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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    • 77 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Bad Witch
    The instrumentals, like all NIN, reward immersive listening, but fans may find themselves wishing for a little more to grab onto.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Heaven & Earth
    Earth is loaded with mentally and emotionally draining songs. ... Heaven, [is] a set of smoother, more cosmic songs that showcase Washington’s ability to pen compositions of awe-inspiring majesty. Even more impressive is the way those two modes occasionally bleed into each other from across the album’s border.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Everything is Love
    Everything may lack the emotional depth of Beyoncé’s last two solo records, but it more than makes up for it in holy-shit-Beyoncé moments. ... Only Jay’s own work with Kanye (and Drake and Future’s collaborative 2015 takeover of rap radio) even approach what the Carters have done here, at least as far as fusing their disparate personae into an appealing whole.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Sleepless
    Some, like the preset pings and warbles in “MS19” and “Io,” will also test just how much kitsch you take in your kosmische. Still, there are frequent spacey pleasures to latch onto, and an evident, infectious joy in its creation.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Head Over Heels
    Chromeo specializes in upbeat, retro-embracing synth-funk—but, unlike others in a similar vein, the Canadian duo exists in an area somewhere between a come-hither wink and a seduction parody. On Head Over Heels, the group strikes a perfect balance between these extremes. Credit for this goes to the roster of impressive special guests.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Hope Downs
    Hope Downs more than delivers on the promise of the Melbourne quintet’s two early EPs, doubling down on the melancholy pop it forged on 2015’s Talk Tight and last year’s The French Press while also polishing its sound.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Bon Voyage
    Lyrically, Bon Voyage searches for healing and “some kind of light to come,” and the chemistry Prochet found with Swahn and Fiske seems to deliver it; this album is as freeing to listen to as it must’ve been to create.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Kids See Ghosts
    Kids See Ghosts marks his true return only a year and a half after he checked himself into rehab to fight depression and suicidal ideation, and taking the time out to work on himself seems to have done him wonders. Cudi is, without qualification, the spiritual and artistic backbone of Kids See Ghosts, the source of its truest artistic risks and the instrument of its greatest triumphs.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Remain In Light
    Kidjo’s Remain In Light, now arriving in studio form, is a stunning transformation that sheds the nervous, alien nature of these well-worn songs, turning them into something more human, danceable, and, in some cases, more meaningful.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    so sad so sexy
    Lykke Li’s fourth album, So Sad So Sexy, is more introverted and meditative than her previous efforts.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Lush
    The crushing sameness of the existence described in Snail Mail’s music means that not every song on Lush is essential, but when Jordan hits, she hits a bullseye.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Ye
    It’s a prismatic album, reflecting its creator’s entire body of work--and also whatever you think about him going in.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Testing
    Though the finished project is as loose and incohesive as its title might suggest, there’s a lot to like about Testing.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    LUMP
    All that surrealist pop plays out over 30 minutes of interlocking songs, enough to keep you thoroughly entranced and get you hoping LUMP might soon inspire its hosts to deliver more.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    God's Favorite Customer
    There’s little to adorn most of these songs—lyrically economical, sonically without much pageantry--but the intimacy and honesty results in some of Tillman’s most stunning songwriting.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Hell-On
    Case’s restless exploratory impulses are contained within relatively conventional song structures, with much more compelling results.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Age Of
    The result is a remarkably accessible, yet still resolutely avant-garde work, with Lopatin taking various musical forms--cough-syrupy R&B jams, country ballads, baroque chamber pop--and wresting unexpected nuances out of them, the same way he does that harpsichord.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    DAYTONA
    For the first time since going solo, it all feels of a piece. ... The sonic setting he [Kanye West] places this performance from Pusha in is an absolute masterpiece of minimalism.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Love is Dead
    The songs sound bigger and more layered, but the core of hook-laden, synth-based pop and Lauren Mayberry’s lilting vocals remains undisturbed.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Dirty Pictures, Pt. 2
    Dirty Pictures (Part 2) is an album for all occasions: whiskey-fueled dance parties in dark bars, heartbroken late-night sobfests, and introspective moments pondering life’s vicissitudes.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Rausch
    Rausch picks up right where Narkopop left off. The new effort—pointedly intended to be listened to in a single sitting--finds a pulse early on that almost never ceases, with Voigt filtering in guitar plucks that hit like wind chimes.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Sparkle Hard
    Sparkle Hard is Malkmus at his most compelling: balancing his experimental whims while revealing pieces of his arcane heart.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Wide Awake!
    Wide Awake! is a full arc of an album, one that captures both Parquet Courts’ usual keyed-up exasperation and their new, hard-earned optimism.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Mark Kozelek
    Newcomers are unlikely to care much, but anyone who’s been following the man’s career since the Red House Painters should appreciate how he keeps looking for new ways to convert his very existence into art.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer.
    Forgoing original instrumentation in favor of a dense collage of samples, The Body conjures an oddly catchy apocalypse on “Nothing Stirs” and “Off Script,” while guest vocalists like Uniform’s Michael Berdan--whose hate-choked bellow makes the NIN influence explicit--provide decipherable counterpoint to frontman Chip King’s slaughterhouse sq
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Floating Features
    La Luz’s sound is a lot like a mai tai: Both sweet and strong, it goes down easy before knocking you flat.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    7
    With 7, Legrand and Scally have gotten freer themselves. This is the sound of a band that knows itself extremely well and yet, in seeking outside perspectives and embracing imperfection, has discovered a whole new level to explore. If this album feels like an alternate-reality Beach House, it’s because Legrand and Scally have altered their reality.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    SR3MM
    SR3MM delivers quantity and quality by zeroing in on its creators’ charisma, clarifying the appeal that’s been there the whole time. In the strange pantheon of triple LPs, there’s nothing else like it.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Hollow Ground
    Clarke’s tendency to drift into the otherworldliness of his act’s namesake brings some much-needed grime to all that bubblegum.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Knock Knock
    There hasn’t been a more purely enjoyable record released in 2018.
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