The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 4,544 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 64% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 34% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.5 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 74
Highest review score: 100 The Life Of Pablo
Lowest review score: 0 Graffiti
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,663 out of 4544
  2. Mixed: 771 out of 4544
  3. Negative: 110 out of 4544
4544 music reviews
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    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Fearless (Taylor's Version)
    She has launched the re-recorded Fearless (Taylor’s Version), adding a mellifluous upgrade to an already remarkable album. Sure, it works as a throwback, but it’s mainly a showcase of Swift’s mature, confident vocals, with a sharper sense of musicianship and instrumentation this time around.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Valentine
    Throughout Valentine, Jordan reaches a new height of expression that practically demands to be heard and felt. ... Over Valentine, Jordan takes turmoil and heartache and creates something beautiful from the mess.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Wet Leg
    There are no dull moments on Wet Leg. With the winning pairing of two incredible guitarists and excellent songwriting, this is a near-flawless introduction. The record holds such a compelling collection of songs.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Tales From Turnpike House
    Turnpike is Saint Etienne's strongest record in years.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Field Music
    Field Music is a joyful piece of pop art, and a case study in how fragments can make mosaics.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Leaders Of The Free World
    Leaders Of The Free World contains songs as heavy and epic as the neo-prog of Elbow's first two albums, but it's strongest at its quietest.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Greatest
    In its own still-quiet way, it's a triumph.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    From A Compound Eye
    It doesn't sound substantially different from what Pollard has done before... but the record cycles through Pollard's disparate influences in songs as charged-up and fully realized as anything he's delivered in maybe a decade.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Life Pursuit
    The band sounds reinvigorated even when returning to well-trodden turf, and even livelier when moving away from it.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Magnificent City
    It's the product of two remarkable artists working in perfect unison, powered by an effortless chemistry that recalls similarly blessed collaborations between Madlib and MF Doom, or MF Doom and Danger Mouse.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Idols Of Exile
    There are 12 distinct songs on Idols Of Exile, united by Collett's light touch and sense of snap.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Young For Eternity
    Broudie... supplies the record with more thrust and polish than some of these half-written songs deserve.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Everything Wrong Is Imaginary
    Everything Wrong Is Imaginary is loosely and playfully conceived, but the stylistic goofing can't hide the exposed, bloody vein that runs throughout.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
    There's a confidence here that carried over from Case's remarkable 2004 live album The Tigers Have Spoken.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Future Women
    Ultimately, Future Women's fractured personality gives the album drama.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Charm
    Creatively, he continues to exceed even the loftiest expectations.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    You In Reverse
    This is a real, classic rock 'n' roll record, with powerhouse production backing a set of songs that actively engage.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Animal Years
    An album that sounds simultaneously deeply personal and in tune with confusing times.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Skeleton
    The stuff indie-rock fantasies are built on, with a gripping, theatrical sound that's like a hybrid of early Built To Spill and pre-Soft Bulletin Flaming Lips, adorned with pieces of the old Neil Young albums that inspired those bands in the first place.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    We The Vehicles
    Compared to Maritime's ragged debut, Glass Floor, the new record is a fountain of confidence, forgoing its predecessor's fussy arrangements for simple structures and big hooks.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Catastrophe Keeps Us Together
    [Rainer Maria] drapes songs in atmospheric echo while maintaining a steady, urgent beat--all of which provides a stage for Caithlin De Marrais' earnest, fully engaged voice.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Pick A Bigger Weapon
    Boots fuses sexuality and celebration with naked politics just as seamlessly as he combines irreverent humor and heartwarming humanism.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Drift
    It's unlikely that any other album will sound much like The Drift this year, and even less likely that it could be forgotten if heard even once.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Obliterati
    As the price of success, The Obliterati faces significantly higher expectations. Once again, though, Burma succeeds and surprises by playing to its strengths while moving forward.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    News And Tributes
    A happily unpredictable record.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Mo'Mega
    Like The Coup's strangely simpatico latest album, Lif's frisky, humane Mo'Mega redefines what a political rap album can be.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Rather Ripped
    Rather Ripped is unmistakably a Sonic Youth album, right down to the snatches of amp-on-fire distortion, the tuneless speak-singing of Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon, and an emphasis on guitar texture that includes amplifying each strummed string. But the conventional rock-song structures of "Incinerate," while not unheard of for Sonic Youth, here feel unexpectedly and warmly classicist.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Begin To Hope
    Even in its darkest moments, a humane glow envelops the album, which takes her already-arresting sound and expands it to widescreen.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Audience's Listening
    Strap on some headphones and enjoy the ride.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Alright, Still
    A great summer record it remains, even in the dead of winter.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Post-War
    Post-War is easily M. Ward's most accessible album to date, charged with a bouncy spirit.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    To The Races
    Most of To The Races is arresting and alive, filled with little moments--a snaky violin, a warm harmonica, a lilting melody--that serve as reminders of how important the concept of "performance" can be.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Game Theory
    Especially in its superior second half, the album resonates with casual ambition as it reconciles ?uestlove's effortless bohemian cool and sonic perfectionism with Black Thought's dark swagger, street-level sociology, and silver-tongued virtuosity.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    So This Is Goodbye
