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
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned
    Strong and competent, but devoid of the kind of charge needed to make a new mark.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    La Bella Mafia
    Careens from style to style with heedless abandon and uneven results.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Winchester Cathedral
    In and of itself, Winchester Cathedral is a fine introduction to Clinic and an entertaining 35 minutes of evocative rock. But it's hard to believe that at this late date, having been together for seven years, the band can't find new modes of musical expression.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    trampin'
    Trampin' hardly counts as a misstep, but it's her least impressive showing since her return.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This Way
    This Way is somehow both ambitious and down-to-earth compared to its predecessors.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    On My Way To Absence
    Moments of inspired darkness still abound, but for the first time--even counting past misfires--he retraces steps almost exactly, occasionally sounding bored in the process.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Velocity of Sound
    As a hard punch of melodic garage rock, Velocity works just fine; it's certainly as serviceable as just about anything by The Vines.
    • 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?
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Love Is Here
    Love Is Here radiates as-yet-unfulfilled potential, like the work of a band going through the motions to get its foot in the door.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Driving Rain
    It's more or less business as usual, with a few highlights balancing a fair amount of filler.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Time Bomb
    With Time Bomb, Buckcherry still makes the unfashionable seem fashionable, but that doesn't make it any less dumb.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Smash Mouth
    As always, Smash Mouth is all but impossible to hate, offsetting its bald-faced mercenary intentions with a refreshing lack of pretension.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    That's Why God Made the Radio
    The best bits of Radio sound like a fan finally getting to play with all the toys. It's a respectful approach, let down too often by sub-par material.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Adore Life
    It’s a shame that so much of the Savages album feels like a songwriting rut, because the record’s lone moment of transcendence, “Adore,” also stamps out a repeating coda at its end.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Ti Amo
    It’s gorgeously produced and does a bang-up job of updating the sounds that it’s clearly so enamored of. It’s just not the kind of album—unlike Wolfgang Amadeus or 2006’s It’s Never Been Like That—that feels particularly urgent. Maybe it’s a pleasant diversion for band and audience, which is fine—it’s just never much more than that.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Motivational Jumpsuit
    It’s difficult to find any song on Motivational Jumpsuit that GBV lifers can place among the group’s most accomplished work.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    V.
    Momentum is lacking throughout much of the record, as comatose tracks like “Already Gone” drone on with little to grab the ear. Thankfully, the band perks up again during the closing stretch.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Born to Sing: No Plan B
    The remainder of Born To Sing is salvaged by solid, serviceable, latter-day Morrison material.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    My December
    Much of "My December" lacks the precisely engineered hooks that made Clarkson famous.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Dreams Come True
    Dreams Come True throws in the towel, leaving the impression of a half-sketched idea that failed to materialize fully no matter how much it was fussed over.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Wise Up Ghost and Other Songs
    At this point in his career, an album-length experiment like Wise Up Ghost seems to satisfy Costello artistically, thanks to his chameleon tendencies, but there isn’t much to add to the best of either catalog.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Unreal
    Blumberg’s drowsiness gets the better of him. When pitted against chunkier hooks and punchier songs, his voice shambles winningly.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    This Unruly Mess I've Made
    It’s hard to think of a more apt title for this album than This Unruly Mess I’ve Made. Listeners can find everything that made Macklemore popular in the first place, mixed with everything that lead to the intense backlash against him two years ago.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Shake the Shudder
    There’s no reason not to throw on Shake The Shudder and dance it out, but like many fun-yet-hazy late nights, it doesn’t leave much of an impression afterward.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Former Lives
    While still being firmly planted in the category of mainstream indie rock, the album is all over the place both thematically and musically.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Department of Disappearance
    On the whole, however, the album is even-tempered where it should be adventurous, mild when there should be marvelous.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Manners
    Manners attempts to synthesize Michael Angelakos’ natural talent for dance music with more straightforward, heart-on-sleeve rock, but can’t quite commit to either.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    LotusFlow3r
    Prince’s guitar works overtime on Lotusflow3r, often patching over some unfinished ideas.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Endless
    For the most part, the musicality--much sparser than the maximalist sonic feasts of his earlier work--still holds the same synesthetic power of the past, even for those who don’t claim to have the ability to see sounds.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Quicken The Heart
    Maximo Park’s third LP, Quicken The Heart, is equally reassuring--sometimes to the point of tedium.
Page: