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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    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Masseduction
    It’s the best encapsulation of her vision to date, here fully under her control.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Turn Out the Lights
    Turn Out The Lights is beautifully crafted throughout, full of the kinds of songs that linger long after they’ve ended. Baker doesn’t make it easy, but fans wouldn’t have it any other way.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Utopia
    It is musically heady and rawly autobiographical, translating the most intimate moments into towering, skywritten love notes. It’s ruled by a divine feminine energy that interrogates toxic masculinity and, more subliminally, environmental issues. ... In other words, it’s a journey that’s easy to want to take with her.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Twin Fantasy
    With the new Twin Fantasy, Toledo has done the unimaginable: created a reboot that matches its original in tone, passion, and excitement.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    What a Time to Be Alive
    What A Time To Be Alive is the rawest Superchunk album since the band’s 1990 debut and undoubtedly its most ferocious.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    You're Not Alone
    In addition to a pack of his best songs since I Get Wet, he brings with him a trio of spoken-word interludes that further expand on his philosophy, and as stupid as that might sound on paper--and even on first listen--it makes sense in the world of Andrew W.K. ... His confidence is unassailable and contagious.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Persona
    Persona is uneasy listening, with heavier rhythms and more fragmented melodies than West deployed on previous works like Howl and Night Melody, yet it’s equally engrossing. It leaves a deep psychic impression--a truly “arthouse” album that begs repeated revisiting, to explore its many conflicting faces.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Dirty Computer
    There is a concept here, but it is Janelle Monáe; there is a story here, but it is Janelle Monáe’s. And she’s outdone herself in both the execution of this vision and its resonance.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Singularity
    There’s no prescribed narrative, but Singularity still tells a grand story--a synesthetic evocation of how it feels to be alive.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Hell-On
    Case’s restless exploratory impulses are contained within relatively conventional song structures, with much more compelling results.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Negro Swan
    He’s given us not just a great album, but a piece of himself that stands as a whole truth that need not be escaped, but rather, treasured.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Room 25
    From beginning to end, Room 25 is a testimony to the power of telling your story and the hope that can be found in doing so without apology. Like hearing the chorus of an old spiritual or having a long conversation with a close friend, each song is intimate in a restorative way. An unquestionable balm for uncertain times like these, this album announces Noname’s lyrical coming-of-age.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Some Rap Songs
    Well, it can be [dour]. But it’s also ecstatic. Make no mistake: This is an album by one of the best rappers alive, elbowing slant rhymes and assonance into his disses (“Please do abort, I could feel when you’re forcin’ it / Still in a bore riddim”) and exhaling those singularly oblong sentences of his (“Galaxy’s the distance between us by Christmas,” he describes one foundering relationship).
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    I Am Easy to Find
    The National’s never been afraid to dial things down, but it’s rarely sounded as vulnerable as it does here--song after song, Dessner’s vibrant, moody arrangements serve to reflect Berninger’s precarious balance of hope and frustration.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Big Day
    The Big Day is a rare bouquet on full display; a stunningly realized array of color, sound, and sensation that swallows the room. Any structure at risk of pop cliché finds new life through Chance, whose mastery of composition creates spins on existing musical archetypes like new synaptic grooves being carved out for the very first time.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Center Won't Hold
    This may also be Sleater-Kinney’s lustiest album yet. Several of the album’s 11 songs are peppered with breathy sighs and ecstatic yelps, and it’s almost as if Brownstein is staring you directly in the eyes as she sings, “Let me defang you and defile you on the floor,” in “Bad Dance.” But this, too, has its political aspect. ... A stunning finale is another Sleater-Kinney specialty, and The Center Won’t Hold delivers with the devastating, disarming “Broken.”
    • 96 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Ghosteen
    He sounds simultaneously alone at the edge of the world and surrounded by benevolent spirits, a fittingly biblical cloud of witnesses who haven’t seen the power of God so much as they’ve moved through the fallout of their own atomic blasts; theirs is a communion of radiation. So it’s a bit of a surprise that Ghosteen is also Cave’s most accessible album since The Boatman’s Call.
    • 98 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Fetch the Bolt Cutters
    Fetch The Bolt Cutters is full of visceral, jittery, wonderfully imperfect performances that make the album feel like a dreamlike concert at Largo.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Letter to You
    His new record Letter To You is an absolute triumph, one that can take its place alongside the best albums of Springsteen’s long career.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Little Oblivions
    With Little Oblivions, the singer-songwriter has made her most cohesive record yet. The resuscitation of a heavier sound works in Baker’s favor, while she still adds hints of the fragile gentleness that has captivated fans since her Sprained Ankle days.
    • 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.
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