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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    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Alpha Games
    Alpha Games is the sound of a band trying to reignite its former flame, while simultaneously digging its heels so deep into unfamiliar territory, it can’t even reach the lighter.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Skinty Fia
    More than anything, however, Skinty Fia’s plodding progression and miserabilist overtones come across like cut-rate versions of Bauhaus’ chilly gothic vibes and the aforementioned Joy Division’s claustrophobic dirge, only without the benefit of the latter group’s inimitable basslines.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Crash
    Overall, CRASH’s crystal clear production and iron-clad writing has all of the force behind it to propel the album into the stratosphere. But instead of putting the pedal to the metal in pursuit of a high camp sound, it stays in the slow lane.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Extreme Witchcraft
    The songs on Extreme Witchcraft that don’t work simply blend into the background. ... Moments that do work—and there are a handful—combine Everett’s peerless gift for melody and pacing. ... Ultimately, however, there isn’t much in the way of subtext here.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Donda
    More than half of this album is complete filler. No one’s missing “Okok,” “24,” or “Remote Control.” A soulful choir is not enough to save “Never Again.” On this record, there is none of the production genius we’ve come to expect from West. ... And that’s the thing that’s missing most from this record, with all its myriad problems: No one edits West anymore, not even himself. And that’s a damn shame.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Solar Power
    Solar Power’s a little messy and rough around the edges, and features a Lorde now moving on from her youth and wanting to keep some things to herself. In short: It’s just like being 24.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Planet Her
    While the pleasant-enough arrangements may make for an effective summer record, Planet Her lacks the originality Doja made her name on, and no amount of stunning and spacey visuals (as in the music video for “Need To Know”) can make the songs better than they are.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Chemtrails Over the Country Club
    “Tulsa Jesus Freak” is arguably closest to the Lana Del Rey longtime fans know and love, and it’s no surprise that it was written in 2019, around the time NFR! came out. “Yosemite” is another highlight, a stunning number with Del Rey’s vocals at their best. But most songs on Chemtrails don’t stand out. They blend together in their delicateness.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Notes on a Conditional Form
    Notes On A Conditional Form feels less like a 1975 album than it does a hodgepodge collection of songs by a band trying on various sonic identities to see what fits. If anything, to understand and appreciate the record, don’t approach it as an album-length statement from one band, but as a personalized, diverse playlist curated by a favorite human tastemaker.
    • 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.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Slow Rush
    Parker’s long-awaited Currents follow-up, The Slow Rush, isn’t quite as interesting as its predecessors in terms of songwriting and production, and this gap makes Parker’s lyrical weaknesses more challenging to ignore.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Wanderer
    There’s nothing inherently wrong about Wanderer being mannered--but, unfortunately, the album’s subtlety is also often its undoing.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Egypt Station
    This is very much a Paul McCartney solo album: the uneven product of compulsive songwriting that includes several delightful songs, several terrible ones, and a lot in between. It wouldn’t be fair to say he sounds out of ideas, because this formula describes a whole lot of his non-Beatles albums going back decades.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tangerine Reef
    The record captures all the noodling self-indulgence that makes the psych-poppers such a maddeningly inconsistent live act. But Tangerine Reef is an incomplete object in this form: It’s accompaniment, not feature presentation, the drowsy soundtrack to the iridescent undersea visuals of Australian filmmakers Coral Morphologic.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Joy
    It’s barely over 30 minutes long but brims with musical ideas, including several sets of interconnected songs that push Segall and Presley to their weirdest and most tuneless.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    No Sounds Are Out of Bounds
    Overall it’s a baggy mixed bag of dub grooves and warmed-over house beats, dominated by an exhausting tower of babbling dialogue samples that, like No Sounds itself, rarely have much to say.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    No Shame
    This is a prettier, more heartfelt record than Sheezus, but only a slightly better one.
    • 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.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tell Me How You Really Feel
    Tell Me How You Really Feel is a disappointing and muted record that never quite lives up to its potential.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino
    The album feels unmoored and even plodding due to a lack of structure.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Dove
    Shaving a few of the middling cuts like “Heartstrings” and “Stars Align” would have helped the album overall, as Belly’s comeback songs runs together in a cranky sea of relationship angst.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Critical Equation
    Dr. Dog’s music is usually far more engaging and inventive, so hopefully Critical Equation’s monotonous tedium is a mere blip.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Eat the Elephant
    That nothing here much resembles the band’s heyday hits is theoretically admirable; this is not the work of a lazy nostalgia act. But as end-of-the-world music goes, it’s more whimper than bang.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Beautiful Thing
    Yo-yoing of tempos and moods aside, whether it is on the stripped-down “A Hit Song” or the jerky, David Byrne-esque “Oh Baby,” Taylor sounds pretty emotional, a sadness underscoring his signature vocals throughout.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Smalls Change (Meditations Upon Ageing)
    Shearer’s vocals, especially on a four-minute-plus opus like the title track, unfortunately demonstrate why he was never that band’s lead singer, detracting from another promising rock opera like “Faith No More.” For die-hard Tap fans only.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    My Dear Melancholy, [EP]
    On Melancholy, the Starboy wallows in heartbreak. It can be a bit tedious, at least until French producer/DJ Gesaffelstein shows up for “Never There” and “Hurt You,” which plays like a two-part song.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Virtue
    For every adequate Strokes throwback or Radiohead soundalike, Virtue antagonizes you with two formless freak-outs cobbled together from influences as wide-ranging as ’90s R&B, Arabic chants, “Monster Mash,” and a shocking amount of nü-metal.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Used Future
    Without the stone-age shredding that was once this band’s life purpose, Used Future is just nostalgic affectation, with the added anti-bonus of pushing frontman John D. Cronise’s Ozzy-lite enunciations and corny lyrics--like those of the vixen-fearing cautionary tale “Deadly Nightshade”--into the unflattering limelight.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Automata I
    The first half of Automata (part two arrives in June) is almost too straightforward, offering plenty of what we’ve heard before from these Raleigh space cadets: the folkish plucking and mad noodling, the burps of intergalactic synth, the way a song like “House Organ” closes the safe distance separating Pink Floyd from Cannibal Corpse.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    AmeriKKKant
    AmeriKKKant is cathartically enjoyable, but it ultimately feels as inspiring--and effective--as tweeting Trump-Putin memes at Fox News.
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