The A.V. Club's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Good Looking Blues
    Good Looking Blues marks only a subtle advancement over its predecessors. The songs are a little too similar to Laika's Sounds Of The Satellites, and therefore not terribly radical, but that just gives everyone else a chance to catch up.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Figure 8
    A strong collection of lush, densely arranged power-pop and inimitably intimate ballads?
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Return of Saturn
    Return Of Saturn is turning out to be nowhere near the DOA dud many had long anticipated. But it's also a dispiriting collection of some of the least empowering music ever recorded...
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Come to Where I'm From
    Arthur's shortcomings as a lyricist make his emotional palette seem as limited as his sonic palette is varied and, however layered the production, his songwriting nearly always follows suit.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dongs of Sevotion
    Recording with a small band that includes John McEntire (Tortoise, The Sea And Cake) on drums, Jeff Parker (Tortoise, Isotope 217) on guitar, and Matt Lux (Isotope 217) on bass, Callahan has created a surprisingly accessible and enjoyable pastiche of what makes him tick.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ecstasy
    As uneven an album as Reed has released, it might be easier to take if there had been more of them in the past seven or eight years. Instead, it feels like the latest in a series of anticlimaxes.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gung Ho
    Smith has released her most direct and, not coincidentally, hardest-rocking album since 1978's Easter.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Covers Record
    The unrelenting bleakness that pervades most of Marshall's music can be oppressive when taken in excess, and The Covers Record's gloom is exacerbated by the fact that its instrumental accompaniment seldom entails more than a piano or guitar... That barren approach can't match the stunning elegance of 1998's Moon Pix... but it is appropriate: The Covers Record is Marshall laid bare, and it needs no embellishments.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Winners Never Quit
    Virtually sparkles with pop craftsmanship-
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Broken By Whispers
    The album is driven by Wratten's sensitive voice, ringing guitars, haunting synths, pattering drum machines, and some of the most beautiful songs you'll ever hear, like a cross between Cocteau Twins and The Cure.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    MACHINA/the machines of God
    Everything about MACHINA is capital-I Important, with virtually every element delivered in gaudy excess?
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pieces In A Modern Style
    Personal project or not, the pretty Pieces In A Modern Style isn't much more than a Hooked On... collection for a digital age.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
    And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out, while not unremarkable, is still a little disappointing, too light on memorable hooks and melodies, too long on leisurely arrangements, and not too great to obliterate feelings that Yo La Tengo usually does better.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bloodflowers
    The album does seem to pick up where Disintegration left off, offering long, casually cathartic songs driven by minor chords and loopy, languid drones.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Nixon
    Nixon sounds like the Superfly soundtrack recorded in a different dimension, one in which Mayfield and Marvin Gaye met up with Lawrence Welk for an impromptu jam session.... a drowsy near-masterpiece.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Night
    The Night finds the trio expanding its sound beyond its periodic tendency to fall back on noirish shtick... a marvelous high note.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Disco and The Half Way To Discontent
    It doesn't always work, and even when it does, there's no getting around the unshakable sense that Clinton is a side project above all else, with none of the transcendent moments found on Cornershop's albums.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Am Shelby Lynne
    Fortunately, Lynne has the material to back up the declaration, and in erstwhile Sheryl Crow producer Bill Bottrell (who co-writes most of these tracks), she's found a partner in tune with her genre-blurring aspirations, liberally mixing elements of country, blues, R&B, and lounge-infused jazz, yet still accommodating the occasional drum machine and synthesizer.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Midnite Vultures
    An entertainingly excessive album, its libidinous funk mosaic finds Beck coming on like a master of ceremonies overseeing a sci-fi orgy.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    When The Pawn...
    Apple is ... crafty, covering up her rambling, dorm-friendly lyrics with sharp arrangements and sturdy songcraft.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    69 Love Songs
    Alternately recalling the best work of Blondie, Leonard Cohen, Depeche Mode, and dozens more, 69 Songs About Love is a sprawling masterpiece of White Album-like proportions.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Remedy
    The duo's self-proclaimed "remedy" is nowhere near as revolutionary as the hype would insinuate, but it does offer its distinct pleasures
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Soft Bulletin
    An impossibly multi-tracked masterwork of excess, abrasion, and indefinable beauty.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Play
    His most accessible, mature work to date.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black Foliage: Animation Music
    Full of not-quite-familiar arrangements and you'd-swear-they-were-purloined specks of Sgt. Pepper, the album's many pleasures fly at the listener from every angle.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    13
    At first listen, it may be hard to figure out whether 13 is some sort of twisted masterpiece or the work of a once-great group losing the plot. Those who stick around to find out will be rewarded.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Beaucoup Fish
    Like its predecessor, though, Beaucoup Fish is too unfocused to prove consistently potent.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Keep It Like A Secret
    With its layers of guitars and sharp lyrics, Keep It Like A Secret is a smart, challenging installment in a career that's been as varied as it is prolific.
next
Page: