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
    Teenage Emotions
    He is at his most interesting on the few occasions where he slips into a sort of uncanny valley of pop music--a bizarro fantasia that he arrives at honestly, like a less satirical PC Music.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Pickin' Up The Pieces
    Make no mistake--Fitz and his Tantrums are a great time, but so is Maroon 5, and that more maligned act might well have made this exact album, had vintage soul been trendy in 2002.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Last DJ
    Petty's thesis is strong, but his argument falters too often.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sweet Talker
    Nearly every song on Sweet Talker was constructed by a team of co-writers, a level of sonic micromanagement that stifles the music’s direction rather than improves it.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Get Rich Or Die Tryin'
    Only intermittently justifies the buzz surrounding the rapper's career.
    • 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.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Big Whiskey And The GrooGrux King
    As a lyricist, Matthews prospers when he’s being boyish and mischievous, but his earnest bits are mostly unbearable, and Big Whiskey, in keeping with much of the band’s recent output, plays like one big scented candle.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Nothing
    Williams and his N.E.R.D cohorts Chad Hugo and Shay Haley are adept in the studio; their musical constructs are always polished, and often at least somewhat impressive. But their lyrics and point of view are so entitled that there's little sense they're aiming much further than the nearest frat house.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Gifted
    Whatever survived of the brain behind Mixtape About Nothing has been permanently atrophied by luxury and laziness. At least the crisp, live-band production, a carryover from Ambition, remains a treat.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Happy People / U Saved Me
    An album that makes Up With People sound like Joy Division, Happy People embraces an ecstatic brand of cheerfulness so far removed from the realities of everyday life that it creates a kind of altered state.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Octahedron
    This is a band that excels when its sing-alongs double as freak-outs; on Octahedron, they’ve largely ditched the chaos in lieu of an admirable, albeit unsatisfying, experiment in being quiet.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    nyc ghosts & flowers
    But the album as a whole--which, at eight songs in 42 minutes, barely exceeds EP length--is woefully uneven, with producer Jim O'Rourke indulging the band in some truly ill-conceived whims.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Lotus
    Aguilera has always been an unstoppable force when she pours her heart and soul into her music-and not as adept at dumbing down her voice or lyrics for the sake of lightweight tunes or prevailing trends. Unfortunately, by focusing on the latter route, Lotus becomes disappointingly faceless.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Too Young to Be in Love
    At times offering an interesting deconstruction of classic love-song tropes via a gay lens, Too Young To Be In Love is long on attitude and short on memorable melodies.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    I Can't Stop
    It has all the makings of a classic album, but the ingredients don't quite mix right.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Living Things
    Shinoda and Bennington's brotherly chemistry remains undiminished, but what troubles is how little they've matured lyrically.
    • 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.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Until The End Of Time
    Nothing here quite matches the sheer awfulness of its title track and first single, which inexplicably samples Mr. Mister's "Broken Wings," but the album is uneven throughout, perhaps inevitably, given its two-hours-plus length.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Coco Beware
    As pleasantly promising as CoCo Beware is, Caveman has yet to move past that phase, or to fully harness the alluring darkness at its heart.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Finally Famous
    The long-delayed debut struggles for identity.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Teenage Dream
    Unfortunately, the fun peaks around the time that Snoop Dogg officially hands over his thug-life card during the previously released "California Gurls," a slice of sunny disco-pop perfection that suggested Teenage Dream just might trump 2008's spotty but enjoyable One Of The Boys. Instead, Perry returned with lots of ho-hum ballads and lackluster radio fodder as limp as the discarded lover in the dis track "Circle The Drain."
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Search
    With everything it has going for it, it should be a lot better than it is.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    In Heaven
    Most of In Heaven, however, lacks tension, build, or direction.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A New Testament
    For all its talk of hearts and affection, A New Testament barely has a pulse.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Remix
    Most of the time, The Remix settles for simply putting Gaga's slim catalog to faster and more blaring use.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Which Side Are You On?
