Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,117 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: 1,687 out of 3117
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3117
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3117
3117 music reviews
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    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Dear Science,
    TV on the Radio have finally made an album that someone other than hyper-analytical music critics might actually enjoy.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    RTJ2
    RTJ2 is the rare sequel that bests the beloved original in almost every facet.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    St. Elsewhere
    As we approach the halfway point of 2006, it's unlikely that a more vivid or arresting debut will drop this year, marking St. Elsewhere as not only an audacious accomplishment, but one of the year's best.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Ys
    The album is a precious--in every sense of the word--masterpiece.
    • 98 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Fetch the Bolt Cutters
    On a purely musical level, it’s a bold experiment in pop craft, a collection of songs on which Apple stretches her talents in adventurous new directions. ... Fetch the Bolt Cutters is Apple’s most timely—and timeless—effort yet.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Things Take Time, Take Time
    A fully realized crystallization of her melodic instincts and the themes that she’s previously explored. She wrote most of the album in 2020, holed up alone in a Melbourne apartment while riding out the Covid-19 pandemic, and as such a sense of solitariness permeates its 10 songs.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Merriweather Post Pavilion
    Soulful and almost structurally flawless (it's the most minor of complaints that the middle run of songs are all about a half-minute too long), Merriweather finds one of the most talented, most creative pop bands finally and gloriously figuring it all out.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
    The effort to canonize My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy as one of hip-hop's all-time high points is already underway, and I'm confident that Kanye's new album can weather the backlash that all potential classics must confront.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Illinois
    From its framing gimmick and its anti-folk folk songwriting to its he-has-to-be-kidding song titles and its show-offy instrumentation, Illinois should reduce to a simple stunt performance. That it's pop-art of the highest caliber, instead, cements Stevens as one of the most vital voices in music today.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Love
    It's a dazzling, expansive experience that ranks among the year's best.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
    Brash, insightful, wry, and, above all else, smart, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend confirms that Miranda Lambert is far more than just the latest in a long line of bad girls: She's a country music legend in the making, and the most vital artist Music Row has produced in a generation.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Treats
    Even though it's as ambitious an exercise in freeform genre-splicing and pure, amp-blowing volume as has been attempted in the past few years, it's always at least as fun as it is smart, taking the three great pillars of guilty-pleasure music (deafening arena-rock swagger, sugary pop hooks, and delirious dance beats) and rolling them together into a singularly appealing cacophony.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Plastic Beach
    Though it's only to be considered "pop" in the most obscure sense, and it goes to show Albarn has a pretty warped concept of the term, Plastic Beach provides the almighty shakeup that pop music has needed for some time.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness [Deluxe Edition]
    The songs from the Mellon Collie sessions speak not only to the quality of that abundance, but also to the Smashing Pumpkins' status as some of the most creative and successful purveyors of sensitive but cerebral art rock.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards
    Each orphan stands proudly on its own as the vestige of an old idea or a forgotten path—proving that even Waits's missteps still manage to point in the right direction.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    None Shall Pass
    There's actual substance to unpack in the album, but Aesop's indomitable presence on record and his knotty co-production with Blockhead and El-P make what he says incidental to how he says it.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    There Is Love In You
    Less ambient and more grounded than the preceding tracks, it's the one song on the album you wouldn't want to hear at the party; rather, it's a subtle, evocative slow-burner best saved for the cool air and the long walk home.
    • 99 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Music from Big Pink [50th Anniversary]
    It's this funhouse-mirror approach to the past—backward-looking but never self-consciously “retro”—that makes Music from Big Pink feel truly timeless. This goes double for this anniversary edition, which features a revelatory new mix supervised by veteran engineer Bob Clearmountain. His work brings a feeling of presence to the album.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Pixel Revolt
    It fully merits high praise as both the best work of Vanderslice's career and easily one of the best albums of what has been a refreshingly strong year for music.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    White Chalk
    White Chalk, wholly self-contained and uncompromised, is a work of literary depth and complexity.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Premonition
    Once again, they infuse their brand of punk with a hefty dose of pop songcraft and meticulous production, courtesy of producer Jesse Gander, Premonition conjures a dark, enticing dynamism unparalleled even by their own extraordinary output.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Who Kill
    A tremendous leap forward from Tune-Yards' previous efforts, w h o k i l l proves that Garbus isn't just a brainy artiste with a killer voice, but an event, someone to take notice of, a new center of gravity in the musical underground.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Stay Positive
    It is not only the Hold Steady's best record, but acts as a culmination of all of the ideas, stories, musical paths and character journeys that they've so pointedly led us down before.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Emerald City
    Both on a song-for-song basis and as singular cohesive work, Emerald City demonstrates Vanderslice's masterful control of craft at every structural level and his unrivaled ability to make the political personal.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Black Messiah
    D'Angelo's assuredly delivered a great album, one that, even in these nascent days of our receiving it, already feels like something that's always been, that's necessary, and that was probably worth any wait.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Bitte Orca
    They've done it here, and Bitte Orca is close to a masterpiece.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea
    It is no small feat to write melodies as memorable as Berman's exceedingly quotable lyrics, but on each song here, he does. Lookout Mountain is an outstanding work of art.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Post-Nothing
    Maybe its sunstroke, but I feel compelled to suggest that two young Canucks trading in sludgy punk-pop tunes may have crafted a rock album that gets closer to perfection than any other album this year so far.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    One Day
    Although it has some thematic overlap with Glass Boys, One Day amalgamates its disparate lyrical and musical ideas, as well as the confidence of its performances and compositions, into a novel, thrilling 40 minutes.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Boxer
    Boxer works best as a mood piece; it's also the first National release to work as a whole, and it's the best album I've heard so far this year.
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