    My Everything
    Nothing else, however, on Grande's sophomore effort, My Everything, fulfills the promise of those two singles ["Problem" and "Bang Bang"].
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Under A Billion Suns
    Under A Billion Suns is, by a wide margin, the tightest Mudhoney has ever sounded on record. It's all the more unfortunate, then, that the album's lyrics bait the comparison to... Green Day.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    You Can Have What You Want
    The album's somnolence isn't as much atmospheric as it is stultifying. The production is so thick that the songs that do work.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Love Hallucination
    At nearly 38 minutes, the album stays around long enough to where its effervescent nature starts to serve as a hindrance rather than a strength, where the age-old idiom of “in one ear and out the other” begins to ring truer than ever before.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Attention Deficit Domination
    The album never sounds like the work of a proper band, since there's no actual interplay between any of the instrumental performances.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Time To Love
    It sounds better than any album that begins with background vocalists crooning "Moooo…moo-moo-moooo" probably has any right to, and contains at least a couple lo-fi AC ballad keepers.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Indrupendence Day
    While InDRUpendence Day may play at toughness, adhering to today's fashions as completely as the group did to the simpler whims of the '90s, it never postures.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Everything I Thought It Was
    With an abundance of material, one could never fault Everything I Thought I Was for being too conservative, but it’s an all too clear case of quantity over quality, resulting in quickly diminishing returns.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fly International Luxurious Art
    Fly International Luxurious Art maintains some level of general interest through a stacked guest list, with visitors as varied as Snoop Dogg, A$AP Rocky, Busta Rhymes, and 2 Chains, but none of them do more than distract from the overall atmosphere of paltry unevenness.
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