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
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dive Deep
    Morcheeba's existence points out everything Air does right--both are calm and inoffensive enough to serve as dinner music, but only one aspires to more.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    It Is Time For A Love Revolution
    From its title on down, It Is Time For A Love Revolution is spiritually interchangeable with his debut, 1989's "Let Love Rule."
    • 66 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    The Bedlam In Goliath
    The band's frenzied rate of output seems to have trampled any inner editor, and the result is a splat of concepts and virtuosity that never coheres.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Field Manual
    Add Walla to the list of producers who should stay producers: Field Manual sounds great, but it isn't always worth listening to.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Portrait Is Finished & I Have Failed To Capture Your Beauty...
    Bejar wanders in and out with backing vocals and extended guitar lines, but the overall feeling is of two artists taking a little time out for themselves.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo
    The sum of its charms--and there are a few--add up to something for only the most devoted in the Cuomo cult.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Carnival II: Memoirs Of An Immigrant
    Immigrant goes down smooth. Just don't expect it to linger.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Unbreakable
    An album that lacks both a mission statement and a sense of purpose.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Under The Boards
    As usual, his nasal voice gets grating, but at least his band has returned to what it does best.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Shotter's Nation
    Doherty is no mad genius--he's just mad, and it shows in Nation's slipshod execution and undernourished songcraft.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Oblivion With Bells
    Expansive, unfurling bangers like 'Beautiful Burnout' help keep Underworld above the line that separates has-beens from are-stills.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Rock N Roll Jesus
    Jesus spits in the face of good taste with such unbridled enthusiasm that it's almost possible overlook its more cringe-inducing tendencies. Almost.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace
    Echoes has some characteristic Foo Fighters rockers, but even they sound quieter: Producer Gil Norton keeps the guitars, along with everything else, subdued. And without the usual standout hits (though 'Long Road To Ruin' is solid), Echoes will probably leave fans wanting.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Drastic Fantastic
    Tunstall tries hard to stand out with moments of guitar fuzz and lyrics that occasionally border on clever, but Drastic is ultimately little more than pleasant background noise.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    All The Lost Souls
    As background music, it slays. In the foreground, however, not so much.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Curtis
    He's still capable of cranking out a great single and the occasional clever verse, but he's yet to master the art of making a satisfying album rather than delivering a random assortment of demographic-pandering tracks.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Happiness Ltd.
    It's telling, though, that the best song on Happiness is a re-recorded '5 Times Out Of 100,' which originally appeared on the band's debut Sub Pop EP.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Civilians
    So many of his songs sound damnably similar, blanded-out by his pinched rasp and seeming disinterest in melody.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Play It As It Lays
    On Play It As It Lays, Patti "Mrs. Bruce Springsteen" Scialfa sounds like the typical wife of a captain-of-industry type from New Jersey: vaguely bored and unfulfilled.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Places Like This
    In spite of Architecture In Helsinki's trademark bounce and imagination, Places feels far more like work than play.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Is Is [EP]
    Yeah Yeah Yeahs doesn't inspire much patience on the Is Is EP; instead, it rewards it with frustrating hints.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Zeitgeist
    Zeitgeist ends up sounding like a Corgan career retrospective in B-side form.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    T.I. Vs T.I.P.
    Sonically, the album has a frantic, indistinct busyness that all too often passes for excitement and momentum.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    My December
    Much of "My December" lacks the precisely engineered hooks that made Clarkson famous.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dylanesque
    He sounds surprisingly disengaged here.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Ma Fleur
    Ma Fleur is heavy on atmospheric standing still, with tunes not beguiling enough to make listeners stop to examine them up close.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Eat Me, Drink Me
    It's a modernized version of Marilyn Manson: heavier guitar, a touch of neo-thrash, and some metalized Bravery-style new-wave pop.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Everyday I Said A Prayer For Kathy And Made A One Inch Square
    If the idea was to shore up the band's indie roots, Wheat has succeeded in the worst possible way.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Myths Of The Near Future
    Most of this album is a slapdash mess.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Yours Truly, Angry Mob
    Kaiser Chiefs scramble to reclaim ground already won, sticking with lazily hooky songs sporting overcranked arrangements. The result? Charmless fare like the bombastic UK hit single "Ruby," and loutish lad-rock like "Thank You Very Much" and "My Kind Of Guy," which sound simultaneously pushy and forgettable.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Search
    With everything it has going for it, it should be a lot better than it is.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    National Anthem Of Nowhere