    These songs are complicated robots.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass
    This is Yo La Tengo in full 32-flavors mode, but somehow, as with similarly diverse past efforts like I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, they make it all sound cohesive.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Awoo
    The band's fourth album Awoo keeps the lyrical restraint, but restores some of the energy of The Hidden Cameras' early work, in more of a rock 'n' roll vein.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Information
    There's nothing here that Beck hasn't done before, but it sounds unexpected once again.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Boys And Girls In America
    The triumph of Boys And Girls is that it's full of the kind of songs that Finn's protagonists would crank up, relishing every power chord.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Trials Of Van Occupanther
    Van Occupanther's spell finally breaks a little more than halfway through its 11 tracks, when the songs begin to feel more fussed-over and conceptual and less organic, but the warmth never fades.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Under The Skin
    His hushed voice and intricate acoustic guitar work fill the space with reflective songs that sound little like anything he's done before.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Songbird
    Nelson sounds like he's giving it his all, and everyone around him rises to the occasion.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Ys
    For those willing to let go a little and drift, Ys can be an amazing journey, especially when Parks' strings and Newsom's harp lock into a seductive dance, or when her voice catches one of the fleeting snatches of melody and rides it until it escapes.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards
    Waits may call them orphans, but another artist would call this a career.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Songs For Christmas
    Both hauntingly beautiful and a helpful summary of Stevens' career to date.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Hip Hop Is Dead
    It contains a smart, tight, cohesive analysis of where rap went astray, but also the seeds of the genre's rebirth and renewal.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Friend Opportunity
    Friend Opportunity is adventurous and strange, but not insular. It lets everyone share the triumphant feeling of a puzzle reaching completion.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Phantom Punch
    Phantom Punch's palette contains dollops of everyone from The Clash to The Sea And Cake to name-your-favorite-shoegaze-band, but most of all, the album's freewheeling energy brings to mind Supergrass' finest moments.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Pocket Symphony
    What's most impressive is how guileless Dunckel and Godin make it sound. They're aiming for a kind of naïve beauty, and they hit it consistently here.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Candylion
    Fantastic.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
    It's easy to get lost in the strange balance between delicacy and muscle.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Children Running Through
    For the most part, Children Running Through is Griffin at her most complete, using elements from her favorite genres to support simple songs that follow the up-sloping contours of her phenomenal voice.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Writer's Block
    The band has smartened up, and now it's playing to its strengths.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Back To Black
    There's something beguilingly perverse about the incongruity between Winehouse's trifling lyrical concerns and Back To Black's wall-of-sound richness.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
    Easier than ever to grasp, yet still constantly, joyously vexing, We Were Dead is another terrific set from a band that couldn't make something dull even if drowning were the only other option.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Drums And Guns
    What seemed like a radical departure two years ago now sounds like a waystation on the journey to this more disjointed, more fragmented, more demanding, and ultimately more rewarding work.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Armchair Apocrypha
    Bird has developed a finesse for off-kilter pop that takes mortality, confusion, and unexpected realizations as its subject, shaping them all into songs that are catchier, by their own terms, than most of Top 40 radio.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Person Pitch
    Sometimes ominous, sometimes celebratory, always compelling, Person Pitch is as clattering and tactile as a beaded curtain.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Because Of The Times
    Because Of The Times isn't likely to make anyone forget Lynyrd Skynyrd. But it's still one of the most consistently surprising and vibrant rock records since, arguably, Aha Shake Heartbreak.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Can Cladders
    It's not a grand departure, just the best album yet by one of the modern-rock era's most loveable bands.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Ruff Draft [Reissue]
    One of hip-hop's few essential EPs.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Saltbreakers
    Saltbreakers is exceptionally strong, and it shows Veirs has more than just poetic whimsy up her sleeve.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    23
    The softer focus fits them exceptionally well.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Reminder
    The Reminder sounds best on headphones, since its rich room tone and casual instrumental interplay is essential to the experience.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Black Pompadour
    At their best—pretty much all of Black Pompadour qualifies—The Zincs sound like an accomplished friend, sharing skill and knowledge without being pretentious about it.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters
    The songs on Fourteen Autumns are loud, and graced with long-line melodies that are easy to hum, but there's nothing quick or disposable about them.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Sky Blue Sky
    It's an album of shiny surfaces and great depths.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Tio Bitar
    Tio Bitar finds Dungen streamlining its expansive pop-psych attack with a set of jams that hit with more clarity and intensity than ever.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Icky Thump
    If nothing else, this record is fun.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    At My Age
    There's a real person writing and singing these songs, with a lifetime's worth of joys and disappointments, as well as the wisdom to keep it all in proper balance.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Cross
    An engaging study in contrasts and a killer party record.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Sirens of the Ditch
    Sirens is the sound of a freshly liberated songwriter scouring his soul - and coming up full-handed.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Desire
    Monch makes a lean 47 minutes seem epic in the best way.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Super Taranta!
