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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    • 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.
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