For 4,544 reviews, this publication has graded:
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64% higher than the average critic
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2% same as the average critic
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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: | The Life Of Pablo | |
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Lowest review score: | Graffiti |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 3,663 out of 4544
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Mixed: 771 out of 4544
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Negative: 110 out of 4544
4544
music
reviews
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- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
The rush of Escovedo's ecstasy and agony proves frustratingly one-sided on the stale, hard-to-embrace Street Songs Of Love, which reduces all the unruly feelings that go with rough-and-tumble romantic relationships down to a series of blustery, MOR power ballads.- The A.V. Club
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It’s a pretty enough record, but not one that makes any sort of impression, breaks any ground, or leaves listeners wanting more.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Apr 29, 2014
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Transplants make a splattery mess of modern music as often as they stumble over something new and exciting.- The A.V. Club
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Mostly, White Knight sounds like an album that was probably a lot more fun to make than it is to listen to.- The A.V. Club
- Posted May 12, 2017
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The album's midsection--in other words, just about everything between the first song and the last song--sags under the weight of midtempo, middle-of-the-road throwaways. [31 Mar 2004]- The A.V. Club
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When The Geometrid is good, it's extremely good... Too much of the album's remainder, however, is forgettable and lukewarm, the work of a band that's still trying to define itself.- The A.V. Club
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There’s some beautiful songwriting here, but it’s buried beneath the smudges of its producers.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jul 28, 2017
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Too often, solid tracks like “Foothills”--never mind its ridiculous and hilarious rhymes like “I’ll take lunch with my coworkers / But after work I just go berzerkers”--are lost among the album’s wackier, ambitious forays.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Mar 4, 2016
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Sonically, Plain Rap picks up where Labcabin left off, and at its best ("Rush," "Guestlist," "Frontline"), it recaptures that album's sophisticated sonic slinkiness, if not its lyrical brilliance. Too often, however, Plain Rap sounds like what Labcabin's detractors unfairly accused it of being: mature and adult to the point of sounding hopelessly dull.- The A.V. Club
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Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz ends up a collection of fleeting engaging moments sandwiched between a slew of half-formed musical ideas.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Sep 2, 2015
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The bulk of the album is made of slight, rote country-rockers, as sturdy and flat as a table.- The A.V. Club
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Ultimately, Musik, Die Schwer Zu Twerk is satisfied with halfheartedly rehashing a handful of psych and prog rock signifiers with little renewed enthusiasm or inventiveness.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Aug 19, 2014
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Over There That Way’s pandering play for indie-pop acceptance makes it a more leisurely listen. But, with no need to periodically clean a little heavy-metal grit out of the ears, the album just doesn’t demand much attention.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Aug 2, 2016
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Working In Tennessee is often sleepy to the point of being narcoleptic. Still, even when he strains to hit notes, which he does often, Haggard sounds like he's enjoying himself.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Oct 4, 2011
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- The A.V. Club
- Posted May 29, 2012
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While steeped in New Found Glory's same old mix of hormonal angst and simple syrup, the album shows a marked drop in metabolism.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Oct 4, 2011
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For the most part, Basement Jaxx are coloring within the lines on Junto, which leads to disappointing results.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Aug 26, 2014
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The result is a muddled collection of gently electronic pop that vacillates between mildly engaging and outright boring, a prime candidate for scoring teen TV dramas and stocking Starbucks shelves.- The A.V. Club
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Money is pure bubblegum, the kind of instantly disposable pop ephemera listeners forget about while it’s still playing.- The A.V. Club
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With so much New Age nattering, here more than ever your enjoyment will depend on your own zeal for enlightenment and/or bong rips.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jan 26, 2018
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Unlike Indie Cindy, Head Carrier knows exactly what it is. Whether that’s something we’ll remember is another discussion entirely.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Sep 30, 2016
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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.- The A.V. Club
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As usual, his nasal voice gets grating, but at least his band has returned to what it does best.- The A.V. Club
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Peeling off much of the outfit’s Utah-bred oddness and emotive chaos, the album is a clear ploy at breaking through to a more pop-inclined audience.- The A.V. Club
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These two tracks ["Alpenglow" and "The Dome"] are outliers, though, emotionally and sonically devastating songs on an otherwise languid and forgettable record.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Apr 1, 2014
