For 2,073 reviews, this publication has graded:
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55% higher than the average critic
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4% same as the average critic
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41% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.2 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 71
Highest review score: | Live in Europe 1967: Best of the Bootleg, Vol. 1 | |
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Lowest review score: | Shatner Claus: The Christmas Album |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1,595 out of 2073
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Mixed: 443 out of 2073
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Negative: 35 out of 2073
2073
music
reviews
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- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
Every song on “Solar Power” pulls from a similar and finely curated aesthetic — early 2000s “CW”-theme-song pop; sun-drenched ’70s folk; just a pinch of Kabbalah-era Madonna — and rarely draws outside those lines, let alone picks up differently hued crayons. ... “Solar Power” stops just short of offering a full, varied range of expressions.- The New York Times
- Posted Aug 25, 2021
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During its slower stretches, “Happier Than Ever” languishes. ... The risks start to pay off, though, on the album’s strong closing stretch, beginning as the warping “NDA” segues into the brash posturing of “Therefore I Am,” one of several lukewarm singles that benefits from the surrounding context of the album. ... Eilish remains an inveterate rebel. “Happier Than Ever,” though, exposes both the strengths and the limitations of her preferred mode of subversion.- The New York Times
- Posted Aug 2, 2021
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- The New York Times
- Posted Jul 29, 2021
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Gold-Diggers Sound” — named after the Los Angeles studio where the album was made — is more confidently single-minded [than his previous albums].- The New York Times
- Posted Jul 22, 2021
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At times, “Sling” sounds like Steely Dan’s “Pretzel Logic” had it been released on the D.I.Y. label K Records. ... “Sling” makes the case that her most direct vocal precursor is either Elliott Smith or Phil Elverum. ... There was always more depth to Clairo’s sadness and songcraft than could be conveyed by the three-minute synth-pop ditty that made her famous. It also demonstrates that her music is at its most lucid and effective when an extended hand — or paw — is drawing her back up to the surface.- The New York Times
- Posted Jul 16, 2021
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A tauntingly good hip-hop album, or a rewiring of pop DNA: “Call Me if You Get Lost” has it both ways. ... Intersections of cocksureness and anxiety are this album at its best. (Fittingly, the title “Call Me if You Get Lost” reads either as a statement of generosity or a plea, depending on your lens.) Songs like the less emotionally ambiguous “Sweet / I Thought You Wanted to Dance” are generally less impactful — Tyler thrives on discord.- The New York Times
- Posted Jul 8, 2021
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On Bachelor’s album, “Doomin’ Sun,” Kempner and Duterte brought out the best in each other. ... There’s nostalgic comfort in the ways Bachelor looks back to 1990s rock, and Duterte and Kempner project a heartwarming unity.- The New York Times
- Posted May 28, 2021
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Nuanced and often exceptional debut album. ... Songwriting flourish is emblematic of what Rodrigo has learned from Taylor Swift on this album (which, in shorthand, is Swift’s debut refracted through “Red”): nailing the precise language for an imprecise, complex emotional situation; and working through private stories in public fashion.- The New York Times
- Posted May 21, 2021
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On the robust and vividly plain-spoken “Blood Bunny,” Moriondo, now 18, is a pop-punk whiz, deftly hopping between musical approaches from spare to lushly produced, and emphasizing intimate, cut-to-the-bone lyrics.- The New York Times
- Posted May 7, 2021
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Ulven’s vocals are rendered dreamily, almost inspirationally, over guitars that slash and throb in the manner of loud 1990s indie rock. Her boldness and defiance is taking on new shades.- The New York Times
- Posted May 6, 2021
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Not until the latter half of the album does the orchestra fully come alive, with a rich and immersive passage on Track 6 — sometimes regal, sometimes bluesy — that almost eclipses the motif, but not quite. And then there is Sanders’s tenor saxophone, a glistening and peaceful sound, deployed mindfully throughout the album. He shows little of the throttling power that used to come bursting so naturally from his horn, but every note seems carefully selected.- The New York Times
- Posted Mar 25, 2021
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At best, Del Rey’s hyper-referential music convincingly recreates the particular feeling of encountering art in a postmodern age, when the past is so cluttered with worthwhile cultural artifacts that everything new reminds one, at least a little bit, of something old. But as she dances on that fine line between evoking and signifying, Del Rey sometimes risks outsourcing her profundity to things other artists have said more vividly before. Such is the gamble of ending an album with a Joni Mitchell cover — though here that’s a risk Del Rey pulls off.- The New York Times
- Posted Mar 22, 2021
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Magnificent. ... Although she played all the instruments on “Little Oblivions” herself, she built out most of its arrangements so they could be performed with a full band onstage. This choice brings a new, sweeping dynamism to Baker’s music, and keeps “Little Oblivions” from feeling sonically repetitive.- The New York Times
- Posted Feb 25, 2021