    On Super Taranta!, the NYC-based gypsy-punk crew is as energized as ever.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Con
    Lyrical wallowing is almost a required element for this genre, and ultimately even The Con's failings work in its favor, providing a macro version of what the best Tegan And Sara songs do, by stumbling along recklessly, then falling together.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Friends [EP]
    Ever the brilliant craftsmen, Gene and Dean display a sharp eye for genre-specific details, offering just the right amounts of cheese and hooks (not to mention their trademark vulgarity) on splendidly stupid songs.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Fort Nightly
    Rarely has the Inferno sounded this inviting.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Hey Hey My My Yo Yo
    Multi-instrumentalist/producer Junior masters JS's many loves without having to scale them down, and expands Don't Stop's compact party into a show of force.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Challengers
    If previous New Pornographers albums are the musical equivalent of Jolt Cola, Challengers is the caffeine-free diet version: less sugary, more mature, initially not as invigorating, but ultimately just as addictive.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Andorra
    In its journey from form to formlessness, the record feels like Caribou reaching back toward a primordial pool of sound.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Ear Drum
    Sexual and spiritual, conscious and just plain fun, Eardrum is a master class in lyricism from a man supremely comfortable in his own skin.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    From the Corner to the Block
    When the guests fall back on what's always worked well enough, Galactic seems to take that as a challenge, and takes enough risks to make it sound a little fresher.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    La Radiolina
    He's a one-man musical melting pot who synthesizes several continents' worth of ideas, sounds, and slogans into one swinging all-night dance party. This is internationalism at its funkiest.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    I'll Follow You
    Oakley Hall's almost indescribably transcendent quality burns through in songs like 'All The Way Down,' which rides amplified waves of fiery guitar and tuneful wailing, while evoking the reassuring fellowship of church camp.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    White Chalk
    Harvey has one of the most forceful voices around, but here she relies on her silk-thin upper register to create a delicate album that skates across despair without ever quite sinking into it.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Planet of Ice
    While not a huge sonic leap forward for Minus The Bear, Planet shows the band eager--and more than able--to take a deep breath and explore its emerging maturity and depth.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Trees Outside The Academy
    Moore turns inward and turns down, which works to his advantage.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Let's Stay Friends
    Let's Stay Friends is LSF's comeback--and frontman Tim Harrington and crew have picked up precisely where they left off.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Washington Square Serenade
    An angry Steve Earle is something to behold, but watch out for the man when he's in love.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    In Rainbows
    Elsewhere, it's business as usual--mostly amazing business, to be sure, but never entirely unexpected.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Cease To Begin
    Cease To Begin, doesn't deviate much from its excellent 2006 debut, "Everything All The Time," the record's relaxed, understated grace is distinctively Southern in its lack of self-consciousness.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    La Cucaracha
    La Cucaracha is just another sprawling Ween record--fans will love it, neophytes will be confused—but it's the best sprawling Ween record since 1997's "The Mollusk."
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    American Gangster
    Judging by this surprisingly strong return to form, Jay-Z might want to consider spending less time in the office and more time at the movies.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Ire Works
    Ire Works is a near-perfect pileup of craft and chaos--and it shows that Dillinger's recent injuries left some beautiful scars.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Cool
    Though its conceptual component feels fuzzy and abstract at best, The Cool oozes geek chic with terrific songs, smart, dense lyrics, and nimble, eclectic production.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Do You Like Rock Music?
    While DYLRM? lacks the wild-eyed spits and howls of "Decline Of British Sea Power," it's definitely BSP's most rocking effort yet, replacing the sterility that plagued its sophomore slump, "Open Season," with stadium-sized bravado.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    In The Future
    Loud-quiet-loud has never been so dizzying.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Golden Age
    Eitzel's trademark gloom still dominates, but his ability to bend glacial chords around pure poetry remains vital. In fact, it's stronger than ever.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Promises Promises
    The venom is still there, and it's just as potent, but it tastes a little sweeter this time around.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    For Emma, Forever Ago
    Wisconsin singer-songwriter Justin Vernon, who records as Bon Iver (a bastardized version of the French phrase for "good winter"), still manages to put his own stamp on a moribund genre with his quietly startling debut, For Emma, Forever Ago.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Seventh Tree
    The disc is buoyed by an underlying pop sensibility, epitomized by the bubbly 'A&E' and 'Caravan Girl.'
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