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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    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Starboy
    The record is a few songs too long, and it loses steam as it progresses. But such imperfections are par for the course: He’d rather express everything he’s feeling than put forth an airbrushed or idealized version of himself. In that sense, Starboy is one of the most confident releases of the year, one bold enough to reveal the cracks in The Weeknd’s façade for the sake of resonant art.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hardwired...To Self-Destruct
    Hardwired is never embarrassing in the way of St. Anger or Lulu, but it’s rarely revelatory either. It’s not so much that Metallica is incapable of writing a good song in 2016; it’s just a little too complacent to write a truly great one.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    24K Magic
    24K Magic is easily his most cohesive and enjoyable collection, an escapist record that comes by its evocations of the past honestly.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service
    It’s good, an unexpected victory lap by Tip, Phife, producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and estranged founding member Jarobi.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Devil Music
    Devil Music sounds like The Men took that talent, gave into their most primal, terrifying desires, and built a raucous, bruising--and never harmless--noise out of it.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Jessica Rabbit
    Sleigh Bells has grown up plenty since their 2009 lightning-strike arrival, but perhaps that strike is starting to feel like more of a distant memory than it should.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Slugger
    The songs all work inside established frameworks but twist them until they feel fresh. And really, that’s all Speedy Ortiz has ever done, too. It shows that Dupuis is a songwriter who can make any genre feel her own, regardless of what moniker she elects to release it under.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Goodnight City
    The many perspectives on Goodnight City add up to a dynamic record that speaks to the power of letting others--be they family, friends, idols, alter egos--help pull us out of and realize fuller versions of ourselves.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    You Know What It's Like
    More meditations on moods than songs, these eight tracks are preoccupied with impermanence and ambiguity.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Babes Never Die
    Producer James Dring (Jamie T, Gorillaz) skillfully amplifies Honeyblood’s bewitching hooks and taut arrangements, while preserving the band’s scruffy, DIY-pop vibe.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    FLOTUS
    Missing is the color and vibrancy of the Van McCoy disco original, but that’s consistent with what FLOTUS is all about. To add something meaningful to the current electronic-music canon, Wagner has fully cut the tethers to the past.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Honeymoon on Mars
    On most of Honeymoon On Mars, the band seems resigned to the apocalypse and modern society’s devolution, resulting in a shockingly limp record overflowing with empty bluster.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Joanne
    Joanne may not become the multiplatinum blockbuster Bella Donna was, but the record absolutely feels like Gaga is once again on an upward trajectory.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Winter Wheat
    These are hopeful, triumphant themes, but what Samson captures so well is the melancholy lurking beneath progress, the sense that we’re in the midst of perpetual loss. This makes for a provoking listen, but also a heavy one.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Integrity Blues
    In the case of Integrity Blues, the band’s truisms prove much sexier than expected, and the fact is that it’s their strongest album in well over a decade.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    American Football (LP2)
    The intervening years have been kind to the group; its easy chemistry remains a dialogue full of endearing, if not ample, surprises.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    You Want It Darker
    He’s choosing to examine his life (and life’s work) rather than ponder the abyss. That ensures You Want It Darker doesn’t feel like an ending, as much as it feels like one more chapter in Cohen’s songbook.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Building a Beginning
    Difficult to switch off, Building A Beginning promises to carry balmy summer vibes across winter’s chill.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Ruminations
    It works because Oberst keeps the music moving and doesn’t let his voice over-quiver with rage or sadness. He’s rather calm, and his songwriting is strong as ever.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    First Ditch Effort
    Musically, the band is still in frenetic first gear, proudly sticking to its well-tested formula of power chords, metal-infused riffs, and biting humor. That sameness dulls some of First Ditch Effort’s luster, but it’s still a spirited late-career entry for the veteran punks.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Cody
    Cody shows the band hasn’t run out of good ideas, even when its subjects still seem to have no idea what they’re doing.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Revolution Radio
    Revolution Radio, the band’s solid but sometimes unfocused new album, can’t stop looking to the past, to the present, anywhere but the future.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Head Carrier
    Unlike Indie Cindy, Head Carrier knows exactly what it is. Whether that’s something we’ll remember is another discussion entirely.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    22, A Million
    22, A Million can stand confidently as the only album to bridge Hornsby’s The Way It Is with Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Fires Within Fires
    Fires Within Fires is yet another invaluable contribution from this legendary band.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings
    He [frontman James Alex] retains a sincere and lasting understanding of the frustrations of the young outcast, and works that angst into tracks.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Return to Love
    It’s the band’s most accomplished work to date.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Pretty Years
    Pretty Years is joyous, revelatory, and the moment where the varied sounds of those past three records all come together.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Shape Shift with Me
    Those who like their alt-punk laced with introspection and intellectualism will continue to like Grace’s music, and perhaps learn a bit about what it’s like to be her as well.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Stage Four
    Stage Four reverberates because it’s a concept album, the tracks linear and part of the greater whole.
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