Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,122 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: 1,692 out of 3122
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3122
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3122
3122 music reviews
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    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Brass Knuckles
    Brass Knuckles sounds less like the product of a fighter who's ready to go back into the ring than one who's stalling for time.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This is Me…Now
    To imbue that previous album with a timeless R&B quality, Lopez sought out veteran knob-twirler Bruce Swedien, who engineered and mixed classics like Michael Jackson’s Thriller. This Is Me…Now attempts to replicate that sound—and “Mad In Love” and “Not. Going. Anywhere.” both come close—but most of the album falls short of that lofty bar.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Postcards from Paradise
    With its chintzy synths, plastic horns, and feather-lite reggae (the stiff, dunderheaded "Right Side of the Road") and lifeless white-guy funk (the bleating "Bamboula"), the album might as well be made up of outtakes recorded 30 years ago.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Waking Up
    Ultimately, OneRepublic takes what all of those bands already do and pushes it to an even lower common denominator of slick, disposable melodrama.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    World Wide Rebel Songs
    His voice here, a husky and burly drawl not too far removed from Johnny Cash's, is a constant delight throughout and is seemingly tailor-made for launching his volleys of criticism and cries for activism.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    My Guilty Pleasure
    My Guilty Pleasure, which, if not boring, is too similar both to her own prior work and that of dozens of other European chanteuses who offer dark, icy ballads striving for breathy mystery.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Malice N Wonderland
    Malice N Wonderland (anxiously awaiting the sequel, Through the Hook N Grass) is overcrowded and undercrunk compared to its uneven but exponentially more ambitious predecessor, "Ego Trippin."
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Id
    Disappointedly, the glut of sampled soundbites, from an engine starting to gurgled vocals, tend to grate, distracting from the flow of the album, which also sadly lacks a standout track of the magnitude featured on previous Wise Blood releases.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A New Tide
    New Tide continues Gomez's struggle to accurately identify its sound after the initial boon of 1998's Mercury Prize, further wedging them into a narrow void between two unbecoming styles.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    ARTPOP
    It's Artpop's most naked, straightforward pop moments that are the album's most redemptive.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Dynamics
    They're especially fond of bad movie soundtracks from the '80s, and they show it on their sophomore effort, Dynamics, by making every song sound like the non-hits off those albums.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Winter Women / Holy Ghost Language School
    A bracing, willfully odd delight that rewards the patient and frustrates the short-fused.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Timez Are Weird These Days
    Timez Are Hard These Days is low-culture pulp with an unrealistic sense of its own sophistication.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Galore
    Galore makes for one of the most self-assured, strutting debuts in recent memory.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Moment Bends
    After several listens, it's still not entirely clear what Moment Bends is striving to be, or, for that matter, what its creators are trying to say with it.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    World From the Side of the Moon
    The World from the Side of the Moon is ultimately a polite, conservative album that balances Phillips's genuine affection for roots music with the commercial bent that comes with being part of the American Idol franchise.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Monsanto Years
    With no one on hand to quell his worst impulses, Young has gone preachy to the extreme, creating music that's morally precise, but sloppy in every other regard.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fasciinatiion
    Ultimately, Fasciination has enough passable triumphs mixed in with the misfires that the album is brought to a level of acceptable fluff.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Prism
    She largely sticks to her tried-and-true pop template, each song tailor-made for mass consumption with mixed results.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Queen of Me
    Ignoring how incohesive Queen of Me’s track list proves to be—the schmaltzy “Last Day of Summer,” for example, is a pedestrian reflection of young love that feels entirely out of place on an album filled with tracks related to embracing one’s present image—the songs themselves are frivolous and lack both sonic character and catchy hooks.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The 20/20 Experience 2 of 2
    Ultimately, 2 of 2 doesn't so much eclipse its predecessor as it settles into the format more believably.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Certified Lover Boy
    Drake comes across as an artist who’s bought into his mythos and persona a bit too ardently. ... The production on Certified Lover Boy is svelte yet airless, filled with lots of solemn piano lines and muted snares but absent of big flourishes or attempts at pop crossover. It’s an approach that’s likely aiming for tasteful restraint, but the effect is languid and rather directionless.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Dumb Luck
    The beats are so incongruous and unnecessary that the only way to read the album is as a quirky novelty.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded
    Tacked on to this mediocre rap album is a ghastly and desperate bid for a hit single that sees Minaj and producer RedOne snatching items from a veritable sale rack of tired Top 40 tricks and tossing them hastily over the most basic synth and drum-machine presets.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Long Road Out Of Eden
    They're proving that they're still commercially relevant, but the calculated, tepid Long Road Out of Eden isn't likely to influence another generation of musicians.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The E.N.D.
