Stylus Magazine's Scores
- Music
For 1,453 reviews, this publication has graded:
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50% higher than the average critic
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3% same as the average critic
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47% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 69
Score distribution:
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Positive: 987 out of 1453
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Mixed: 361 out of 1453
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Negative: 105 out of 1453
1453
music
reviews
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- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
Hayes’ performance on this album is so stellar one wonders why others don’t shoot this high.- Stylus Magazine
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It's one of the few Europop albums that not only deserves worldwide domination, but also has a really good chance of achieving it.- Stylus Magazine
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If The Unfairground doesn’t quite qualify as a "stunning" return to form--"stunning" never really being Ayers’ stock in trade--it certainly represents the delightful and unexpected renaissance of a perennially undervalued artist, whose quiet but significant influence is long overdue for re-assessment.- Stylus Magazine
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Vernon’s music is stripped-down, uniformly quiet, and confessional, his clipped, cracked, Will Oldham-inspired lyrics not evidence of cabin delirium, but the work of an artist warmed by a creative glow that only pure isolation (read: freedom) can fully render.- Stylus Magazine
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What Hey Venus! ultimately is, is a good record of classy pop/rock songs, arranged and produced well, shot through with a degree of personality and skill, and almost completely lacking in the inspired, eclectic madness which made "Radiator and Guerilla" so damn good.- Stylus Magazine
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At first listen, N.B. sounds creepy. But ignore the lyrics, surrender yourself to the joys of pop songwriting and N.B. seems to approach perfection.- Stylus Magazine
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Nash keeps herself resolutely in the background of her songs, revealing precious little of her own personality or emotion, and it’s this reservation that makes her fail as a popstar, at least right now.- Stylus Magazine
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Parades, both restrained and wildly dramatic, gently touching and warmly enveloping, is not a record that sits comfortably with convenient labels.- Stylus Magazine
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45:33 works both as exercise-soundtrack and discopunk-odyssey because James Murphy understands how to make people move on a basic, physical level. [Review of UK release]- Stylus Magazine
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Load Blown does more than enough to keep "very" and "awfully," respectively, in the mix.- Stylus Magazine
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All of their typical sentiments are there, but where their prior releases used spacey interludes and bridges as a recess from the hopelessness, the group employs these moments more sparingly.- Stylus Magazine
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Prefuse 73 sounds freer, and yet more deliberately formal--most of the songs break down like classic hip-hop does, two-thirds of the way toward the end.- Stylus Magazine
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It's not a complete disaster--the songs are still there, shining proud and (far too) loud--but each listen brings a constant, aggravating reminder of the sloppy production.- Stylus Magazine
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Right now, it's an album I'm unlikely to play all that much now that I'm done reviewing it.- Stylus Magazine
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For all its tasteful craft, aesthetic unity and knowing winks to its makers’ history, it’s simply not very interesting- Stylus Magazine
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While the commercial potential of her new album may be up for debate, as a showcase for Rosin Murphy’s talent, Overpowered is an enormous success.- Stylus Magazine
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In Rainbows, then, is Radiohead as straight and lean as they’ve ever sounded.- Stylus Magazine
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The debut album was good, but this is better. Much, much better; the kind of record I will happily and willingly return to long after this review is dead and buried.- Stylus Magazine
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An astonishing act of rejuvenation and reclamation, the album may just be the group’s best to date, and solidly reestablishes Eleanor and Matthew as progenitors of brilliantly exciting, mind-scrambling pop.- Stylus Magazine
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If you’re already among the converted, Random Spirit Lover is a second straight masterpiece from arguably the most talented songwriter of this generation.- Stylus Magazine
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You can write off some of Cease to Begin’s bland regionalisms as lacking in spice. But if, come midnight, Marry Song's' serpentine gospel finds home in your head, you better get up and read.- Stylus Magazine
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Hera Ma Nono improves on "Ok-Oyot System" in almost every way: the guitar sounds are more vibrant (padded with reverbs, phasers, and other bubbly what-have-you’s); the songs hang together better as a record; the slide between Swahili, English, and Luo is as effortless and colorful as good pidgin; and, most importantly, it usually gets at--or at least hints at--African music’s most cherished balance: unhurriedness with a pulse.- Stylus Magazine
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They’ve evolved into a tightly wound and grotesquely attuned power trio; and nowhere is that more evident than on the hyper-bpms of Grass Geysers.- Stylus Magazine
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Outwardly, We Are the Pipettes is fun, sweet, and attractive. If you hang around, it starts to feel brittle, frigid, bitchy, and weird.- Stylus Magazine
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The moments of "hey, that sounds a bit like ..." are few, but notable; and perhaps unavoidable with such a distinctive vocal presence. In any case, these are welcome echoes from the past, not a weary retracing of footsteps.- Stylus Magazine
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Little on Magic outright falters, which is why it's hard at first to explain how unappealing it is.- Stylus Magazine
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Carrabba’s keening grandiloquence may have lost some of its most explicitly cathartic qualities, but The Shade of Poison Trees remains his best work in years.- Stylus Magazine
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The group synthesizes pretty much anything you could lump under a general Americana label--bluegrass, country, alt-country, folk rock--to create an idiosyncratic sound more West Coast than Nashville.- Stylus Magazine
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