The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 3,336 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 1.7 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 73
Highest review score:
Yonder Is The Clock
Critic Score 100
Lowest review score:
Graffiti
Critic Score 0
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,643 out of 3336
  2. Mixed: 596 out of 3336
  3. Negative: 97 out of 3336
3,336 music reviews
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    • Metascore: 82
    • Critic Score 100
    Couple Tracks: Singles 2002-2009
    Granted, Fucked Up’s ambitious full-lengths are always going to snag the most attention. But when it comes to chronicling the group’s heart, recklessness, and rabid devotion to the fine art of the punk anthem, Couple Tracks is the true classic.
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    • Metascore: 72
    • Critic Score 100
    The Courage Of Others
    Coming after the hauntingly archaic The Trials Of Van Occupanther, the more personal The Courage Of Others is bracing—stunning, even.
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    • Metascore: 79
    • Critic Score 100
    American VI: Ain't No Grave
    The 10 songs on American VI find Cash sounding frail but determined, and the material doesn't let him down.
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    • Metascore: 78
    • Critic Score 100
    Sisterworld
    Sisterworld makes delirium more than just contagious--it’s downright catchy.
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    • Metascore: 78
    • Critic Score 100
    The Winter Of Mixed Drinks
    Frightened Rabbit is mostly content to continue exploring the vein it tapped a couple of years ago. Fans will need to be slightly more patient, but they’ll ultimately be well rewarded.
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    • Metascore: 86
    • Critic Score 100
    Cosmogramma
    Flying Lotus reaches into the past in order to create something clearly of the future – a hybridized work that challenges others to follow its dazzling blueprint.
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    • Metascore: 84
    • Critic Score 100
    This Is Happening
    His third album as LCD Soundsystem moves even further beyond ironic distance toward introspection and unguarded affection.
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    • Metascore: 85
    • Critic Score 100
    High Violet
    With High Violet, The National has graduated from being a critic's band. Now it belongs to everyone.
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    • Metascore: 81
    • Critic Score 100
    The Way Out
    The Way Out provides the best introduction yet to The Books' nerdy experiments, but also to the duo's grand, goofy emotional range.
    • Metascore: 72
    • Critic Score 100
    Warp Riders
    The Sword was long ago stamped with the epithet "hipster metal," and that isn't going to change with the release of Warp Riders.
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    • Metascore: 83
    • Critic Score 100
    Lisbon
    Lisbon is like a treatise on the untapped power of the have-nots, delivered by the kind of people who could turn a raw potato, a cup of water, and a pinch of salt into a five-star dish.
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    • Metascore: 83
    • Critic Score 100
    Majesty Shredding
    Majesty Shredding lives up to its name and doesn't waste much time catching its breath, and along the way Superchunk delivers something that used to be expected of the band: an album on which every song sounds as inspired as the next one.
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    • Metascore: 83
    • Critic Score 100
    My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky
    Where it leads, and who dares to climb it, is irrelevant; the fact that it so dizzyingly hangs between spirituality and perversion, austerity and decadence, is enough.
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    • Metascore: 88
    • Critic Score 100
    The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964
    He sounds like what he was beneath the myth he was already constructing for himself: a man with a gift for words and music, sitting in a small room and hoping someone outside would listen.
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    • Metascore: 86
    • Critic Score 100
    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.
    • Metascore: 77
    • Critic Score 100
    The King Is Dead
    The King Is Dead spreads 10 songs across 40 minutes, and there isn't a bum track in the bunch.
    • Metascore: 81
    • Critic Score 100
    James Blake
    James Blake is dubstep's crossover moment, rolling back the hostile skronk and centering on a croon that rivals Antony Hegarty for lovelorn beauty.
    • Metascore: 89
    • Critic Score 100
    The Greatest Story Never Told
    Told is worth the wait; raising Saigon's profile is probably Entourage's greatest/only gift to the world, at least where hip-hop is concerned.
    • Metascore: 83
    • Critic Score 100
    We're New Here
    The real triumph of We're New Here is that it doesn't feel like an album-length remix. Instead, it's a collaboration done the way Scott-Heron's best team-ups always are: after the fact, with time to consider the everlasting gravity of the man's words and wisdom.
    • Metascore: 81
    • Critic Score 100
    Civilian
    The added dynamism in Wye Oak's music makes the prettiest passages of Civilian that much more arresting, and the demons lurking beneath them all the more real.
    • Metascore: 76
    • Critic Score 100
    He Gets Me High
    As holdover until the next album, He Gets Me High does exactly what it should: raise anticipation for what comes next.
    • Metascore: 71
    • Critic Score 100
    Reptilians
    Reptilians is equal parts important, fun, and urgent, and it's hard to think of a better combination of attributes for a pop record.
    • Metascore: 82
    • Critic Score 100
    Nine Types of Light
    Finding the beauty and the beat in unpredictable chaos-keeping the heart when the world falls apart-has always been TV On The Radio's specialty, and here, it sounds completely effortless.
    • Metascore: 85
    • Critic Score 100
    Helplessness Blues
    Wide-eyed self-searching is this record's predominant mode, which Fleet Foxes do both lyrically and sonically, reveling in the process of discovery.
    • Metascore: 78
    • Critic Score 100
    Turtleneck & Chain
    The juxtaposition of white-boy geekiness with swaggering hip-hop posturing forms the core of The Lonely Island's smart-ass take on pop music, but the trio is also distinguished by obsessive cultural specificity on its sophomore effort, Turtleneck & Chain.
    • Metascore: 78
    • Critic Score 100
    Demolished Thoughts
    The album seems beamed in from the early '70s, and probably should've happened in the '90s, but as modern psychedelia increasingly becomes the domain of electronic music, Demolished Thoughts feels right on time--an organic reminder of what can happen when a couple of analog geniuses sit down in a room together and hit "record."
    • Metascore: 86
    • Critic Score 100
    David Comes To Life
    They're also bracingly potent and screamingly vital; David Comes To Life is the work of a band openly aspiring to be great, and pulling it off.
    • Metascore: 83
    • Critic Score 100
    Black Up
    A killer second act.
    • Metascore: 75
    • Critic Score 100
    Ascension
    No longer struggling to wake from bad dreams, Broadrick has rubbed the sleep from his eyes, dug through the rubble, and planted Ascension on the summit of the ruins of the world.
    • Metascore: 79
    • Critic Score 100
    Bermuda Drain
    The power-electronics attack of Prurient's past remains at the core of the album, particularly in the serrated, disembodied title track. Even at its most blunt and abusive, though, there's a dynamic subtlety and blown-out ambience that lulls sanity to the brink, then dangles it there.
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