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Jean's ambition and eclecticism are admirable as ever, but the further he strays from his hip-hop roots, the less vital he seems.- The A.V. Club
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- The A.V. Club
- Posted Sep 1, 2015
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As the title suggests, Chickenfoot III is stupid like a fox, filling a VH-shaped void created by the inaction and endless drama of Hagar's former bandmates.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Oct 4, 2011
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- The A.V. Club
- Posted Oct 15, 2013
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Instead of anarchist dance jams full of crunchy 8-bit noise, (III) is more like a static-filled radio station fading in and out of range.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Nov 13, 2012
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She isn't a traditionally talented vocalist, which in itself can be fine. But she isn't much of an interpreter, either; she brings the flat, throaty tones of the heavily drugged to songs that beg for passion.- The A.V. Club
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Solar Power’s a little messy and rough around the edges, and features a Lorde now moving on from her youth and wanting to keep some things to herself. In short: It’s just like being 24.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Aug 25, 2021
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Overall Love isn’t arresting enough to draw listeners in without a visual component. Along with a handful of other Melvins albums, A Walk With Love & Death seems destined to be overshadowed by the band’s stronger output.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jul 7, 2017
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Although roughly half as long as Wu-Tang Forever, The W is every bit as erratic and overreaching. If Forever was a great single album hidden in a messy two-disc set, The W feels like a good six-song EP nestled inside an uneven album that seems to take its cues from the half-assed weirdness of ODB's N**** Please.- The A.V. Club
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While the album features respectable performances of many of the band's biggest hits-even a diminished Soundgarden can't muffle the power of the almighty "Outshined"-Live On I-5 should have stayed in the dark hole it's been buried in for 15 years.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Mar 22, 2011
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“Amiable” is sort of the operant word for Everybody, which, like Joey Badass’ All-Amerikkan Bada$$, strives to create a trenchant pop-rap polemic for the Trump era, but unlike that record—or any other record ever, for that matter—frequently gets lost in minutes-long spoken-word segues in which Neil DeGrasse Tyson speaks as a benevolent god about the nature of self-worth.- The A.V. Club
- Posted May 12, 2017
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There's nothing about TM 103 that suggests Jeezy has any interest in moving on.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jan 3, 2012
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- Critic Score
Duds and semi-duds aside, Now You Know holds together okay, with plenty of high points, mostly huddled together in the first half.- The A.V. Club
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Needless to say, that overbearing need to prove herself just ends up being exhausting. But the lady doth protest too much: There are hints of the darker, weirder dance-floor diva she wants to be hiding beneath the avant-garde pretensions of tracks such as “Shampain,” “I Am Not A Robot,” “Guilty,” and “Oh No!”- The A.V. Club
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Despite the presence of bulletproof hit-makers (Max Martin, Sia, Jeff Bhasker) and inventive electro artists (Purity Ring, Hot Chip, Duke Dumont), the record is curiously flat, a shapeless slog that feels remarkably sluggish.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jun 9, 2017
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For an uncomfortable seven-song stretch, the rapper seems so alienated from his own album.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Nov 29, 2011
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Six Cups seems determined to resurrect the bad decisions of pop's past.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Feb 7, 2012
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For every adequate Strokes throwback or Radiohead soundalike, Virtue antagonizes you with two formless freak-outs cobbled together from influences as wide-ranging as ’90s R&B, Arabic chants, “Monster Mash,” and a shocking amount of nü-metal.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Mar 30, 2018
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In execution, though, Death To False Metal is frustratingly hit-or-miss.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Dec 8, 2010
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Michael mostly reflects the paranoid, musically out of touch, deeply unhappy person he became -- and who many fans would just as soon forget.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Dec 14, 2010
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Overall, Sacred Hearts Club also signals a return to Foster The People’s more electronic origins, but not in the inventive way that was used on Torches. Rather, it comes off as hackneyed copy, full of the predictable EDM/trap beats that every other chart-topper has shoved in somewhere.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jul 21, 2017
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- The A.V. Club
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For every track that maintains an admirable speed-thrash spirit (“Walk With Me,” “Raining Blood”) there’s another that sounds more silly than rocking, like the cheesy posturing of “Here I Go Again,” a dark metal song as imagined by Roger Corman.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Mar 31, 2017
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Only five years ago, Turner was a fresh-faced quipster hopefully eyeing a crush on the dance floor, but now he's playing into the tiredest archetype: the jaded, sunglasses-shaded rock traditionalist on the hunt for an easy lay.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jun 8, 2011
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The future is here; love has not brought us together, nor has the bomb. Morrissey, having left himself no other options, makes do with a shrug.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jul 15, 2014
