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
    • 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...
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Idiology
    Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner continue to create soundscapes that blur the line between programming and live musicianship, and sometimes between Earth and outer space.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Monday At The Hug & Pint
    Singer-songwriter Moffat continues to showcase his unlovable-loser persona on the band's fifth set, but unlike on 2001's The Red Thread, he doesn't get bogged down in misery and despair: A wicked sense of humor and a more expansive musical palette help balance it out.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Lifetime Of Temporary Relief
    Unlike the typical odds-and-ends set, A Lifetime Of Temporary Relief could bring more fans into the fold, and it'll surely satiate those who've been listening closely to some of the last decade's most rewarding music.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mad for Sadness
    A surprisingly strong representation of the group's slow, sad appeal.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Grind Date
    Flying boldly in the face of youth-addicted popular culture, The Grind Date celebrates the joy and wisdom of adulthood.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Phantom
    With I Phantom, Lif creates a funny, sad, profound world, populates it with memorable characters, destroys it, and ponders the meaning of it all.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Loud
    Maas' huge production style begs for a big-room sound system, but Loud is loaded with artful nuances that elude most producers with even tenuous ties to trance.
    • 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.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Me First
    Sennett twists and turns his songwriting more when he's alone than he does with Rilo Kiley, and while playing spot-the-influences isn't hard... it's also pointless in light of the album's genuine warmth.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Mouse And The Mask
    The addition of Adult Swim characters into damn near every track isn't always seamless or clever, and the album could do without "Bada Bing" or Meatwad's intentionally painful bonus-track cover of Doom's "Beef Rapp," but otherwise, this stellar collaboration threatens to give underground synergy a good name.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Lemon Of Pink
    Some of the exposed-seam splicing sounds sloppy and/or twee, but the guys in The Books wield a solid musical hand over melodic figures that hint at swooning grandeur without falling prey to florid temptation.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    God Loves Ugly
    In a hip-hop landscape littered with studio gangsters, pimps on wax, and thugs in need of hugs, Slug proves yet again on God Loves Ugly that the bravest move a rapper can make is simply to be himself.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Stereo
    The off-the-cuff approach results in some daft lyrics and dud moments, but when Westerberg finds his feet in this mode, he has few rivals in summoning up the sound of loneliness.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Let Us Never Speak Of It Again
    Boasts a wealth of dreamy atmospheres and earthy pleasure points.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Minimum-Maximum [Live]
    Kraftwerk still sounds great.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black Foliage: Animation Music
    Full of not-quite-familiar arrangements and you'd-swear-they-were-purloined specks of Sgt. Pepper, the album's many pleasures fly at the listener from every angle.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Things We Lost In The Fire
    Low proves enormously versatile here, exploring musically and maturing lyrically.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Figure 8
    A strong collection of lush, densely arranged power-pop and inimitably intimate ballads?
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sea Change
    Beck swaddles the hurt in a lush assortment of elements that would sound like Babel under anyone else's direction.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Before The Dawn Heals Us
    M83 has written and recorded a kind of secular Mass, dull at times and transcendent at others, but overall a stunning example of how to turn sound into ceremony.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Poses
    As before, absolute consistency eludes Wainwright. Some mid-album selections suffer in comparison to standouts like the title track and the future sing-along "One Man Guy." But, also as before, his unique gifts make it difficult to mind.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dongs of Sevotion
    Recording with a small band that includes John McEntire (Tortoise, The Sea And Cake) on drums, Jeff Parker (Tortoise, Isotope 217) on guitar, and Matt Lux (Isotope 217) on bass, Callahan has created a surprisingly accessible and enjoyable pastiche of what makes him tick.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Expansion Team
    Expansion Team makes good on The Platform's promise by showcasing a battle-tested but exuberant group at the top of its form.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Venice
    Fennesz follows precursors from the whole of ambient electronic music, but his dense and weightless structures owe as much to the cascading builds of shoegazer rock bands like My Bloody Valentine.
    • The A.V. Club
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Whoa, Nelly!
    The Canadian-Portuguese singer Nelly Furtado embodies classy cosmopolitan pop: Her roots obviously stretch across the globe, and her music by extension embraces a record store's worth of influences.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gimme Fiction
    It torpedoes the often-justifiable notion that Spoon's music feels like it was made with safety in mind, and that its far-and-wide excursions are just that--temporary steps away from a safe, solid path.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kamikaze
    Effortlessly mixing gangsta rap, lascivious odes to pimping, and underground-style consciousness, Kamikaze feels eclectic without stooping to demographics-pandering, though its contradictory elements create a few jarring moments.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    At Crystal Palace
    Erase Errata knows the ways of economy in both senses of the term, and though it fits neatly into the rash of albums helping punk get its groove back, At Crystal Palace casts a long shadow during its 27-minute seethe.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    On My Way
    Gone are the Kurt Cobain-isms of his early work and the Weezer-isms that occasionally popped up on Sha Sha, leaving in their wake the first album that simply sounds like the work of Ben Kweller.
    • The A.V. Club
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