    The problem with DiFranco's current work is not the fading anger of her youth. Instead, it's her inability to sound engaged in the current events she sings about.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    You Are All I See
    You Are All I See is the debut album from Active Child, the band that Los Angeles singer-songwriter Pat Grossi has steadily built around his sweeping harp, pining falsetto, and shuddering beats.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Screws Get Loose
    Sadly, Screws Get Loose is a serious step backward, ditching the anarchic honky-tonk of old in favor of ho-hum, girly surf pop in the vein of the Dum Dum Girls and Vivian Girls.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Living On The Other Side
    They live up to their unfortunate name--plodding along, doing the work they need to do and getting no further.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino
    The album feels unmoored and even plodding due to a lack of structure.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fist Of God
    'Heartbreaker' is a great song--musical, dance-y, poppy, and interesting--that puts the other artists-in-residence to shame. All the rest is jogging music.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Heat
    Malin's strained whine makes his earnest lyrics sound more pretentious than they probably are.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Last 2 Walk
    But for all the intricacy on display in the production, the vocals just aren't there.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rolling Papers
    Like Snoop, Khalifa raps extensively, even obsessively about marijuana; unlike Snoop, Khalifa never seems to be having much fun.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Bangarang [EP]
    Bangarang is the work of an entertainer still insecure in his ability to hold his audience's attention without resorting to loud gimmicks.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    North
    Bereft of melody and short on memorable lyrics (a Costello first), North is background music in the least appealing sense: Brought to the fore, it falls to pieces.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Grand Romantic
    Grand Romantic often feels so preoccupied with grandiose gestures that it loses sight of the little details that in the past have made Ruess’ music so memorable.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Monsanto Years
    It’s a collection of songs that winds up sounding like it could have been a series of blog posts or even tweets.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hush
    Time and time again, songs begin promisingly only to disappear into themselves, or emerge with a striking bridge in the middle of nothing.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    In a World Like This
    The group's musical personality feels somewhat whitewashed; many of In A World Like This' songs are indistinguishable from ones by OneRepublic, The Wanted, or The Script.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Teddy Thompson
    The son of Richard and Linda Thompson, Teddy Thompson has genetics on his side, with a powerful voice and, in his best moments, the songwriting skills to match his heritage. Too bad, then, that his debut feels so tentative.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tell Me How You Really Feel
    Tell Me How You Really Feel is a disappointing and muted record that never quite lives up to its potential.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    4 x 4 = 12
    He takes the stage in headgear so cartoon-cute it could have been devised by an ad firm. Unfortunately, Deadmau5's albums sound that way as well.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Elsie
    It's because Elsie sounds so much like The Gaslight Anthem operating at half-power that the album proves disappointing.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Red River Blue
    Like a lot of good-looking country fellas, perhaps Shelton is better seen and not heard.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The R.E.D. Album
    Throughout The R.E.D. Album, he runs himself ragged trying to realize the masterpiece he pictures in his head, but he just doesn't have the coordination to pull it off.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    I Am Not a Human Being II
    I Am Not A Human Being II doesn’t offer any more new ideas than its title promises, but it does have the distinction of being the rapper’s most focused album.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Dandy Warhols Are Sound
    The first Monkey House is full of consistently aggressive hook-mongering; this version is all deliberately becalmed jamming and repetition. As a compare/contrast sample, it’s fascinating; as entertainment, it’s wearisome for anyone not already committed to the Warhols.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Not Animal
    It sounds like Broken Social Scene's members all broke up with their significant others and held a jam session on Saddle Creek Road. Morose, impeccably arranged, and monochromatic from start to finish, both incarnations of Animal are a perfect synthesis of indie-rock circa 2008.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Notes on a Conditional Form
    Notes On A Conditional Form feels less like a 1975 album than it does a hodgepodge collection of songs by a band trying on various sonic identities to see what fits. If anything, to understand and appreciate the record, don’t approach it as an album-length statement from one band, but as a personalized, diverse playlist curated by a favorite human tastemaker.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    All The Lost Souls
    As background music, it slays. In the foreground, however, not so much.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Golden Delicious
    Golden Delicious rides along on an unchanging, mid-tempo vibe that puts too much weight on Doughty's limited vocal range, stumbling midway through on the cringe-inducingly unfunky 'More Bacon Than The Pan Can Handle.'
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Stir The Blood
    Peppered with aimless, pointless prog-rock, Stir The Blood wants to be fun and affecting, and the band’s failures in the latter regard destroy its ability to manage the former.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    King Night
    The rest of King Night is, for the most part, similarly forgettable.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Street Sweeper Social Club
    Morello’s furious fretwork doesn’t complement Boots’ dumbed-down lyrics so much as it drowns them out: It’s oppressive and overwhelming.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Back & Fourth
    Yorn’s lightly rusty voice and yearning way with a chorus are, alas, outgunned by his plodding lyrics.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Waiting In Vain
    Decent read, tedious listen.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Messenger
    The disc’s overall pleasantness and pasteurized charm are what save it from being wholly aggravating.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    No Shame
    This is a prettier, more heartfelt record than Sheezus, but only a slightly better one.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    VH1 Storytellers
    West’s performance, which focuses heavily on Heartbreak, seems to violate the entire spirit of Storytellers. He’s one of music’s great shit-talkers, but the rambling semi-stories here are disappointingly dull.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    MDNA
    An album that's competent, but equally perfunctory.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Man on the Moon, Vol. 2: The Legend of Mr. Rager
    They're simply more window dressing on a piece of work that needs all the help it can get.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Gemini
    This is the same old Macklemore, stuffing all of his songs with drop-out catchphrases and horn solos and minutes-long American Idol-style belting, all starry-eyed and corny in the same way that, say, the music in a Broadway musical is.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Purpose
    The album also takes itself so seriously that too often it inadvertently suppresses exactly what made Bieber so appealing in the first place.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    My Shame Is True
    When Skiba’s on fire, he’s one of pop-punk’s best tunesmiths; but when he’s coasting, as he is throughout My Shame Is True, his songs feel less black than beige.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Matangi
    The problem is that the record sat on the shelf for so long... that anything that may have once seemed fresh on the record now seems more than a little tired.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Days of Abandon
    Days Of Abandon’s lushly clean tones provide an innocuous foundation upon which layers of warm harmonies are laid. In the end, the record’s flaws aren’t wholly a product of the mellower genre as much as a generally uninspired execution.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rad Times Xpress IV
    Whether by accident or not, though, Rad Times hits some genuinely artificial notes, in just the right way.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Music Kills Me
    Gets lost somewhere between camp and institutionalism.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    In Mind
    Pleasant sonic wallpaper that unfortunately doesn’t leave much of a lasting impression.
