Slant Magazine's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?
    If her execution is sometimes lacking, though, the intensity of O'Connor's emotions when confronting the difficult issues in these songs is never in doubt.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Stills
    Marred by a lack of discipline, but bursting with a deliciously bleak, psychotropic allure, Stills's capricious spirit is ultimately its greatest strength and its most glaring fault.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Starting Over
    The album balances these syrupy moments with a batch of harder-edged tracks that showcase Stapleton’s biting electric guitar riffing but don’t do much to elevate his lyrics. Predictably, he just shifts his focus from love and tenderness to mild hedonism.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sidewalks
    Matt and Kim has lost a bit of their musical soul in attempting to reconcile their rough, campy sound with mass-appeal polish, and as a result, Sidewalks lacks a considerable amount of the bite of its predecessor.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Tomboy
    While Person Pitch rippled with punctuated sound, Tomboy is a cyclic plateau, a triumph of building algorithms that gradually add plushness and sonic density, but very little movement.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Sea
    It's easy to be fatigued by this album. The moment the rhythm breaks, as with "Closer," it's a struggle to reengage with music that is so intensely personal, so overwhelmingly desolate and yet somehow unmemorable.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wildcard
    While the latter half of Wildcard constitutes a bit of a shuffled deck of genres, there’s enough of a kick to the album as a whole to warrant its title, and Lambert certainly has the chops to sell it.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Spells
    Their songs are cute and brisk and, despite its foibles, Spells won't put anybody to sleep.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Trilla
    If Ross spouts myriad clunkers, his cadence is at least smooth and his voice cushiony, and so if it's possible to ignore the rapper and focus on the production, Trilla becomes an enjoyable listen.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Octahedron
    Octahedron is something of a new beginning for the band. It's uneven, sometimes clumsy, and a bit incomplete-sounding. But in spite of itself, the Mars Volta sounds exciting again.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Generation
    Audio Bullys don't waste energy giving any of their half-baked whims time to develop into songs.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ms. Kelly
    This time around, both the production and lyrics are stronger.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Graduation
    Graduation is worth note in the sense that it offers proof Kanye isn't on the five-year plan (The College Dropout registered in 2004), but I'm sort of looking forward to hearing the next album built around the disillusionment of his first entry-level position.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wig Out at Jagbags
    It's an uneasy détente in the continuing conflict between its creator's best and worst impulses.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bride Screamed Murder
    It's hard to be impressed by The Bride Screamed Murder, if only because it sticks so closely to the Melvins's routine, but jadedness aside, it's song-for-song as good as anything they've done in the last decade.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Revolution Radio
    On Revolution Radio, his more personal songs are far more endearing.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Warrior
    Most of Warrior sticks to Ke$ha's tried-and-true formula.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Spiral
    Wwhile Jaar and Harrington assemble a worthy array of mesmerizing sounds on Spiral, a larger, more compelling vision eludes them.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Party Ain't Over
    One of White's strengths has always been his ability to separate pastiche from a genuine aesthetic, and The Party Ain't Over is suffocated by its overly stylized, affected '50s put-on.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Radio Music Society
    She's the kind of artist whose skills absolutely merit a wide audience, but Radio Music Society proves that she hasn't quite figured out how to capture one.
    • 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.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Serpentina
    Though she once again flashes her talent for delivering emotionally wrought tales of heartbreak, Serpentina asserts its uniqueness in paradoxically conventional and unsurprising ways.
    • 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.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Amnesty (I)
    The album meets all goth-adjacent indie-dance needs squarely. It doesn't, however, ever transcend those needs.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Tourist
    The Tourist is a welcome shift from the amorphous electronica of the band’s last effort, but the haphazard pacing and overreliance on platitudes and generalizations prevent the album from fully achieving the emotional potency aimed for by Ounsworth’s trembling voice.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pink Friday
    It's this seeming lack of confidence, contradictory to the poise she shows elsewhere, which identifies the problems with Pink Friday, an often wobbly first effort that shows enormous promise.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Waterfall
    Their forays into synth-heavy late-'70s/early-'80s prog and arena rock are alternately inventive and bafflingly blockheaded.
Page: