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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    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Sound Of Silver
    Sure, lots of other people have done this lately, but few do it with Murphy's flair.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Body Talk
    Over the course of Body Talk, Robyn has proved that there's real emotion to be found among the ones and zeros of electronic music, and Pt 3. is the culmination of that outlook: euphoric, personal, and inspirational to the last beat.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Time (The Revelator)
    A winsome, beautiful collection of songs... Welch has never seemed more assured, building a creatively expansive work out of modest ingredients.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Who Kill
    Whokill's sonic imagination outlasts the novelty of Tune-Yards' debut, and even better, a lyrical persona as playfully warped as the rhythms punching away behind it.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Comicopera
    Really, all of Comicopera rolls deliriously over pillowy layers of sound
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Remind Me Tomorrow
    Its 10 songs are much more focused on how their protagonists are dealing right now, in the present, with triumphs, traumas, and new beginnings. This approach leads to rich songs with lyrics probing the liminal space where resolution isn’t clear—but emotional reactions crackle on the surface like tingling electricity.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    thank u, next
    A leap forward in the way it reshapes her R&B-inflected pop into something sleeker and more adventurous. ... Thank U, Next skillfully toys with the tension between universal sentiments and deeply personal confessions.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Welcome To Mali
    Welcome To Mali sounds heavily produced but not overproduced, and even with the pings and whizzing, Amadou’s playing and the pair’s singing insure it never sounds less than organic.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Natalie Prass
    What makes it good is her sophisticated ear for pop arrangements. What sets it apart is her gracefully authoritative, hyper-emotive, and at times semi-animal personality brought out through a masterfully controlled and gloriously weird set of pipes.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Mirrored
    It works best when the songs sound in thrall to themselves, reacting in different ways while retracing steps, but it also fishtails into missteps ("Rainbow") that sound oddly like Mannheim Steamroller.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Are We There
    Are We There offers an artist in full command of her voice and her instrument, a woman who knows exactly what she wants to offer listeners and who isn’t afraid to accompany the barest streaks of sunlight with thousands of clouds.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Bon Iver
    But for all its introspection, Bon Iver feels a lot more open than Vernon's previous work, the sound of a lonely guy taking his first steps into a larger world.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    How I Got Over
    How I Got Over hearkens back to the neo-soul mellowness of The Roots' mid-'90s output, while songs like the infectious title track retain Tipping Point's pop savvy.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Love & Hate
    Love & Hate is a massive leap in accomplishment for Kiwanuka.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Fixed::Context [EP]
    Because no other act really sounds like Labradford, which matches its Ennio Morricone-style melodies and analog synths with a sense of menace missing from most ambient music, it's forgivable that only subtle distinctions differentiate one recording from the next.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
    As monumental as Dead Cities sounds in parts, its uniformity proves oppressively stirring after just a few tracks.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Hercules And Love Affair
    He knows when to kick disco into action and when to just kick back and listen.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Syro
    Even if Syro isn’t a radical departure, it’s still a swaggering return, a reminder of just how many varieties of warped sound remain at James’ command--and just how few of his acolytes can touch that versatility.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Jericho Sirens
    It all works. Whenever Hot Snakes decide to get together, they will always be welcome.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Teens of Denial
    That exercise in tension and release, repeated throughout the record, is essential to Teens Of Denial’s blistering greatness. The distortion-laden songs on Teens Of Denial build and soar, often repeatedly within a few minutes.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Narkopop
    Voigt certainly hasn’t lost touch with electronic music, though Narkopop reclaims the sound of it that is most unmistakably his, while also giving it more variance in tone.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Robyn
    The overall mood is light even when the lyrics get pointed--which is plenty of the time.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Separation Sunday
    The Hold Steady is the ideal iPod band. Finn's abrasive voice sounds legitimately exciting in four-minute bursts, and his best put-down lines are more corrosive.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Process
    It’s the best R&B debut since FKA Twigs’ LP1.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blues Dream
    Blues Dream, Frisell's best collection since 1995's breakthrough Nashville, frequently incorporates blues as the base for a strong batch of evocative arrangements...
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    You Forgot It In People
    The commitment to iconoclastic expressiveness, which includes belting out some fairly raunchy lyrics, leads to dead ends, but Broken Social Scene never blows it altogether, because it holds onto its hooks to get out of tough corners.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Minimum-Maximum [Live]
    Kraftwerk still sounds great.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Kaleidoscope Dream
    Kaleidoscope Dream will almost surely attract comparisons to another recent R&B album with its own amiable internal logic, Frank Ocean's Channel Orange, and not unfairly, given that both are uniformly excellent.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Once I Was an Eagle
    Eagle is a master class in creation.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Thunder, Lightning, Strike
    A challenge to even the most hardened depressive, Thunder, Lightning, Strike finds one way after another to shake new pleasures out of old material.
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