    • 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.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rebel Soul
    It's a whole lot of uneven songs crammed into an overlong album that tries hard to please the fickle country/rock-'n'-roll/hip-hop audience-but not too hard, because that's not Kid Rock's style.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    O.N.I.F.C.
    On O.N.I.F.C. Khalifa splits the difference between his druggy muse and his pop obligations, without much interest in finding a middle ground.
    • 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.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Do To the Beast
    The least boring band in the world awoke from its slumber just to deliver a snoozer.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ether Teeth
    Too much of Ether Teeth sounds like in-between patter for ideas that rarely coalesce.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Grinderman 2 RMX
    When the tracks tend toward the predictable--which is more often than not--Grinderman 2 RMX stumbles.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Thrill of It All
    To date, the only real distinction of Smith’s music is his voice--and though he’s a talented singer, even that’s dulled by songs this predictably vanilla.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Suite #420
    Nobody expects maturity from Devin, even though he jarringly mentions that he has a 17-year-old son, but he usually makes eternal adolescence sound a lot more fun than this.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dylanesque
    He sounds surprisingly disengaged here.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Scratch My Back
    Scratch comes off like a ponderous exercise in re-branding--an uncomfortable place to be for one of pop’s great innovators.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Maniac Meat
    Since the sound of Maniac Meat is really no different than BMSR (or Tobacco's earlier solo albums), the lack of memorable melodies or thoughtful composition becomes increasingly frustrating as the record drones on. An album called Maniac Meat shouldn't be so predictable.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Under My Skin
    Mascara-streaked moods dictate an excess of ballads and rockers that trade in sterile nü-metal crunch, leaving Lavigne's pop-punk spunk by the wayside.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Skin Of Evil
    With dense puddles of minimalist reverb and feedback, it's experimental and challenging, in that it's sloppy and hard to appreciate.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Reality Killed The Video Star
    In its defense, Reality isn’t a “comeback” album--even Williams admits it’s too late to recapture his former glory--but the blandly derivative collection raises the question of what the aborted 2007 album sounded like. Compared to this, maybe art.
    • 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.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    F.A.M.E.
    On F.A.M.E.'s effervescent slow jams and up-tempo R&B struts, Brown makes a solid case for himself as an adult artist. He inevitably falls flat, though, when he tries to reclaim his teen-idol mantle on oversold ballads.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Curse Of Blondie
    It's a valiant effort to try something new, or at least try some new old styles, but the real curse of The Curse Of Blondie is that it only occasionally approaches past greatness.
    • The A.V. Club
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Mania
    Since around 2007’s Infinity On High, the key to enjoying Fall Out Boy has been letting go of their pop-punk past and embracing the pop band that always hid in plain sight. That was a chore on American Beauty/American Psycho, but less so on Mania. As endorsements go, that’s pretty qualified.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fly from Here
    It may not be entirely fair to measure Fly From Here against the Anderson metric, but when the Anderson-aping results merely tread water, it's impossible not to.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Jeff Bridges
    The album might be an extension of its namesake's enduring Dude-itude, but this time he's takin' it a little too easy for all us sinners.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Soul Punk
    It's a produced pop record with electronic, danceable bits and vocal harmonies that sometimes seem much too enamored with Michael Jackson worship.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    LP1
    LP1 is an almost shockingly forgettable slab of forced adult-contemporary rock, destined for a Whole Foods aisle near you.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    18
    At its best, 18 is a mesmerizing negotiation of the gap between mainstream tastes and underground allegiances. As a whole, though, it's too stuck in its in-between space to step beyond an uninspiring middle ground.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Lost Sirens
    It still sounds like New Order, a band that put out some incredible records in the last 30 years, but that stopped growing and changing in half that time.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wilder Mind
    With Wilder Mind, Mumford & Sons have morphed from a band that’s easy to either love or hate into a band that’s hard to care much about at all.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Weight's on the Wheels
    The Weight's On The Wheels is peppered with nice hooks and a few clever moves, and it ends just as strongly as it began, with the dream-poppy "Horseshoe Fortune." But precious little tunes like this need more than just catchiness to make an impact.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Voids
    While an album of ’80s-styled pop played by a band with a penchant for fretboard theatrics could be thrilling, VOIDS stumbles more than it should.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Zombies on Broadway
    In sum, Zombies On Broadway compiles some worthwhile ruminations and life lessons, but McMahon needs to search a little harder for compelling ways to package them.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Cripple Crow
    Flags in equally fruitful and frustrating ways.
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