Sputnikmusic's Scores
- Music
For 2,388 reviews, this publication has graded:
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53% higher than the average critic
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2% same as the average critic
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45% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.3 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 72
Highest review score: | The Seer | |
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Lowest review score: | The Path of Totality |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1,768 out of 2388
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Mixed: 542 out of 2388
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Negative: 78 out of 2388
2388
music
reviews
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- Critic Score
If we got 10-12 solid tracks in the vein of “16 Carriages” or “II Most Wanted”, Cowboy Carter could have been a slam dunk. Unfortunately, the record stands as a bloated mess that doesn’t fully know what it wants to be.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted Apr 3, 2024
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- Critic Score
Although there exist exceptions, like the gorgeous “Used” (in which Monroe drops this corker: “Used, like a house where a family lived until they died and there’s a soul in every room”), the record as a whole slithers into a sort of unsatisfying middle ground.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted Mar 12, 2013
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Afflicted in the end with a touch of offputting sameyness, LEGACY! LEGACY! nonetheless has remarkable staying power and a gracious ambition to in some small way materially improve the world of which it is an image. Aesthetic or not, that's worth something.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted May 16, 2019
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- Critic Score
It’s the first track that commands serious momentum, though the closer “50/50” isn’t too shabby either. ... Its novelty burns off by the halfway mark, but there’s a strong sense that here, at least, was a direction worth doubling down on. Kudos. The rest of the record is an over-calculated mess.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted Sep 22, 2022
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A good-to-great set of songs, that would make a fire mixtape if you cut the energy-draining bores "RUNITUP" and "I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO DANCE"? A half-finished classic album, powered by reckless abandon and thrilling energy, but too scattershot to make it over the finish line? It's both, and neither, and I don't know, man. ... Call Me If You Get Lost is too busy shooting itself in the foot and calling it coming down to earth to be complete, but following along with its fragmented course down is still an exercise worth engaging in.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted Jun 28, 2021
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Heaven to a Tortured Mind eliminates the diversity and nuance of its predecessor in favour of underdeveloped avant-pop.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted Apr 27, 2020
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There's a huge promise to Fleet Foxes, one that can't be ignored, but Pecknold and the rest of the guys haven't tapped into it yet.- Sputnikmusic
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- Critic Score
This Is A Photograph is an album which aims for an impressively grand vision, but rarely hits the mark. In its less grandiose moments, though, it’s frequently successful, providing the listener with a number of lovely folk tunes.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted May 18, 2022
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Like Radiohead and Panda Bear before Bon Iver this year, it's not a problem that Vernon hasn't created music in the same style of the last successful album: the problem is that he isn't able to make that creative jump to a new aesthetic, or direction, successfully at all.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted May 25, 2011
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Koi No Yokan is a passable alt-rock/metal album by a band that is capable of much more.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted Nov 21, 2012
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It's hard to slate Harps and Angels too much, because the music is actually quite good in places and it's nowhere near bad enough to be a chore to listen to.- Sputnikmusic
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True to both character and the album’s palette it may be, but it’s far from her strongest statement and fails to carry a set of songs that all too often need a push in the right direction.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted May 17, 2021
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For lack of a better word, it’s dull. The subtext of this record is rich for those firmly invested in Swift’s personal narratives but, perhaps for the first time, outright irrelevant for anyone else.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted Oct 23, 2022
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It's clearly her best album, but it's also her most frustrating, because it really drives home her potential and hints at so much greatness without ever truly delivering it.- Sputnikmusic
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In the end, Fucked Up aren't nearly as good as Refused were thought to be, but hey, Refused aren't even as good as they were supposed to be, so Fucked Up may yet be remembered as revolutionary.- Sputnikmusic
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For all the razzle-dazzle of its surprise release, I’m struck by hard it is to draw a lasting overall impression from the record. It adds little to the reinvention established by Folklore and doesn’t deepen her work within this sound in particularly convincing terms. I want to credit her at least for keeping up an industrious streak, but this alone would seem patronising.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted Dec 12, 2020
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Mirror Reaper is a challenging album to listen to on multiple fronts. On the one hand, it is oppressive and deep music, wrought with heavy themes and even heavier aesthetics. On the other hand, it challenges the listener's patience with overcooked ideas that threaten to spoil what is otherwise an immaculately produced record.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted Oct 23, 2017
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I can't help but admire the wondrous technicality of the band members, but I wonder if they could have deployed it in a more tasteful way.- Sputnikmusic
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The result is an album that is being asphyxiated by an extremely strong hand, and that proves to be the death of it all.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted May 13, 2014
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It’s reductive and doesn’t help really anyone by saying the hooks just aren’t there on the level they used to be, but it’s telling that I searched the rest of Currents in vain for anything as immediate as the crashing waterfall of multitracked vocals on the chorus to “The Moment.”- Sputnikmusic
- Posted Jul 15, 2015
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As it stands, it’s just another Vampire Weekend album, except the songs are less catchy and more sterile this time around.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted May 13, 2013
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- Critic Score
eternal sunshine, at 35 minutes, doesn’t leave much of an impression, its titular statement of pretty regard for memories lost and time regained ultimately registering not as a platform for yearning nor as a vehicle for regret nor as ironic joke nor social commentary but as the broadest possible thread of aesthetic inspiration for pretty regard for such immaterial concepts as memories, time, gain, loss. The songwriting is the main culprit- Sputnikmusic
- Posted Mar 11, 2024
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Tha Carter III is scattershot, which oddly strengthens its faults, as if any lull in quality means that the next batch of producers can just reset the formula.- Sputnikmusic
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There are plenty of loveable moments, sure, but they tend to congeal like sand passing through your fingers.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted Jul 20, 2017
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As it stands, Us lies at a precarious crossroads of self-help preaching and black history compendium, succeeding at neither and exposing a serious disconnect between lyricist and producer.- Sputnikmusic
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Ultimately, Harry's House doesn’t really go anywhere or do much of anything at all. It breezes by with songs that seemed designed for the festival circuit and that are interesting and experimental enough that they’ll fit with Harry’s aesthetic without being too alienating for radio, almost as if he and his team couldn’t decide which was more important to them, so they went with neither.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted May 31, 2022
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Ab-Soul performs well in this complementary role and shows how versatile he really is, almost a west-coast amalgam of Brown and Kanye West, yet still a slightly weaker and more inconsistent sum than the parts.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted May 25, 2012
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Overall, The Nothing is a huge step back for the band. The Paradigm Shift and The Serenity of Suffering were far from perfect, but they rode a line that balanced a contemporary vision with their stapled characteristics. This tries dearly to be nostalgic yet fresh, but the finished product just comes across forced and derivative.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted Sep 16, 2019
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Thus when taking in Attack on Memory as a whole, it sounds as if Cloud Nothings are, despite their best efforts, a pop band at heart.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted Jan 19, 2012
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While the instrumental mastery still impresses as always, the end result remains enjoyable but ultimately missing a key aspect of what made the driving, mechanical sound of Meshuggah so worthwhile in the first place.- Sputnikmusic
- Posted Oct 12, 2016
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