    Tere is only so much will.i.am can do to buoy a group that, lyrically, does an end-zone dance for successfully counting back from 10 and operates musically on an even playing field with this guy.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Fixin' The Charts, Volume One
    Like the band's name, which reeks of lazy jokery slapped onto a tiring concept, the album is trite, cute, and completely forgettable.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Future This
    The fumbling effort to harmonize their irreverence and earnestness leaves the Big Pink ultimately stranded, and the result is a hook-deficient album that wears on the ears after only a few listens.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Soul Sessions, Vol. 2
    Stone's strict adherence to formula plays against her here, as Vol. 2 feels overly familiar.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Thecontrollersphere
    thecontrollersphere may be an album of toss-offs, but they're proud ones, earning that status by virtue of robust exploration rather than any real deficiency.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Non-Fiction
    Non-Fiction is just blandly lazy about developing its representation of women, like it is about everything else. That lack of specificity renders the album ironically hindered by its own overt conception: a story album unable to sustain interest as fiction, non- or otherwise.
    • 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.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Strip Me
    It may not be the year's worst pop album, but Strip Me might just be the most exhausting and heavy-handed.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Joyful Noise
    An album that wears its disposability on its sleeve.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Thank You
    One or two of these songs might scan as tongue-in-cheek; nearly half an album's worth is a form of caricature, paying lip service to a millennial generation raised on hollow self-affirmations.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Almost Healed
    Considering that he does seem willing to experiment—primarily on the cerebral “B12,” whose beat is composed of shuttering snares, rapid bass distortions, and what sounds like a squeaky bed spring—it only amplifies the overall humdrum nature of Almost Healed.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Y Not
    Flush with broad sentiment and a messy spread of good feelings, Y Not finds the funniest Beatle on the outside of the joke.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Storytone
    Even though Storytone's gloppy Disney-movie strings and half-assed singing can be trying to sit through at times, the extent to which Young is willing to go to avoid resting on his laurels and making Even Longer After the Gold Rush is admirable. Namely, making an album that features almost none of the musical tropes listeners associate with Neil Young—or rock music in general.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sheezus
    Even when the songwriting is less than revolutionary, the performance holds your attention.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Jackman
    For the most part, Harlow operates in two contradictory modes: pedaling universal surface-level platitudes about relatable matters such as “the grind” or going for easy humble brags about receiving Sunday Service FaceTime calls from Justin Bieber.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Worried Well
    31Knots deserves encomium for their daring and ingenuity.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Invaders Must Die
    You'd think a group that leaned so heavily on their capacity to shock you off wouldn't wear this unabashed regression as well as they do.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    In a World Like This
    They seem stuck returning to the same predictable song structures and turgid melodies that made them famous in the first place.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Lucky Old Sun
    The album proves how vapid contemporary country can be: Very. Uh-huh.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Own the Night
    In the past, the trio has been able to elevate their unremarkable songwriting with spirited performances, but that isn't the case on Own the Night
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Secondhand Rapture
    MS MR's knack for durable hooks, in fact, is what keeps the album's gloomy goth-pop anchored.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Strangeland
    Strangeland sounds every bit as dated and overblown as the singles from Cher's "rock" phase.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Merry Christmas II You
    It's an attempted rewind. As such, it's probably one of the most revealing and none-too-flattering approximations of the mindset of a certain sort of adult's Christmas spirit.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Better Tomorrow
    A Better Tomorrow mostly proves that, no matter what conflicts may be simmering, there's enough sustained talent at work here to keep the usual material feeling fresh. It's forays outside that established template that make for the worst moments.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sings Elvis
    At this point in his own career, Danzig may still be able to approximate Elvis’s vocal range, but he fails to invest these songs with a unique vision.