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The Sea Of Memories plays like an endless replay of Rossdale's past musical miscues.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Oct 11, 2011
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Avenged Sevenfold continues to sound like five different bands on every album, none of them particularly good.- The A.V. Club
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Alter The Ending nose-dives into the studio of Butch Walker, the man behind Pink’s "Funhouse" and Weezer’s "Raditude," and he comically overproduces the damn thing.- The A.V. Club
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Kiss Me Once is a disappointing record that tries too hard to mold Minogue into something she’s not.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Mar 18, 2014
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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.- The A.V. Club
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Like the former Fugees mastermind, Matisyahu carries the curse of burying his true brilliance in too much pop schlock.- The A.V. Club
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Where Amputechture is directionless but at least clever about masking its influences, Threes is directionless and completely predictable.- The A.V. Club
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This isn’t a horrible album, just a really boring one. What a disappointment.- The A.V. Club
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On New Glow, they’ve either finally dumbed things down too much, or simply reached the end of where this rudimentary songwriting can take them.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Apr 7, 2015
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Ultraviolence moves away from more pop-friendly territory and instead languishes in a sleepy, sad aesthetic.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jun 17, 2014
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Despite the title's promise of evolution, the record mines the same club-banging, shawty-romancing formula of the singer's boom years, to ever-diminishing returns.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Dec 13, 2011
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For as flamboyant as she is, Gaga’s never lacked sincerity; ARTPOP’s lack of substantial personal connection and its tenuous grasp on reality makes it a tough record to like.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Nov 14, 2013
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If the idea was to shore up the band's indie roots, Wheat has succeeded in the worst possible way.- The A.V. Club
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Yours Truly is based on the same assumption as Sublime With Rome, which is that fans will appreciate the superficial similarities to a band they once loved, and won't look close enough to notice the gaping holes.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jul 26, 2011
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Again And Again feels like it's skimming the dreaminess of that era without retaining any of its prickly quirk-or worse, any of its personality.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jul 19, 2011
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Reintegration Time, the second album by Canada’s Shout Out Out Out Out, is ambitiously laid out, with lengthy, mostly instrumental tracks and a leisurely sense of pace. Too bad the electro grooves don’t offer much, nor does the ornamentation.- The A.V. Club
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A handful of tracks manage to convey some sense of energy and urgency. Few of them, though, rustle up the dark hooks that used to be HWM's greatest strength.- The A.V. Club
- Posted May 15, 2012
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- The A.V. Club
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Like Momofuku, the new record was knocked out quickly, drawing heavily on material left over from other Costello projects, but while the looseness worked for the driving rock ’n’ roll songs on Momofuku, the freeform ballads and back-to-basics roots workouts of Secret mostly fade into Burnett’s tasteful woodwork.- The A.V. Club
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Freedom never seems to settle on a single direction, but it’s hard to say whether that’s good or bad.... But it’s when Refused attempts to sound modern--through ultra-slick production tricks and modern sonic collage--that the album truly falters.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jun 30, 2015
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- The A.V. Club
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For a band so seemingly full of big ideas, Muse sounds on its sixth album like a hard-rocking collection of other bands, some that they've previously been compared to, and others new.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Oct 9, 2012
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More than half of this album is complete filler. No one’s missing “Okok,” “24,” or “Remote Control.” A soulful choir is not enough to save “Never Again.” On this record, there is none of the production genius we’ve come to expect from West. ... And that’s the thing that’s missing most from this record, with all its myriad problems: No one edits West anymore, not even himself. And that’s a damn shame.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Aug 31, 2021
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- The A.V. Club
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In general, though, Love? is as vague and unfocused as its titular inquiry suggests, a musical shrug that seems to mean even less to Lopez than it will to listeners.- The A.V. Club
- Posted May 10, 2011
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“The Sun Still Shines,” suggests that Palmer and Ka-Spel should have really focused their energies on composing interstitial music for a stage production.- The A.V. Club
- Posted May 5, 2017
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Though the songwriting is sturdy, the choruses hearty, the melodies time-tested, and the recording vibrant, The Head And The Heart falters most on account of Jonathan Russell and Josiah Johnson's pre-packaged, Cracker Barrel lyrical conceits.- The A.V. Club
- Posted May 25, 2011
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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.- The A.V. Club
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A few bright spots don't make up for the album's general lack of immediacy or memorable hooks.- The A.V. Club
