Village Voice's Scores

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For 764 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 47% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 50% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 5.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 The Naked Truth
Lowest review score: 10 God Says No
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 517 out of 764
  2. Mixed: 199 out of 764
  3. Negative: 48 out of 764
764 music reviews
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    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nostalgia, Ultra.
    He's an intuitive r&b stylist, with a firm sense of song structure (he's written for Justin Bieber and Beyoncé) and a conversational talk-singing voice that is as indebted to Justin Timberlake and Pharrell as it is to R. Kelly.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Weather
    With Weather, Ndegeocello shows how she's poised to follow Animal Collective down the rabbit hole and into a promised land of greater musical freedom.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Take Care
    Take Care is a carefully crafted bundle of contradictory sentiments from a conflicted rapper who explores his own neuroses in as compelling a manner as anyone not named Kanye West.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Wild Flag
    The result is a collection of songs where the choppy, dreamy prog of "Glass Tambourine" can exist within a few tracks of the pogo-inducing "Short Version" and still come off as a cohesive, energy-rush-inducing whole.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Worship Music
    Anthrax's tenth album, Worship Music, should rightfully be seen as a triumph.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Gold Cobra
    The album plays to the band's strengths, but there's simply nothing here as catchy as "My Way" or as infectiously fun as "Break Stuff."
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Nothing But the Beat
    Overall the album is a triumph of collective will and creativity, but not every track fits every performer perfectly.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Tha Carter IV
    This is a bad rap album, and one that needed the shock of Internet promotion that the Jay-Z diss on "It's Good" gave it when C4 leaked.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The R.E.D. Album
    When there is a firm hand reining him in, Game can still make good rap music. Left to his own devices, however, he produces a dismaying mess.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    God's Son
    Nas doesn't ruin a decent beat, but rarely is he able to improve one.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Chief
    Chief, like Church's other work, walks the line between hard Southern boogie and softie singer-songster sap, but with plenty of chug.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dedication
    Zomby's early work stood out for the care with which it was created, but even given that, there's something startlingly mature about the production here.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Pink Friday
    Pink Friday is full of boring....the most confounding thing about Pink Friday is that it lacks style, lacks weirdness, whatever your opinions of how deeply that weirdness goes.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Last Summer
    There's not much screaming on Last Summer. Like I'm Going Away, it's a basic, modest studio-rock record, the kind common in the '70s, with flavorful detours reminiscent of that era.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Black Up
    That's Black Up's predicament: It wants to be experienced viscerally, but it's being stripped of life by over-intellectualization.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    King of Hearts
    Once the heat and light brought by Lloyd's nuclear P-bomb wear off, King remains utterly replayable.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Larceny & Old Lace
    Righteous dilettantes, the Coathangers' songs are simple and jarring-they're irreverent towards melody and their hooks jut at odd angles.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    David Comes To Life
    It's a true testament to the band that its windswept glory-rock stays exhilarating for nearly 80 minutes.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Planet Pit
    It's cocky, it's manufactured, it's too reliant on industry pal-downs, ugh, it's inorganic. Then again, it's perfectly of a moment where "All I Do Is Win" is the must-have self-fulfilling prophecy, and Planet Pit sounds like it's winning. And even if it isn't, well, it all but tells you to go ahead and groan.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Bon Iver
    Vernon seems torn between selling his lyrics and using his voice as just another emotional cue in the thick mix. But if you're looking for an album to get lost in, who knew a guy previously feted for stripped-down "realness" would provide the year's best?
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Finally Famous
    Finally Famous, which contains a handful of other tracks produced by No I.D. as well as collaborations with the likes of the Neptunes and Wiz Khalifa, is a slick triumph filled with muscular drums and rolling synthesizers.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    4
    Beyonce's art is delivery, and 4 is a gorgeous frame for her voice at its absolute best.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rated R
    You are way, way better off not projecting any kind of emotional subtext onto this record.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Past Life Martyred Saints
    She has a huge talent for drama--when to build, when to break, when to whisper or coo or yell, when to camp a while in a looping melody and when to move on--and the album's 37 minutes feel majestic and unhurried.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Born This Way
    For as overblown as Born is clearly intended to be, it's very difficult to love it for its nature--its gentler moments are more rewarding.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Goblin
    The repugnant misogynistic bullshit on Goblin sort of cancels any goodwill I have toward the guy. Particularly because it feels more like search engine optimization; Tyler makes no bones about his desire to hit the pop charts, and on too much of Goblin, he's doing it in the tawdriest way possible.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Eye Contact
    Eye Contact delights with its danceability and synthetic pleasure, but it's frontwoman Lizzi Bougatsos who holds the jams together.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Who Kill
    Garbus's engagement is loud and hard to ignore. That she engages without despair is the part I find most admirable of all.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Screws Get Loose
    Screws aspires to the high-end pop of Lowe's Pure Pop for Now People or the Flamin Groovies' mid-'70s work, and gets there more often than not.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rolling Papers
    The idea of ascension, both literally and figuratively, is the album's prevailing motif, and it's the tracks that focus most intensely on this theme that are the strongest.
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