    National Anthem Of Nowhere is intermittently compelling, but it's more often disjointed and unduly harsh.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Ash Wednesday
    Ultimately, though, there's no transcendence for Perkins or the listener, making Ash Wednesday a tough listen with limited rewards.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Visitations
    Unfortunately, for those who've been hanging around waiting for Clinic to eclipse its past achievements, Visitations feels like one step forward, too many steps back.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Good, The Bad & The Queen
    It's easy to respect the album's sustained washed-out tone, but it'd be nice if the songs were memorable past their running time. Intrigue without any payoff makes for pretty dull listening.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Threes
    Where Amputechture is directionless but at least clever about masking its influences, Threes is directionless and completely predictable.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Friendly Fire
    Friendly Fire's real problem is that Lennon keeps coming up with airy melodies that recall his father's work, only they don't really sound like John anymore, they sound like Elliott Smith.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Darkel
    It sounds like Air divided by two, but it's all too easy to hear what's missing.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Captain & The Kid
    There are way too many ballads and not nearly enough bounce, although it's nice to hear him really trying again.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Winter Women / Holy Ghost Language School
    Holy Ghost Language School is something of an endurance test... Winter Women is more rewarding by design; it only suffers from excessive length and Friedberger's continued insistence on slathering songs with random waves of noise and self-conscious dissonance.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Dusk And Summer
    Most of Dusk And Summer sounds factory-made and even kitschy.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fundamental
    A politically charged album that's free of musical sparks.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    We Don't Need To Whisper
    We Don't Need To Whisper feels like 50 long minutes of DeLonge proving himself as an artist.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Taking The Long Way
    If anything, Taking The Long Way is overly blunt, as though the group felt it has an image to maintain. The anger feels calculated.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Just Like The Fambly Cat
    Fambly's flabbiest moments sag pretty low, to the point that the album's midsection is almost entirely skippable.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Stadium Arcadium
    The trouble with virtuosity is that it doesn't always translate into songcraft, and the absence of even one hum-it-on-the-way-home track here raises the old questions again: Does this band even make sense? Are punk energy and funk grooves music's peanut-butter-and-chocolate or its oatmeal-and-sardines? And what's Anthony Kiedis talking about, anyway?
    • 64 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Louder Now
    That's not to say that Louder Now lacks charm--"Spin" and "Miami" excellently blend the band's acumen for punk punchiness and melody alike--but the album's numbing repetitiveness negates it.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Blessing And A Curse
    The bulk of the album is made of slight, rote country-rockers, as sturdy and flat as a table.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Back Room
    The album starts repeating itself and the returns start diminishing.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Mr. Beast
    Beast lumbers instead of flows.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    If Only You Were Lonely
    Unsurprisingly, repetition sinks If Only You Were Lonely.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Other People's Lives
    Sounds too much like a man chasing trends.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    20/20
    Dilated Peoples' orthodox appeal has always been its aversion to gimmicks and flash, but on this underwhelming album the venerable trio offer little in the way of humor or excitement, either.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Loneliest Punk
    As long as listeners don't expect an album full of songs as painfully brilliant as "What's Up Fatlip?", Punk marks a fairly solid return from an artist who lost nearly everything, but retained his scruffy underdog charm.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Descended Like Vultures
    Though it's generally enjoyable throughout, Descended Like Vultures feels more stunted than it should, as though Rogue were afraid to open up these songs too much.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Somebody's Miracle
    While Somebody's Miracle marks an improvement over Liz Phair, there's still nothing revolutionary, or even memorable, happening here.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Live It Out
    Metric has a hard time balancing its pop side and its experimental side, and not enough of the new record is as memorable as its simmering regret ballad "Too Little Too Late" or the frenzied retro-dance cut "Monster Hospital."
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    In Space
    Pleasant in parts, embarrassing in others, In Space sounds more like an okay album from any of a dozen Big Star-inspired bands than like Big Star itself.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Cripple Crow
    Flags in equally fruitful and frustrating ways.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Life In Slow Motion
    A tendency to devolve into Coldplay-esque atmospherics makes it a less than wholly successful effort.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Plat du Jour
    Parts of Plat Du Jour sound hokey and fussily arranged in ways that lack the intimacy and luminosity of Herbert's past highpoints. As experimental compositions with a point to make, however, the better tracks bounce around questions that linger after the liner notes are filed away.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking?
