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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    • 44 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Hannicap Circus
    The problem with shock, of course, is that it quickly loses its novelty, and anyone who doesn't find the topics of pedophilia, drug abuse, or incest innately hilarious will find Hannicap Circus rough going.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Monkey Business
    The group's vaunted eclecticism starts to feel random and jittery, the mark of short attention spans and an inability to maintain a cohesive tone. Furthermore, the Peas' lyrics--already their Achilles heel--have somehow managed to devolve even further.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Make Believe
    It's a sweet, open, daringly earnest album in which the sad old Cuomo does battle with the wise old soul Cuomo wants to become. By conventional wisdom, it should never work as a rock album, and most of the time, that conventional wisdom is dead on.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Forgotten Arm
    Mann's signature wordplay sounds clichéd and exhausted, and her melodies lack the energy and pop sparkle that distinguished her pre-Lost In Space work.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Hotel
    An album that finds Moby half-remembering ideas for songs that are hard not to forget.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Stealing Of A Nation
    Shows how slavish reproduction curdles into artistic bankruptcy.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Alive & Amplified
    Alive & Amplified sounds so slick that it slips right by.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    One Plus One Is One
    At times, the album sounds like a lost collaboration between Nick Drake and Jethro Tull, and one that might have best stayed lost.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Revolutions
    All too often finds X-Ecutioners playing second fiddle to an outsized roster of uninspired guests.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Auf Der Maur
    She never finds a way to distinguish one track from the next, or from the output of just about any '90s alt-rock also-ran.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    America's Sweetheart
    Love has nothing new to say and no better way to say it.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Splinter
    The problem is that most of it is deadly dull.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Comfort Woman
    The last adjective that could ever describe NdegeOcello's music is "dull," but that's just the damnation to apply to the new Comfort Woman, along with "inexplicable," "meandering," and "inexplicably meandering."
    • 66 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Pole
    A stylistic side-step that trips and falls without making much of the tumble.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Liz Phair
    Worst of all, the album closes with three decent songs, reminders of Phair's talent that are muted by what's come before.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    St. Anger
    St. Anger suffers mightily for its thin, washed-out sound.... A messy, unsatisfying misfire.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    American Life
    Even modest expectations can't salvage the clunky, ponderous American Life, which fares only slightly better than "Hanky Panky" and Swept Away on her list of offenses.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Fear Yourself
    Johnston's voice rarely melds with Linkous' production, and it loses its gritty charm amid such dignified surroundings.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Evolve
    The singer spends most of Evolve dithering on elastic, airy, funk-jazz excursions that convey few opinions or emotions, not to mention hooks.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Raven
    Maybe it worked on the stage, but taken out of context the result is a two-hour "Huh?" of an album.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Slicker Than Your Average
    An album that features all of his worst tendencies and almost none of his good ones.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    10
    Cool J has backed off from proclaiming himself the greatest rapper of all time at every possible opportunity, which is fortunate: His claim on that title has never been shakier.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Black Letter Days
    The tossed-off quality of his recent work may be liberating to Black, but it's not likely to be so satisfying to his audience.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Group Therapy
    The group's familiar sound returns intact, but the songs just aren't there; most of them fade into a distressing mid-tempo mush while plodding through the paces at half speed.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Gameface
    A mercifully brief running time (less than 50 minutes) and a few scattered moments of autobiographical storytelling help make Gameface marginally less disposable than its most recent predecessors.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Rainbow Children
    The Rainbow Children contains one good song, a ballad called "She Loves Me 4 Me," buried beneath layers of spiritual horseshittery.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Love, Shelby
    The disc's 10 tracks blur into a dispiriting, middle-of-the-road mishmash of lite pop, lite country, lite rock, and lite adult-contemporary.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Britney
    An unmitigated drag.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Invincible
    Jackson has lived a bizarre train-wreck life of mystery and tragedy, but following such a lengthy absence, Invincible just reeks of desperation and aimlessness.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Ten New Songs
    This is the first time he's sounded less than vital.
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