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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    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    4:44
    4:44 is captivating because it both upholds that version of himself and buckles beneath its weight.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Hug of Thunder
    Hug is also a welcome retreat to those earlier records in terms of production, forsaking the leaner sound of 2010’s Forgiveness Rock Record for the shaggy excesses of both You Forgot It and Broken Social Scene.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    GN
    If the added instrumentation sometimes feels a bit forced—there’s some slide guitar that feels extraneous, a sop to tradition--it’s more than made up for by the artistry that underlines the rest of it.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Lifetime of Love
    Remarkably, Archuleta has joined those random bits and pieces into something that feels like it’s always been together, a surreal broken record with songs that are able to grow and change, despite being snagged on hypnotic loops.
    • 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.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Ruinism
    Altogether, Ruinism feels like a far more considered, cerebral effort than Lapalux has delivered before. It may not offer the uniformly sensuous pleasures of those earlier works, but it does a lot more to stimulate other parts of the body.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Mister Mellow
    It is exceptionally pleasant to listen to, a seamless stretch of midtempo mood music that glides by in a neat narcotic haze. There aren’t so many standout tracks as there are standout moments, like the echoey crack of the hook on “Floating By,” or the moment the beat comes into dazzling clarity on “Million Miles Away.”
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Reflections: Mojave Desert
    Mojave Desert, appropriately, feels like the end of a weekend retreat: restorative, over far too soon, and with its finer points already quickly fading from memory, but all in all, definitely worth doing again.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Beautiful Thugger Girls
    Few artists manage to balance wide-eyed eroticism with genuine warmth, and fewer manage the feat while packing multiple albums’ worth of hooks into each song. For Thug, it’s just his default mode.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Melodrama
    What Melodrama confirms most of all is Lorde’s uncanny ability to drill down so precisely on grand emotional themes that would fell lesser songwriters. Tackling a bad breakup certainly isn’t new in pop music, but it’s delivered here with an honesty an energy that is uniquely her own.
    • 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.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Together At Last
    Another side-project song, Golden Smog’s “Lost Love,” gets sweetly chilled, and the Summerteeth deep cut “In A Future Age” loses some of its flair from the album version but gains intimacy. That’s true of this whole exercise, really, but the trade-off works fantastically well on those particular songs.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 33 Critic Score
    Murder of the Universe
    Overall this record requires a huge narrative commitment, with the payoff of a vomit coffin. Not worth it.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Big Fish Theory
    Big Fish Theory veers off the course set by its predecessor, bucking the sophomore slump by ditching the vast majority of his old collaborators and peers in favor of the sort of whole-cloth artistic reinvention generally associated with canonical greats like Kanye or Bowie. What’s even crazier is that he sticks the landing. It’s his second classic LP in a row.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Pretty Girls Like Trap Music
    There’s no galactic change to his style here, just a further refinement of it.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Underside of Power
    Underside feels like a quantum leap from [its 2015 self-titled debut] both musically and thematically, newly charged with the righteous anger of Antifa and Black Lives Matter, and explosively unleashed by artists and activists who sense that this is their moment to seize. The result is a collection of songs that articulates that fury and despair with such authority, it deserves to become the soundtrack for whatever future documentary montage captures the mess of 2017.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    CTRL
    Ctrl is as tough as Damn is tender, and it knocks as hard as The Sun’s Tirade swoons.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    CHUCK
    Chuck’s a wonderful piece of American music, and ultimately as enigmatic and elusive as the man who filed it on his way out the door.
    • 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.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Abysmal Thoughts
    The new sounds heighten the bittersweet flavor, as Pierce opens up about feeling lonely, stupid, betrayed, empty, and at times, hopeful. If his life hasn’t exactly gotten easier, his music has never been better.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    City Music
    There’s a lot of musical shape-shifting on City Music, but the varied approach helps capture the gritty, up-and-down nature of a place that never sleeps.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Weather Diaries
    Weather Diaries is both recognizably Ride and a logical, tasteful update of its sound.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Fake Sugar
    Ditto’s powerhouse voice remains a steely, piercing instrument imbued with Southern sass and dynamic range.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Iteration
    Mostly, Iteration offers only a minor darkening of Haley’s familiar neon-lit moods. It’s a great sound and one always worth returning to, but you’re left wondering how long Haley can keep it up.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Nashville Sound
    The result is Isbell’s most topical and far-reaching album yet, but one that’s also suffused with hope.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Cigarettes After Sex
    What saves this El Paso-born, Brooklyn-based group from being just another trafficker of “Lynchian” indie-rock tropes is Gonzalez’s ability to capture moments and stretch them into lusty little pop daydreams.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Capacity
    Capacity may not be breaking any new boundaries. But with a songwriter as undeniable as Lenker, it doesn’t need to.
    • 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.
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