Spin's Scores

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For 4,248 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 50% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 47% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 To Pimp A Butterfly
Lowest review score: 0 They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,046 out of 4248
  2. Mixed: 1,147 out of 4248
  3. Negative: 55 out of 4248
4248 music reviews
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    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Platinum
    Both "Smokin' and Drinkin'," featuring Little Big Town, and the rowdy "Somethin' Bad," her and Carrie Underwood's retort to bro-country, feel forced. These are small missteps on an otherwise solid outing.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    LCD Soundsystem
    He's got an excellent ear, a savvy way with hooks, and an untrained voice that knows its limitations. [Mar 2005, p.88]
    • Spin
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bakesale [Deluxe Edition]
    Bakesale was the catchy, coherent 1994 breakthrough--a missing link between Nick Drake and Sonic Youth.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Blade
    A couple of wooly moments aside, Monroe’s third album, The Blade, continues a remarkable hot streak for writers Luke Laird, Jessi Alexander, Chris Stapleton, and Monroe herself.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Deeper than Sky
    Without truly breaking any paradigms, the well-respected veterans in VHÖL do all kinds of things well that evade heavier peers, never relying too hard on the math or surprises for a thrill. If anything, its 42 minutes fly by so smoothly you’re surprised to discover there wasn’t a hitch or even a dead spot.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cosmogramma
    Warm and inviting, his latest opus occasions swan dives into future soul, funky dubstep ("Dance of the Pseudo Nymph"), Theo Parrish–styled house ("Do the Astral Plane"), and astonishingly, Sun Ra jazz ("Arkestry").
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Koi No Yokan
    There's definitely something welcoming about Koi No Yokan's comparative purity, in the band's understanding of how little they need.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shields
    [A] beautiful if vague fourth studio album.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    LP1
    In its menacing incandescence, LP1 sounds like nothing else in the world right now.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006 Retrospective
    Barring "Blade Runner," the best pop art by a former adman. [June 2008, p.119]
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Stone Rollin'
    Stone Rollin's rhythm-and-blues revival can't obscure Saadiq's songwriting talents.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Futureheads
    They add enough kinks to the old herky-jerk formulae to make their half-hour in the sun blaze by like nobody's business. [Dec 2004, p.124]
    • Spin
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Light for Attracting Attention
    It’s rare when two creative forces like Yorke and Greenwood step away from their still-active primary band and create something this worthwhile on its own merits, and who knows how, if at all, the experience will influence Radiohead’s canon moving forward. No matter what happens, A Light for Attracting Attention is a most welcome vibe flip.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    With a Hammer
    Injecting a familiar formula with a justified newfound seriousness, With a Hammer further cements Yaeji’s place as one of the most valuable producers active in electronic pop today.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Harps And Angels
    He's still way too fond of show-tune orchestration, and then there's the tossed-off corny stuff, but the orneriness of Newman's now-64-year-old wit makes George Carlin seem like Dane Cook. [Sep 2008, p.120]
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I See The Sign
    Sam Amidon works similarly quirky alchemy here [as Moby did a decade ago], reinventing public-domain songs (plus one modern-day ringer) as rustic mood music for watching distant super-novas explode.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Empros
    Though crunching at their heaviest, the band still shines brightest when they edge toward indie-rock approachability.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Phantom Thread [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
    Greenwood’s previous PTA scores provided feral atmosphere first and foremost, or in Inherent Vice’s case, a convex take on classic Hollywood film noir incidental music. Phantom Thread’s score, on the other hand, feels like another main character or storytelling voice in the film. Greenwood’s abilities have never served one of Anderson’s films better, or proved so integral to its power.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    DAYTONA
    The album is claustrophobic and unrelenting, but also intensely exhilarating in its brevity.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Boxer
    High drama of the blunt, uncliched sort unheard since the Afghan Whigs' '90s heyday. [Jun 2007, p.94]
    • Spin
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Some Rap Songs
    The album reasserts his status as a uniquely fascinating rapper. On Some Rap Songs, he’s making the most adventurous and exciting music of his career so far.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    American Dream
    American Dream is good enough to dispel all of those concerns. The passing of their imperial phase has left them like any formerly Teflon hipster: honest, and ready to move on from whatever they found at the heart of the party. Admitting for real that they’d lost their edge is one of the most interesting things they could’ve done, and hopefully they keep making more records after this one.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    All Hands On The Bad One
    Despite the signs of sonic evolution, All Hands is mostly cut from the same cloth as its predecessors, with the record's heat generated from the braiding of lead singer Tucker's histrionic vocals and Brownstein's deadpan backup and everywhere-at-once guitar.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Wind
    It's not gallows humor, just the most natural thing in the world. [Oct 2003, p.113]
    • Spin
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Cee-Lo Green Is The Soul Machine
    It's a testament to both Cee-Lo's vision and the producers' artistic sympathy that the collaborations maintain a coherent, vintage R&B vibe. [Mar 2004, p.91]
    • Spin
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Acid Rap
    His new mixtape's best moments gain their power from such good-idea/bad-idea indulgences and batty risk-taking.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    David Comes To Life
    It's one 
of the most overly complicated hard-rock records 
of the past ten years. It's also one of the best.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Surf
    If you’re not feeling Surf right away, stick with it long enough and it just might bring you to its wavelength.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Lost In the Dream
    If Slave Ambient represented a breakthrough, this one is an out-and-out star-maker that should rank among the year's best albums.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blue Rev
    Across 14 tracks, there is no obvious hit to match the enduring success of 2014’s “Archie, Marry Me” or 2017’s “Dreams Tonite,” each touting a cool 70 million listens on Spotify — massive numbers for a band that began in the outlands of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. But each song has its place and raison d’etre amid this fully realized batch of tunes detailing heartache, lonesome fury and wistful wonderment.
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