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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    • 63 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Drift
    Where other records by The Men showed they could pull from someone else’s playbook and make something their own, Drift’s hodgepodge of styles ultimately makes The Men sound like they couldn’t settle on what they wanted to do.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Crooked Shadows
    Of all his very short albums, this is his shortest, and where he once packed his songs with knotty chord changes and shout-along confessions, here he tends toward conventional structures and lowest-common-denominator couplets.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Shape the Future
    With so much New Age nattering, here more than ever your enjoyment will depend on your own zeal for enlightenment and/or bong rips.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Mania
    Since around 2007’s Infinity On High, the key to enjoying Fall Out Boy has been letting go of their pop-punk past and embracing the pop band that always hid in plain sight. That was a chore on American Beauty/American Psycho, but less so on Mania. As endorsements go, that’s pretty qualified.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The House
    Maine turns in some of his best songs yet, with “Country,” “Now The Water,” and “Find Me” all showcasing his skill as a crooner, but around its midpoint, the album starts to sag. The House’s three interludes feel less like connective tissue and more like unfinished filler, and the album’s back half ends up seeming rote.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    No One Ever Really Dies
    It’s a weird fucking album, in other words, neither as crowd-pleasing as it should be nor as experimental as it wants to be. The drums sound great, though, and the Rihanna track is as good as N.E.R.D. gets.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    The Visitor
    Young and the youngsters he’s playing with here sound like they wrote and jammed these songs out in a few days, relying on the strength of his sentiment to carry them through. But a jam session with some cranky speak-singing on it doesn’t make for a great album, and it’s not going to make any new converts, unfortunately--either to Neil Young’s politics or his music.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Who Built the Moon?
    It’s like an extremely amped-up version of Oasis, but the excesses sway from impressive to taxing. Often the effort to be interesting just comes off as nonsensical cacophony.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Thrill of It All
    To date, the only real distinction of Smith’s music is his voice--and though he’s a talented singer, even that’s dulled by songs this predictably vanilla.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Pacific Daydream
    The Weezer frontman continues to tap that increasingly dry well, his dusty lovelorn longings for perfect summer nights now sounding completely formulaic.
    • 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.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Younger Now
    Cyrus’ voice has scarcely been more expressive, and there’s no question that she means what she sings. That said, you might long for a more inspired metaphor (or eight).
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Gemini
    This is the same old Macklemore, stuffing all of his songs with drop-out catchphrases and horn solos and minutes-long American Idol-style belting, all starry-eyed and corny in the same way that, say, the music in a Broadway musical is.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Wonderful Wonderful
    That lack of any real direction or purpose colors all of Wonderful Wonderful, a record that, even by The Killers’ standards, boasts little depth beneath its glossy surface.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Hiss Spun
    Hiss Spun is a full-on sludge-metal extravaganza, never content to go slow and heavy when it could be going slower and heavier. The bombast is overwhelming, and while there’s an admirable zeal to her drive for making almost every second as intense as possible, it begins to get numbing.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Black Mile to the Surface
    There’s some beautiful songwriting here, but it’s buried beneath the smudges of its producers.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    New Facts Emerge
    It’s not bad--it’s certainly not an Ersatz GB, or Are You Are Missing Winner (though its half-assed cover art certainly comes close). But now that I’ve written it up, off it will go into the pile, never to be played.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Universal High
    At points, Universal High finds a hook and rides it somewhere new, but for the most part it’s content to time-travel to safe harbors, layering clean, jazzy guitar over simple grooves or dabbling in yacht rock.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Eucalyptus
    While Eucalyptus is undoubtedly intriguing, it’s only occasionally enjoyable as music.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Sacred Hearts Club
    Overall, Sacred Hearts Club also signals a return to Foster The People’s more electronic origins, but not in the inventive way that was used on Torches. Rather, it comes off as hackneyed copy, full of the predictable EDM/trap beats that every other chart-topper has shoved in somewhere.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Walk With Love and Death
    Overall Love isn’t arresting enough to draw listeners in without a visual component. Along with a handful of other Melvins albums, A Walk With Love & Death seems destined to be overshadowed by the band’s stronger output.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    LANY
    LANY’s ambition is admirable—and this debut will sound great blasted at parties all summer long--but its pleasures end up feeling superficial and ephemeral.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    BOOMIVERSE
    On his third solo record, Boomiverse, Big Boi chooses a path of cheerful irrelevance. The only possible thing to say about it is that you will like it if you like his other solo records and would also like a third album exactly like them.
    • 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.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Crack-Up
    The band has always prided itself on ornateness, and in that sense, Crack-Up is its richest release to date. But more often than not, all that fussiness robs it of any impact.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Relaxer
    In its eight songs, Relaxer feels as though it covers almost as many musical moods and genres. That overload, combined with its stylistic hairpin turns, leave one feeling queasy and slightly confused, lessening the impact of its more successful cuts.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Planetarium
    It generally just plays like a wash of ideas without much of a through-line, despite its galaxy-driven conceit.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Wolves
    Wolves is somehow even more polished, almost glossy to a fault with its compression and ladled-on sweetening of the distortion. At times, it veers dangerously close to latter-day Metallica.
    • 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.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Witness
    Despite the presence of bulletproof hit-makers (Max Martin, Sia, Jeff Bhasker) and inventive electro artists (Purity Ring, Hot Chip, Duke Dumont), the record is curiously flat, a shapeless slog that feels remarkably sluggish.
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