    Too much of The Like's personality is borrowed, but it is, nonetheless, a personality.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Oh No
    Too much of Oh No comes out thin and flavorless, but bandleader Damian Kulash clearly has an artist's sensibility lagging just behind his commercial savvy.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Front Parlour Ballads
    Perhaps he needs the pressure or the camaraderie. Perhaps not. But for some reason, Thompson sounds detached from the songs on Front Parlour Ballads, even though he's in the thick of them.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Honeycomb
    Fall[s] somewhere between briskly entertaining and simply inconsequential.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Understanding
    Even in its migration from the groovy '70s to the technocratic '80s, though, Röyksopp has become a lot cooler than it has to be.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    TP.3 Reloaded
    TP.3 Reloaded initially seems like a rote exercise in self-parody, then a delightful romp in self-parody, then finally something in between.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Haunted Cities
    Transplants make a splattery mess of modern music as often as they stumble over something new and exciting.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    In Your Honor
    In Your Honor's acoustic half reveals Dave Grohl's songwriting shortcomings.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    X&Y
    Only three songs really, truly deliver.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Out Of Exile
    As Out Of Exile carries on, the songs sound repetitious and a little formulaic; each guitar solo seems to arrive at a preordained moment, and both the album and the individual songs drag on too long.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Crimson
    Alkaline Trio's shtick isn't as cartoonish as that of goth-punk outfit AFI, but it can be a bit silly.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    No Business
    Like most of Negativland's oeuvre, No Business makes valid points via sometimes-annoying sounds.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    With Teeth
    A tight, straightforward set of serviceable Nine Inch Nails songs, with brief moments of inspiration and lots of fan- and radio-friendly hooks.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Waiting For The Sirens' Call
    In the context of New Order's catalog, it may sink to the bottom, but listening to a great (or at least once-great) band phone it in can at least occasionally be rewarding enough to make the effort worthwhile.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Songs For Silverman
    Folds remains tasteful to a fault, and while Songs For Silverman is arguably his most mature work to date it's almost indisputably his most middle-aged album, which isn't an entirely positive development.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Untilted
    As a strategy, Untilted's severe deconstruction plays like a non-starter; as a working method settled on by an act from whom fans would expect nothing less, it sounds like Autechre reshuffling terms that are very much its own.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Bleed Like Me
    Garbage's latest approaches a kind of shimmering technical perfection, but remains strangely, stubbornly uninvolving.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Odyssey
    Fischerspooner still underdevelops its melodies and overcooks its mixes, but Odyssey contains a fair number of songs like the opener, "Just Let Go," a lean dance track with a memorable chorus, buzzing guitars, and some deft keywork.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    On My Way To Absence
    Moments of inspired darkness still abound, but for the first time--even counting past misfires--he retraces steps almost exactly, occasionally sounding bored in the process.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lullabies To Paralyze
    Without other strong personalities in the band to rein him in, Homme's occasional excesses undercuts what makes QOTSA so great.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Human After All
    On the whole, Human sounds guided by instructions as much as inspiration.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Origin Vol. 1
    Soundtrack sounds astonishingly good one song at a time, and surprisingly dull over the course of a full record.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Massacre
    But while its flaws are formidable, so are its strengths, beginning with Cent's dark charisma, belligerent sneer of a voice, fluid delivery, and mastery of hip-hop style
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Rebirth
    Though Lopez often comes off as little more than a featherweight studio concoction, Rebirth contains a few moments with the sugary snap of fresh Bubble Yum.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Beekeeper
    Floats by without stirring much interest.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Emoh
    This set of songs disappoints with its unwillingness to take real chances. Seemingly afraid to sound foolish, Barlow now sounds just okay.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    '64 - '95
    None of the samples really evoke the years in question, and Lemon Jelly doesn't put the years in any kind of relevant order, so the overall point of '64-'95 seems a little vague.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Documentary
    Lots of great rappers draw inspiration from hip-hop classics, but The Game seems to be equally influenced by an almost obsessive-compulsive need to rattle off classic album titles.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Purple Haze
    Purple Haze lumbers drearily through a sea of gangsta-rap clichés.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Destiny Fulfilled
    Destiny Fulfilled sounds distant and detached, and its pronounced ballad-fancy only occasionally raises a flag for the group dynamic it serves to restore.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece
    As always, Snoop oozes charisma, and he possesses one of rap's most irresistible voices, but R&G makes it clearer than ever that he has nothing to say, no matter how infectiously he says it.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    White People
    White People has something for everyone, as well as something guaranteed to irritate or turn off everyone, whether it's undistinguished rap-metal or tiresome comedy skits that'll have less indulgent listeners reaching repeatedly for the track-skip button.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Dear Heather
    Mostly, Dear Heather just coasts on poetic phrasing and inoffensive tunes.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Who Killed The Zutons
    The band doesn't seem to have recombined The Coral's sources in a personal way; instead, it's made a crisp copy, with no spirit of its own.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    New Danger
    A sprawling mess.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Summer In Abaddon
    The cleaner, more direct approach both helps and hurts. Without at least some sonic kink, Pinback drifts toward the pleasant but undistinguished; its core sound is too rarefied to snag the common rock fan.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    No Cities Left
    There's a strange, almost perfectly equatorial divide between five largely stunning songs, and six that might shine brighter in lesser company. As arranged, it's jarringly half-brilliant and half-blah.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Palookaville
    Palookaville's highlights promise the sweat and smiles that have become Fatboy Slim's stock in trade, but its surprisingly dull lulls offer nothing more promising than a blank expression.
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