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Nothing But The Beat is obsessed with the sex, swagger, and sensation of club culture, and taken individually, its songs are well-made, euphoric paeans to the dance-floor gods; but a deficiency of texture and emotional build causes them to blend into a predictable, exhausting murk of smoke and lasers.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Sep 6, 2011
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We Don't Need To Whisper feels like 50 long minutes of DeLonge proving himself as an artist.- The A.V. Club
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- The A.V. Club
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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?- The A.V. Club
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It’s less a relapse than a rehash, less a comeback album than the kind of album artists need to come back from.- The A.V. Club
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Young and the youngsters he’s playing with here sound like they wrote and jammed these songs out in a few days, relying on the strength of his sentiment to carry them through. But a jam session with some cranky speak-singing on it doesn’t make for a great album, and it’s not going to make any new converts, unfortunately--either to Neil Young’s politics or his music.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Dec 1, 2017
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Judging by this underwhelming return, Prodigy's stint in the correctional facilities merely constituted time lost.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Feb 1, 2012
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Where other records by The Men showed they could pull from someone else’s playbook and make something their own, Drift’s hodgepodge of styles ultimately makes The Men sound like they couldn’t settle on what they wanted to do.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Mar 2, 2018
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May claims to be a devotee of Lee Hazlewood, and admittedly, that genre lends itself to cheese, but there’s a big difference between Velveeta and a good, fatty brie.- The A.V. Club
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Nostalgia-driven fan-funding is a useful way to see which short-lived phenoms have anything left in the tank, but Magic Hour suggests Luscious Jackson is a little too far removed from what drove the group to make music in the first place.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Nov 6, 2013
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Feelings are always “heavy” or a “burden,” and love is consistently “dark” or “light”; it’s thematic territory that feels stale for the band, and the result is an album that aspires to talk about the complex nature of relationships, yet has nothing meaningful to say.- The A.V. Club
- Posted May 13, 2014
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Outside of her exceptional vocal abilities, Aguileraâ??s main talent thus far has been absorbing and regurgitating trends with such commitment that she essentially disappears behind a calculated varnish.- The A.V. Club
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[Co-producer and engineer Joshua] Welton tinkers too much with too many EDM toys, and often the result is a cacophonous collision of EDM’s lamest trends. When this album does succeed—which it does on its back half—it’s because Prince and Welton have achieved a balance between dance and funk in which each genre brings out the best in the other.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Sep 8, 2015
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- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jan 22, 2013
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Too much of Hell In A Handbasket is just generic songwriter-mill fodder, over-cranked and over-sung.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Mar 13, 2012
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Demons used to be what drove Black Flag toward hitherto extremes of punk-rock brinksmanship, and there are glimpses of that savagery on What The.... Mostly, though, it’s a footnote to a legacy that never needed one.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Dec 3, 2013
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Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark seems uniquely constructed to frustrate the expectations of U2 fans, musical-theater lovers, and even train-wreck enthusiasts, who will be disappointed to find that the show isn't as bad as some have suggested--at least when experienced solely as an album.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jun 30, 2011
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Sorry For Party Rocking is a dumb party record that knows it's a dumb party record.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jul 6, 2011
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- Posted Jul 24, 2015
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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.- The A.V. Club
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The Weezer frontman continues to tap that increasingly dry well, his dusty lovelorn longings for perfect summer nights now sounding completely formulaic.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Oct 27, 2017
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By the album’s end, there’s no definable takeaway aside from the fact that Testimonium Songs would have benefited from being a true Joan Of Arc record as opposed to a small piece of a larger puzzle.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Aug 5, 2013
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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.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Oct 28, 2016
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Flashy, the Detroit band's fifth full-length, still executes garage-glam with senses fully heightened, but it seems totally uninterested in doing anything new.- The A.V. Club
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Carry Me Home, the band's latest, doesn't suffer from a shortage of whimsy, but its surplus of cringe-inducing aw-shucks hokeyness is problematic.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jul 17, 2012
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Duffy is clearly striving for growth with Endlessly, but outside her comfort zone, she comes up short.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Dec 7, 2010
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It’s not bad--it’s certainly not an Ersatz GB, or Are You Are Missing Winner (though its half-assed cover art certainly comes close). But now that I’ve written it up, off it will go into the pile, never to be played.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jul 27, 2017