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“Flowers for Vases/Descansos” has a narrower, quieter palette, though Williams easily handles guitars, keyboards and drums on her own... The songs on “Flowers for Vases/Descansos” are finely polished: every vocal phrase, guitar tone, piano note and studio effect has been thought through by Williams and her engineer and producer, Daniel James.- The New York Times
- Posted Feb 5, 2021
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As on Parks’s EPs, the music on her album is restrained but far from austere. She coos the melodies over low-slung hip-hop beats and guitars that can tangle like indie-rock or syncopate like funk. ... Meanwhile, her vocals arrive in layers of unison and harmony and from all directions in the mix, conjuring both solidarity and spaciousness. Her music inhabits a private sphere, but not an isolated one.- The New York Times
- Posted Jan 28, 2021
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“Palberta5000,” the first album it recorded with the producer Matt Labozza, has a newfound lucidity and oomph without sounding over-rehearsed, likely because the band recorded it in just four days and never attempted more than three takes for each song.- The New York Times
- Posted Jan 21, 2021
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Amid the dozens of songs on “Dangerous,” there’s ample room for variety. Wallen offers fingerpicking and soft-rock country with “Somebody’s Problem” and “7 Summers,” intricately layered Eagles-style country-rock with “More Surprised Than Me” and “Your Bartender,” a Southern-rock stomp with “Beer Don’t.” ... A stretch of songs during the album’s second half, with titles like “Rednecks, Red Letters, Red Dirt,” “Somethin’ Country” and “Whatcha Think of Country Now,” grow heavy-handed. But every so often, he allows for other possibilities.- The New York Times
- Posted Jan 14, 2021
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Spoken-word “tales” from six women — confessions and hard-earned observations — are followed by songs that flesh them out as character studies. (Although the spoken-word tracks get some accompaniment from electronic beats and gospel organ, the songs alone stand up far better to repeated listening.)- The New York Times
- Posted Jan 12, 2021
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The sonic details of “Evermore” are radiant and meticulous; the songwriting is poised and careful. It’s an album to respect. But with all its constructions and conceits, it also keeps a certain emotional distance.- The New York Times
- Posted Dec 11, 2020
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“Plastic Hearts” is not a trendy rebranding of Cyrus so much as a convincing argument that she’s always been something of an old soul.- The New York Times
- Posted Dec 1, 2020
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“Good News” proves Megan’s prodigious talent, but it also suggests that, with a bit more digging, this gem could emit an even more prismatic shine.- The New York Times
- Posted Nov 25, 2020
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“Positions” isn’t quite the reinvention that “Thank U Next” was, but it continues Grande’s effort to make the mainstream pop album a looser, weirder and more conversational space. ... Many pop stars attempt to take their sound to the next level by making increasingly grand and bombastic big-tent statements. Grande has succeeded largely by doing just the opposite.- The New York Times
- Posted Nov 3, 2020
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A thorough but imposing six hours of material, this collection is less about any specific unearthed gem than the larger transformation it charts.- The New York Times
- Posted Oct 30, 2020
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The sound of “Love Goes” is sweeping and luxurious: intimacy blown up to cinematic scale. Each song feels elaborately hewed.- The New York Times
- Posted Oct 29, 2020
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One of the geeky joys of “Wildflowers and All the Rest” is observing Petty at the absolute peak of his songwriting powers, making small, intelligent tweaks to these songs in progress. Sometimes it’s a single world, a few letters. ... The deep despair is there, too, in the rich soil of these songs. But what makes it bearable, and makes the record so timelessly listenable, is everything else that’s mixed in: humor, wisdom, a little randiness and a palpable sense of hope.- The New York Times
- Posted Oct 15, 2020
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Many of the songs are strong, but they largely bolster the story Carey has long been telling. The more revealing document, however, might be the second disc of the release: “Live at the Tokyo Dome,” her first concert in Japan, recorded in 1996. This is Carey at the peak — one of the peaks, at least — of her vocal authority and pop fame.- The New York Times
- Posted Oct 5, 2020
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“The Ascension” is single-minded, but far from simplistic. Most of Stevens’s new tracks are thickets of counterpoint, dissonance and noises that can be comic or ominous. And he never reduces his messages to preaching or polemic.- The New York Times
- Posted Sep 29, 2020
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Some of the Vault tracks are early or alternate versions of familiar songs, but dozens are newly revealed. Prince’s original choices for the album hold up. But it’s a delight to hear so much more.- The New York Times
- Posted Sep 25, 2020
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Keys reclaims most of her usual composure on “Alicia,” but it’s often tinged with ambivalence, even in love songs. The music often hollows itself out around her, opening deep bass chasms or surrounding sparse instrumentation with echoey voids.- The New York Times
- Posted Sep 18, 2020
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Found sounds and out-of-context conversations are the band’s signatures. ... Sometimes it works (the sudden intrusion of bagpipes on “Persona Non Grata”); sometimes it’s all a bit too much and the songs feel excessively crowded. But many of the most powerful moments on this record are uncharacteristically straightforward.- The New York Times
- Posted Aug 20, 2020
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