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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    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Stankonia
    Many rappers derive inspiration from Clinton, but OutKast has constructed its own far-reaching and experimental mythology, drenching its surrealistic, Southern-fried flows in brilliantly executed funk, blissful soul, rattling live drums, spacey synthesizers, and psychedelic guitars.... In its messy brilliance, OutKast has created a hip-hop Sign O' The Times, a messy, vital classic and a major step forward for both its members and hip-hop as a whole.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Elephant
    All the elements of previous White Stripes records surface again, but in weirder, more intense strains that don't break with Jack and Meg White's past, yet don't slavishly adhere to it, either.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Kish Kash
    An album that sets the bar for density and imagination almost unreasonably high.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    69 Love Songs
    Alternately recalling the best work of Blondie, Leonard Cohen, Depeche Mode, and dozens more, 69 Songs About Love is a sprawling masterpiece of White Album-like proportions.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Since We Last Spoke
    Since We Last Spoke finds RJD2 sounding like some blessed creature who's able to tune in every radio station in the world, past and present, and mix them together into a cohesive whole.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Since I Left You
    Quite possibly the best sample record ever made.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Soft Bulletin
    An impossibly multi-tracked masterwork of excess, abrasion, and indefinable beauty.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
    What's lost is considerable: namely, the justly vaunted lyrical chemistry between Andre 3000 and Big Boi. But what's gained is even more remarkable: the powerful, singular, undiluted visions of two of rap's most fearless sonic explorers.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Madvillainy
    Like both artists' most transcendent work, Madvillainy retains its mystery and wonder after dozens of listens.
    • The A.V. Club
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Transatlanticism
    A lush, impeccably produced, musically adventurous, emotionally resonant examination of the way relationships are both strengthened and damaged by distance, the album surpasses Gibbard's other career highpoints, which is really saying something.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Z
    It's both rare and marvelous to hear a good band make its first really great album.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Destroyer's Rubies
    It's an easy Destroyer album to love, approachable as both a collection of strong rock songs and a literary exercise in just how far songs can stretch to make sense of the words within them.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Fishscale
    Sure, Fishscale has its share of pointless skits. But that's what the fast-forward button is for, just as the play button seems to have been designed specifically to let people listen to Fishscale over and over again.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    DFA Remixes: Chapter 1
    What's best is the sense that no DFA remix will sound quite the same way twice. That applies to the sounds within as well as the complete tracks, which beg to be approached from different directions--as contemplative rock, frazzled dance, wonky prog, and so on--so they can show off entry points lurking almost everywhere.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast
    Graced by a new lightness of touch and simply better as programmers, the two friends behind Matmos sound loose and lively where they once sounded stiff.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    It's Never Been Like That
    It's Never Been Like That has the necessary edge of real art, but it's approachable right down to the final song, "Second To None," with its deep echo and thin lines.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Return To Cookie Mountain
    TV On The Radio previously seemed content to roam the open horizon; here, it's intent on exploring the far side. The journey is, once again, enthralling.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    We Are The Pipettes
    Three polka-dotted women with perfectly suited voices front The Pipettes, but it's the work of mastermind Monster Bobby and the rest of the backing band that elevates these 16 nuggets far beyond the disposable pop implied by the setup.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Body, The Blood, The Machine
    It's 36 minutes of loose garage rock with massively catchy melodies sugarcoating the biting sarcasm.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Modern Times
    The slow-building atmospherics of Dylan's 1997 comeback album have given way to some of the most immediately accessible tunes in his catalog.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Letting Go
    The pull of European cool against Oldham's usual rustic, heartfelt love poetry creates moments of sweet tension.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Gang Of Losers
    For the first time, the cantankerous Lightburn matches his lyrics--from rapture to self-exploration to joy both lived and missed--perfectly with the music, which nods to Britpop but never succumbs to any genre trappings.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Crane Wife
    The songs brim with melodic ideas, but the album never overwhelms, because Meloy doesn't try to pack every minute with words and hooks.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Blood Mountain
    Blood Mountain is terrifying in scope as well as execution.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Food & Liquor
    By boldly expanding the parameters of mainstream hip-hop, Fiasco's threatening to make rap a welcoming place for geeks and iconoclasts as well as pimps and thugs.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    A Weekend In The City
    It's smart, strange, just different enough from its predecessor, and, eventually, absolutely stunning.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Neon Bible
    Through Neon Bible, the band is seemingly sending a beacon to other reasonable people forced underground by the world's insanity. It's almost like a musical version of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Living With The Living
    Another fiercely satisfying Leo record.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Traffic And Weather
    Traffic And Weather offers vivid little snapshots of characters and places, but in Schlesinger and Collingswood's hands, a snapshot can tell the whole story.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    New Moon
    New Moon is thankfully, wonderfully full.
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