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California is the sound of Blink-182 desperately trying to remain relevant by outsourcing its creativity.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jul 1, 2016
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The click-clackety beats and twinkling synth bleeps owe a clear debut to Jimmy Tamborello’s homemade production, though Young adds a bright sheen that owes something to J-pop as well.- The A.V. Club
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The problem with Scream isn’t that Cornell is too much of an artist to go pop, it’s that the fit is so unbecoming.- The A.V. Club
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Skinner's self-actualization prattle would be more admirable if it had any real insight, but the best he can offer are cheap aphorisms tailor-made for tote bags.- The A.V. Club
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These songs would never be mistaken for any other band—by that same token, it’s often so obtuse it feels like it’s not meant for anyone but its creators.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jan 20, 2017
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As it is, How To Destroy Angels resembles a subdued Nine Inch Nails with female vocals.- The A.V. Club
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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.- The A.V. Club
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Lanegan's voice may be timeless, but its versatility has its limits--and Blues Funeral tests those limits just a little too much.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Feb 7, 2012
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As the forgettable I'm With You shows, there's a difference between surviving and thriving.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Aug 30, 2011
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The bulk of Magna Carta, however, really is just an obscenely rich dude gloating about his spoils. Where West continues to introduce new twists in his ever-unfolding story—with Yeezus, he’s reinvented himself as rap’s most compelling villain—Jay-Z has remained static, frozen in permanent victory.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jul 9, 2013
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Themes of loss, grief, and finding meaning in one’s life are buried deep within the subtext of the record. It’s just a shame that after listening to Hymns, we’re no closer to finding any kind of revelation or spiritual bliss.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Jan 29, 2016
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Lavigne is a divorced singer-songwriter about to enter her late 20s, but on Lullaby, she would've been better off not acting her age.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Mar 8, 2011
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AIM sounds like a field recording made in the middle of a bustling Sri Lankan market: colorful, flavorful, and most of all, noisy. These inescapable Eastern vibes prove to be a blessing, uniting an otherwise fragmented album.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Sep 9, 2016
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These songs are nice and they’re pretty, but have no bite, no substance, and no real pizzazz.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Oct 15, 2013
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Dos! is the sophomore slump of a trilogy that's shaping up to be far less fun than it was supposed to be.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Nov 13, 2012
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Ode To J. Smith is the sound of a band too boxed-in to do the hooky melancholy it used to do so well, but too neutered to really rock out.- The A.V. Club
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PiL's last album, 1992's That What Is Not, left the outfit hanging on a slick and inconsequential note, one that couldn't be further from the dubby murk of the group's pioneering work from the '70s. This Is PiL circles back to that murk, then buries its head in it.- The A.V. Club
- Posted May 29, 2012
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- Posted Apr 12, 2011
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Sadly, a compilation of tracks randomly culled from the best Rachel Berry solos recorded for the show would yield a stronger album than this one made up of originals.- The A.V. Club
- Posted Mar 4, 2014
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- The A.V. Club
- Posted Apr 12, 2011
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The Pavement member released two full-lengths with Preston School Of Industry earlier this decade, during a relative lull in Pavement-mania; both essentially defined “workmanlike,” and sadly, The Real Feel is no different.- The A.V. Club
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From its title on down, It Is Time For A Love Revolution is spiritually interchangeable with his debut, 1989's "Let Love Rule."- The A.V. Club
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Oddly formless and forgettable, The Fire Theft finds Sunny Day Real Estate diminished in more ways than one.- The A.V. Club
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"Last Beautiful Girl"... would be good enough to inspire a wholesale reassessment of Matchbox Twenty if the material surrounding it weren't so average.- The A.V. Club
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Breathe is fine for what it is, but each time Leaves bandleader Arnar Gudjonsson launches into yet another midtempo space-rocker in which he shifts from a mushy monotone croon to a lilting falsetto, the move becomes less a genuine expression of personal style and more a shameless attempt to get with the new rock mainstream.- The A.V. Club
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Mercifully brief but mercilessly repetitive, Meteora is little more than a tolerable rehash of a formula that's been on the wrong side of its sell-by date for some time now.- The A.V. Club
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With the murmured, strictly cadenced vocals, The Snare resembles an especially wan, uninspired rap record.- The A.V. Club
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- The A.V. Club
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Not memorable enough to be bad, not heavy enough to pack visceral power, most of these songs–even radio-friendly ringers like "So Far Away"–are indistinguishable from the work of a hundred other bands with misspelled names, hotshot producers, plentiful tattoos, and optional silly facial hair.- The A.V. Club
