Village Voice (Consumer Guide)'s Scores

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For 223 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 73% higher than the average critic
  • 0% same as the average critic
  • 27% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 9.2 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 82
Highest review score: 100 Pick A Bigger Weapon
Lowest review score: 16 A Day Without Rain
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 184 out of 223
  2. Mixed: 37 out of 223
  3. Negative: 2 out of 223
223 music reviews
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    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Gimme Fiction
    Though I can imagine putting this on at year's end and remembering every song with a kind of surprised admiration, I can't imagine doing it any sooner--or any later either.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Travistan
    Morrison's predictably intelligent solo debut puts personality where the Dismemberment Plan's synergy used to be.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    From The Desk Of Mr. Lady [EP]
    After a 34-minute art project that ended up a great album, a 17-minute EP ends up an art project.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Living With War
    OK, more news event than musical milestone. But a really great news event.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Road Rock Volume 1
    Definitely not dead yet.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Tanglewood Numbers
    David Berman joins a pickup band that includes his close personal friend Stephen Malkmus to explore realms of vocal inexpressiveness undreamt by Stephin Merritt or the Handsome Family.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Confessions On A Dance Floor
    If anything, it's more a dance record, leaving those of us with a sentimental weakness for distinct parts a little lost.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Fever To Tell
    To care about this band you have to find Karen O's fuck-me persona provocative if not seductive, and since I've never been one for the sex-is-combat thing, I find it silly or obnoxious depending on who's taking it seriously.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    trampin'
    No, she hasn't regained her sense of humor, but aren't you fast losing yours?
    • 87 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Ágætis Byrjun
    A thematically linked work where some of the sonic landscapes were entrancing (although not warm).
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Selling Live Water
    Certainly he understands things about this society that his better-adjusted contemporaries don't. But he's woefully short on not just empathy but humorous self-deprecation.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
    We shall overkill, he means.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Dear Heather
    Leonard Cohen has had No Voice since he began recording at 33. But he has more No Voice today, at 70, than he did on Ten New Songs, at 67.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
    All told, pretty dull--unless you're so desperate that you'll sing hosanna for every piece of intelligent-honest-original that comes down the circuit.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Mysterious Production Of Eggs
    He shows off discreetly, underplaying his vocal chops and musical command, even his familiarity with scientific arcana--nay, his intelligence itself.... But discretion exacts a price in identity, clarity, and meaning.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    X&Y
    Precise, bland, and banal, their sensitivity emotionless and their musicality never surprising, they're the definition of a pleasant bore--easy to tune out, impossible to care for.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Electric Circus
    Outfitted in this music, however, Common's pretensions stand up and do jumping jacks.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Several Arrows Later
    Pond's songs are the alt-rock equivalent of what used to be called New Yorker short stories: subtly realized domestic epiphanies often involving tame nature imagery.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Bridging the Gap
    Proficient, bland, and dauntingly dull, their only threat is a promise to "take it back to the days of Mantronix" (no, please, anything but that).
    • 82 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    You're A Woman, I'm A Machine
    I don't get this.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    By The Way
    It's not enough for Anthony Keidis to get all mature--he's supposed to say something interesting about maturity. And he's never had thing one to say about anything else.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    I Am A Bird Now
    Not only is his willingness to express emotion commoner than indie denizens imagine, his failure to undercut that emotion with irony or humor is a spiritual weakness.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Don't Give Up On Me
    The latest Old Person to forge Honest Music in the teeth of a Youth-Orientated Marketplace has lost his legendary voice, so what's the attraction?
    • 89 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Neon Golden
    Young people who think Kraftwerk were more important than the Ramones are free to satisfy their craving for the neu with this retreat into simplicity. But even Radiohead and Mouse on Mars contain more chaos.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Black Foliage: Animation Music
    At its most generous, this may be the music of the young Brian Wilson's dysfunctional dreams. But at its most pretentious it's his bad trip.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    In Search Of... [Second Version]
    Sure they're clever, but they're also as shallow as Britney Spears.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Revelling/Reckoning
    This is a double album where the best songwriting never meshes with the best horn writing, which is what gets her juices going these days.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Breach
    Though he comes up with strong melodies, he's hardly a match for Ben Folds or Elliott Smith, both of whom frame their catchy stuff more idiosyncratically and neither of whom is terribly interesting even so.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Teaches of Peaches
    It's wish fulfillment for boys who make passes at girls who wear glasses.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Intercontinentals
    Every once in a while a drone or pattern emerges, reminding me of what I treasure most in "world music"-- articulated rhythm. Then he gets some tech genie or steel player to throw on another synth substitute and it's back to the miasma.
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