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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    • 52 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Break Up
    Mostly, the record suffers from the same symptoms most flings do: In time, the dreaminess dissipates, leaving those involved searching for something with a little more weight to it.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    El Rey
    His guitar hooks are reliable enough on El Rey, the seventh all-new studio Wedding Present album (compilations and live discs abound), and Steve Albini engineers them vividly enough, but it's the words that fail him.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Doris
    It often feels less like a finished work than a sketchbook, a jumble of beats and raps (about half of them from guests) with little in the way of hooks, choruses, or general songcraft to tie them together.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Landing Gear
    Devin's singsong flow remains hypnotic, and his silky, seductive croon can make a dis feel like a kiss, but this time, it's in service to forgettable songs unworthy of his singular talent.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Prism
    As a whole, Prism is forgettable. It’s neither good nor bad, and it’s not inspirational enough to set anyone on fire who’s not already an 11-year-old girl, closeted teen boy, or existing Perry fanatic.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Loyalty To Loyalty
    The loyalty to the exact sound--minus the real hooks--that got Cold War Kids noticed keeps things mostly stagnant.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Total Decay [EP]
    Total Decay's main drawback is its lack of contrast.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Tre!
    ¡Tre! succeeds most as an exercise in influence-dropping and self-recycling, with a glimmer of inspiration here and there.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Go Tell Fire To The Mountain
    For all the outsider posturing, Mountain is a pretty conventional indie-rock record circa 2011, drawing on celebrated warhorses like Arcade Fire's Funeral and Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion, as well as somewhat less fashionable sources, like Vampire Weekend and Kings Of Leon.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Other People's Lives
    Sounds too much like a man chasing trends.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    31 Minutes To Takeoff
    Think Justin Timberlake's less-talented cousin, or Andy Samberg.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Raw Footage
    The rap legend's second independently released solo album is a long way from "AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted," but the old man is still good for a larf.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Devil's Music
    Devil's Music lives and dies on the strength of the collaborators (lightweights like Laza Morgan lack the personality to elevate the material), as all the instrumental tracks just sound like long intros to better songs.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Ogilala
    No matter what he does to it, that voice is still unmistakably Billy, and while Ogilala gives it some genuine moments of quietly affecting beauty, after 11 beatless tracks laden with burdensome titles (“Amarinthe,” “Antietam,” “Shiloh,” “Half-Life Of An Autodidact”), yet light on memorable melodies or any lyrics that match the frankness of the setting, by album’s end, you long to hear it over a wall of guitars again.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Changes
    Artists can certainly grow up and mature without losing their edge or creative spark. Changes, however, is ultimately a transitional record that finds Bieber navigating how to reconcile adulthood with pop stardom—and discovering that, at least in his case, this merger is a tricky one.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Untitled
    Kelly is still intermittently hilarious--if never intentionally so--but too much of Untitled feels generic, which is a curious flaw for a larger-than-life eccentric with the most, though not necessarily the best, personality in mainstream R&B.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Pint of Blood
    Holland gets points for loosening up, building a blue mood, and going with the flow, whatever that flow is supposed to be. But it doesn't keep the majority of songs on Pint Of Blood from bleeding together.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs Of Desire
    Hombre works best when it fully embraces its titular beast: 'Fresh Blood' finds excitement in a brooding groove, and rattles when Everett literally howls. Unfortunately, those are exceptions: The rest of the album just isn’t cohesive enough to entice much repeated listening.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Woodstock
    While all that tinkering and aiming for the center have reached their payoff with the most commercially viable record of the group’s career, something of what made Portugal. The Man unique feels like it’s been lost.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Hot Thoughts
    Spoon is a master of hooky songwriting, but Hot Thoughts seems so bent on undermining it that the band undersells itself. Maybe Hot Thoughts is an apt title after all--it’s got great ideas, but the execution is lacking.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Universal Mind Control
    On his eighth solo album, Common stops trying to save the world and uplift the human spirit, and gets in touch with his inner freak, with results that are often more bewildering than sexy.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Red Of Tooth And Claw
    Red envisions turbulence, stages it professionally, and downplays Murder By Death's power to frighten listeners and conjure up dust storms.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Anything In Return
    It's not just a preference for textures over melodies that makes Anything In Return fall short of its genre-bending aspirations, however. Pop music is more than just dance beats and glammy electronics; it's an attitude, and Bundick might just not have it.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Cruel Summer
    With Cruel Summer, Kanye's corralled an impressive roster of allies and contemporaries to make a sleek, state-of-the-art album that's not half as good as one of those more modest old offerings.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Ciara
    Though Ciara is a perfectly competent album, it’s the least interesting one she could have made given the winning hand she was dealt, and as she should know by now, winning hands only come around so often.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Unapologetic
    A fiery pop album that's unfortunately coated in the icky residue of unearned defiance that has marked Brown's recent output.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    There Are Rules
    There's no doubt that these guys can still rock with all the heart-on-sleeve younguns they've influenced; now they just have to rediscover something worth writing home about.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Catch My Shoe
    The Ex has always absorbed the flavor of whatever it's paired with-and de Boer is mostly flavorless. His hiccupping, singsong vocals try to operate on the same level as Sok's raspy, poetic chants, but the result is tentative and forceless.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Happiness Ltd.
    It's telling, though, that the best song on Happiness is a re-recorded '5 Times Out Of 100,' which originally appeared on the band's debut Sub Pop EP.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Ma Fleur
    Ma Fleur is heavy on atmospheric standing still, with tunes not beguiling enough to make listeners stop to examine them up close.
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