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Ja Rule's only real gift is for crafting undeniable pop hooks. That talent is underrated, but it still does little to cover up the rapper's derivative lyrics and crassly recycled 2Pacisms.- The A.V. Club
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Rule is up to his old tricks on Temptation, wrapping thuggish sentiments in candy-coated R&B-flavored tracks, shamelessly dispensing 2Pacisms, and yelling his catchphrase "Murder!" at regular intervals.- The A.V. Club
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While a delight on guest appearances, he has yet to prove that he can construct memorable songs, let alone a solid album.- The A.V. Club
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In eliminating both the mystery of its early years and the restless spirit of more recent times, R.E.M. leaves just exactly what R.E.M.-haters probably felt the band made all along: midtempo, largely hookless adult rock.- The A.V. Club
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Saint Etienne has made an egregiously Cardigans-esque wrong turn, abandoning impeccable craft and Motown melodies for the breezy if aimless experimentation of its wildly uneven EPs.- The A.V. Club
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Mostly, Dear Heather just coasts on poetic phrasing and inoffensive tunes.- The A.V. Club
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Though she's a master of the explosive chorus, too much of C'Mon C'Mon sounds calculated around that talent, dropping hooks into otherwise unremarkable songs.- The A.V. Club
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Yet another overreaching, overlong musical erector set, the album offers an uneven, conceptually muddled tour of the rapper's current musical obsessions, from gritty underground hip-hop to Caribbean music.- The A.V. Club
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What could have been a huge breakthrough instead sounds staid, as if he were so used to rocking the house that he didn't want to risk rocking the boat.- The A.V. Club
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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.- The A.V. Club
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Boomslang's heavily treated vocals, nondescript songwriting, and swirling, noisy production doesn't leave much room for personality to pop through.- The A.V. Club
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Title TK comes off as unglued in an almost perversely restrained, even uneventful way.- The A.V. Club
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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.- The A.V. Club
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The spoofs are pretty much just lazy, fooling-around-in-the-studio exercises, which also holds true for most of the non-fake songs on Fake Songs.- The A.V. Club
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Though not exactly a bad album, when contrasted to the remarkable Graceland and Rhythm Of The Saints, it sounds as arbitrary as a collection of B-sides.- The A.V. Club
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Destiny Fulfilled sounds distant and detached, and its pronounced ballad-fancy only occasionally raises a flag for the group dynamic it serves to restore.- The A.V. Club
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Devil's Workshop is the shorter of the two discs, and the better by virtue of brevity and energy.- The A.V. Club
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Cocky plays it safe, tinkering slightly with Devil's formula but generally delivering virtual carbon copies of its monster hits.- The A.V. Club
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It's all so clever and thought-provoking that it's almost possible to overlook that, in most other respects, it's not especially good.- The A.V. Club
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[Merritt] leaves vocal duties entirely to his guests here, an impressive group that includes new-wave forebear Gary Numan and '70s warbler Melanie alongside an all-star collection of indie-rock fixtures. Unfortunately, he's given them some of his weakest material to date, delicate but forgettable songs that often sound like discarded leftovers from 69 Love Songs.- The A.V. Club
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The disc looks, on paper, like an intriguing exercise. Unfortunately, it sounds, in reality, like little more than an intriguing exercise: With few exceptions, it's tedious and predictable, wearing its calculated concept far too boldly on its sleeve.- The A.V. Club
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Everlast's pretensions and ambition still outstrip his talent, however, and the distance between the two makes Eat At Whitey's both intriguing and frustrating.... like a defensive tackle trying his hand at ballet, he's far too clumsy and limited a singer and songwriter for the delicate material he attempts.- The A.V. Club
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Her personal revelations too often ring false and crass, and nothing undermines a confession like calculation.- The A.V. Club
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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.- The A.V. Club
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Garbage's latest approaches a kind of shimmering technical perfection, but remains strangely, stubbornly uninvolving.- The A.V. Club
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Self-seriousness and artistic water-treading aside, there's nothing wrong with A Day Without Rain. It's just that few households need more than an hour or so of Enya music, and Shepherd Moons and Watermark serve that purpose far more effectively.- The A.V. Club
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Nearly all of Fatherfucker falls back into ostensibly bracing anthems that sound plain stupid in such abundance.- The A.V. Club
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Guests from Chicago's music scene, including Mekons singer Sally Timms and members of Tortoise, bolster the already-solid playing of the Navins' regular contingent, and while the songs aren't particularly sharp, the music (produced by the Navins, John Herndon, and John McEntire) most definitely is.... Can something be so smooth that it just slips away? For all its pleasantness, Pelo comes awfully close to this invisible ideal, an achievement in its own right but not an especially engaging one.- The A.V. Club
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