    • 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.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fantasy Ride
    While Fantasy Ride doesn't include as many obvious peaks as Ciara's previous discs, the only major disaster is 'Like a Surgeon,' which is filled with creepy, ill-conceived metaphors for sex and should not to be confused with Weird Al's "Like a Virgin" parody. And that makes Fantasy Ride Ciara's smoothest ride to date.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Now What
    Doesn't stray far from the formula that brought her moderate success her first time out.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Talking To You, Talking To Me
    In looking beyond the confines of the often stuffy alt-country style of Rabbit and their underwhelming debut, Fire Songs, Leigh and Chandra come up with a sound that capitalizes on the richness of their vocal harmonies.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Funk Wav Bounces, Vol. 2
    Outside of a few standouts—like “Obsessed,” where breakout dancehall sensation Shenseea’s deft wordplay and bouncy timbre strike a nice contrast with Charlie Puth’s gravely tenor—there’s zero discernable identity to the album on a track-by-track basis.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Grey Oceans
    Undoubtedly containing their best material since their debut, Grey Oceans has the unfortunate inability to get all that material in the same place.
    • 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.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Magna Carta Holy Grail
    Jay proves less of a presence than ever, and his rapping is lifeless and anemic enough to skirt self-parody.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Tha Carter IV
    For the last four years there's been no greater force in hip-hop, but this isn't the way President Carter should be launching his campaign for a second term.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Songs About Girls
    will.i.am's lyrics are almost appallingly bad enough to retract my impending endorsement of the album.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Revelations
    Revelations is one step closer to their mutation into a more unified rock outfit.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Lessons In Love
    Lessons is largely comprised of heavy-beated, midtempo ballads—a trend that is, admittedly, preferable to the schmaltzy AC ballads of the '90s and the drippy baby-makin' jams of the recent past.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Limits of Desire
    Small Black successfully avoids a sophomore slump by harnessing their various sonic inclinations.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Back On My B.S.
    Busta is content to recycle well-worn material, hoping that enough polish and guest-star participation will wick away the album's dusty content. They don't, leaving B.S. as nothing more than filler.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    55 Cadillac
    It's hard to speak ill of W.K., whose insistent excitement is disarming, and though the album is a mess, it's shiftless meanderings further his ethos of refusing to take rock stardom seriously.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Stars Dance
    It boasts a harsher, edgier sound than that of her previous efforts; on every other front, it's a lazy, bloated, and occasionally offensive album that lacks any remnant of personality or creativity.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Low in High School
    Too often, though, Morrissey sticks with sturdy, stomping rock, its workmanlike construction bogged down by turgid lyrics.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    All Wet
    Despite the extensive coordination involved in featuring so many notable guests, All Wet too often feels half-baked, with Dupieux stirring up interesting ideas only to tire of them too quickly.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Punching Bag
    While Turner has often used his immediately distinctive voice to salvage some middling material, that isn't the case on Punching Bag.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Everyday Is Christmas
    Sia too often sounds like she's singing with a mouthful of Christmas candy.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rolling Papers
    As a whole, the verses on Rolling Papers are so boring that I'm not convinced that even Khalifa finds them interesting. They seem to exist solely to fill space between the hooks, which are sung, tolerably, by Khalifa himself
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Live from the Kitchen
    As with so many of the tracks on Live from the Kitchen, the material isn't good, and Yo Gotti doesn't strain himself trying to save it.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Grrr...
    It's hard to criticize an album that feels so good-natured, especially when unoriginality is hardly a mark against this kind of pop, but the band misses again with its lyrics, which, while generally clever, often stray into the realm of overstructured precocity.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Uncanney Valley
    It's an album that, smartly, neither embraces the past as empty nostalgia nor ignores the events of the past 12 years.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    So Amazin'
    The only personality displayed on So Amazin' is that of her contemporaries and predecessors.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Glitter
    While the album may have its flaws, it is for the most part a successful period piece that clearly displays Carey's appreciation for all that has come before her.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Hello Waveforms
    The album is distilled down to Orbit's basic, knob-twirling ambience but stripped of any and all personality.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Welcome To The Dollhouse
    Dollhouse is a solid collection of appropriately vacant party jams, slinky come-ons, and modern, urban balladry.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Under The Covers Vol. 2
    If Vol. 2 feels oddly rote, it'll still be interesting to hear how the pair might tackle the music of their actual contemporaries should they move into the '80s and '90s on subsequent outings.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    All Or Nothing
    The calculated monotony of All or Nothing's set isn't only predictable--it's downright boring. The entire album is stuck in the missionary position.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Violence Begets Violence
    There's just no reason for intelligent rap fans to inflict this album on themselves.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Demons Protected by Angels
    Nav struggles to stick out from his contemporaries, and when he’s paired with one of them, that problem is exacerbated.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    In The Dark
    In the Dark is an excessively fundamental album (guitars, drums, and bass, chorus-verse-chorus-that's all there), and viscerally, it's not too offensive.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    No Mercy
    Mostly, the album shows that T.I.'s lyrical side is not worthy of much attention.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Love to Love You Donna
    The lesson isn't so much "don't mess with perfection," but rather "don't bother trying to gild the lily of genius. To uneven ends, the collection of newly commissioned remixes in the tribute compilation Love to Love You Donna dance around that notion.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    LP1
    This a wholly acceptable effort, but it makes it clear that Stone is stalling out a mere decade into what looked at first like a promising career. It's time for her to throw the throwback shtick aside and really figure out what kind music she'd like to make.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Beta Love
    Beta Love is a fine album for the dance floor, a poor one for the headphones, and a disconcerting new direction for the band.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Relapse
    The further Relapse strays from narrative veracity, the more one suspects his fanbase feels he's tapping into his bottomless well for horror-show grandstanding.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Happy In Galoshes
    Galoshes is a fascinating mess.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Big Dreams & High Hopes
    While it's easy to wish that Ingram took the concept of artistry more seriously, this album makes it clear that he's comfortable with the compromises he's made. He may be capable of more, but Hopes certainly isn't bad for what it is.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Leave This Town
    Chris Daughtry has a real band that plays really serious songs, which are, almost without exception, really, really bad.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Seventh Seal
    Suffice to say there's nothing very compelling here, though Seventh Seal is made interesting by the paucity of Rakim's material.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    La Liberacion
    Never as smartly entertaining as Peaches or amusingly stupid as Ke$ha, CSS is caught in the middling center, and so is La Liberacion.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Midnight Memories
    The tracks may recall "Pour Some Sugar on Me," but their lyrics are still all "I'm not scared of love/'Cause when I'm not with you I'm weaker," so essentially the album's potentially nastiest tracks come off as a glorified Halloween costume act. More believable are the moments when they lay off the hard sell.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Night Train [EP]
    Night Train derails due to a lack of the hooks and melodies that made anyone listen to Keane in the first place. The record comes across as less of a change in direction than a full-on identity crisis.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    In This Light & On This Evening
    Despite embracing their electronic influences with much gusto on these more inspired outings, though, the record's middle stretch feels both forced and forgettable.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Echo
    Whether it's a chugging slow burner or an amped-up club jam, the material here is pretty unimaginative, and not a single song approaches the formidable 'Bleeding Love.'
    • 59 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Endlessly
    Two years ago, Duffy had us begging her for mercy, but after 10 tracks of Endlessly, I was just begging her to stop.
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