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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    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Anniemal
    If much of Anniemal isn't vibrant enough to move physically or resonant enough to move emotionally, its peaks suggest a worthy midway state.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Out-Of-State Plates
    Establishes both how hard it is to turn out material worthy of Utopia Parkway and Welcome Interstate Managers and how often Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger come close.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Cookbook
    The results of this musical promiscuity are mixed, but The Cookbook yields far more bangers than bombs.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Blitzkrieg Pop
    What keeps Blitzkrieg from descending into petulant shtick is Haas's compositional ear.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Somebody's Miracle
    On Somebody's Miracle, Phair is more confident than on her previous mass-appeal bid, 2003's Liz Phair.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Unpredictable
    Unpredictable is pure product, buffed-and-shined modern r&b.... But Foxx has also created a work geared toward sexual pleasure that will work its way into many a late-night floating-world session.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Believer
    What, besides an extra layer of production syrup, can Believer cuts like "Ain't That Strange" and "Delicate" offer that almost any Old 97's barn burner can't?
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ghetto Classics
    His most musically ornate and stylistically conservative [album] to date, almost bold in its timidity.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    'Sno Angel Like You
    Most of Gelb's seven new songs hold their own with four primo re-rolls.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    3121
    The best thing about 3121 is the opportunity it affords its maverick creator to school the children by recontextualizing historically resonant pop riffs and icons.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ringleader Of The Tormentors
    A simmering, sultry affair.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Charm
    Quality genre work from an artist with visionary potential.
    • Village Voice
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bitter Tea
    It's a unique and occasionally maddening formula, but what makes this supremely rinky-dink fourth-grade-production-of–Pirates of Penzance racket captivating is the unflappable way they sell all this circuitous dream logic, instead of just reverting to uncaring, insufferable twee.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fundamental
    Trevor Horn's production has a pleasing fullness, opening the melodies without smothering them.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Avalanche: Outtakes & Extras From The Illinois Album
    More of the same, but we don't mind.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Time Being
    He emerges from a two-record slump contemplating sand though the hourglass with perspective beyond his 42 years.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Nightlife
    It still cuts, just not quite as deep.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Game Theory
    They've resurfaced sounding dark, mysterious, and pissed off.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    So This Is Goodbye
    Junior Boys' brand of synthpop can't help sounding rooted in the '80s, and with Scritti Politti and thePet Shop Boys recently resurfacing to scratch the same itch, there may be no burning need for what Manitobans Jeremy Greenspan and Matthew Didemus do. Which doesn't mean they don't do it well.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pieces Of The People We Love
    Propulsive, addictive, ego-driven bursts.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass
    Defiantly eclectic.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Gang Of Losers
    Strangely, what the sloppier approach really does is highlight bandleader Murray Lightburn's wondrous voice.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Knives Don't Have Your Back
    Stripped of their cosmetics, some tunes on Knives Don't Have Your Back seem underdeveloped, but they prove what always needs to be proved in the vortex of postmodern pop--that an artist like Haines can do more than hide behind her influences.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Once Again
    There are a number of words to describe contemporary mainstream r&b, but "elegant," "mature," "breezy," and "sophisticated" aren't usually among them. Luckily, they apply to John Legend's subtle follow-up to 2005's Grammy-winning, multiplatinum Get Lifted.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me
    The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me builds on its predecessor's articulate wordplay, with lush tones that evidently evolved over the band's extended break.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
    Fauna's first half is cosmic pop turmoil of the highest degree, as only a master songwriter could create.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    New Magnetic Wonder
    Both familiar and surprising.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Myth Takes
    Yet even if the lyrics actively discourage the application of your undivided attention, this is !!!'s most songful work yet.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Neon Bible
    There are growing pains here, there's doubt and sadness and confusion. And there's fear.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Yes, I'm A Witch
    A good number of the cuts here take up the thread she's been working lately, adding factory-floor dance beats to old vocal tracks.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ce
    The brightest, weirdest spots—lags are around but ultimately forgivable—are thrilling.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Living With The Living
    It's more blunt than 2004's already pointed Shake the Sheets, and more streamlined as well.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Armchair Apocrypha
    Armchair is a bit more accessible and less subtle [than Eggs], less of a single statement, but with more individual standouts.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Traffic And Weather
    The left-bent, middle-class everymen in these songs are consistently disarming.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Favourite Worst Nightmare
    There's nothing wrong with singing witty lyrics fast and loud; there's just nothing very special about it.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Curtis
    Curtis is stuffed with tightly wound 21st-century pop songwriting, full of that invisible craft and flow that renders a thing eminently listenable even if it's gratuitously raunchy, politically reprehensible, and sexually retrograde.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Our Love To Admire
    Somehow the band manages to sound insincere and gorgeous at the same time.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Stage Names
    The Stage Names shares the frenzy of pre–"Black Sheep" songs like 'The War Criminal Rises and Speaks,' and if it isn't as monolithic as the album that spurred the band's rise to "Believer"-subscriber prominence, it does contain several fine examples of hyper-articulate hysteria.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Places Like This
    Places Like This ultimately shares qualities with its IM-chat womb: It's entertaining as hell, but eventually you'd rather just minimize the window and get on with your day.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rise To Your Knees
    In playing it straight, however, the Pups emphasize their abilities as skilled synthesists rather than merely falling back on their rep as inspired eccentrics, suggesting a band that, though grounded, has yet to plateau.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ditherer
    Ditherer is a collection of noisy pop songs, but the emphasis is mainly on the noise, muddying up the tunes in a way that's both frustrating and titillating.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Challengers
    The Pornographers work better when they move quicker and don't overthink.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Under the Blacklight
    Under the Blacklight is a brief and often bizarre record, jiggling with artificial rhythm and awash in backup singers imported from 1981.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    None Shall Pass
    You can't decipher most of what he's saying, and sometimes you're better off. And the beats, provided variously by Blockhead, El-P, and Aesop himself, are rarely more than serviceable. Still, when things come together, as on the title track, we're reminded why many consider this guy the reigning champ of indie rap.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Strawberry Jam
    Just because there's an onslaught of verbiage and weird noises (like most pop these days) does not a pop album make. It is their most oxymoronic, though.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Graduation
    Grating bouts of narcissism aside, Graduation contains killer pieces of production: 'Stronger' uses Daft Punk's 'Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger' to practically revive Eurodisco, while 'Champion' snarkily snatches its hook from Steely Dan's 'Kid Charlemagne.'
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Asleep At Heaven's Gate
    Asleep at Heaven's Gate now continues that same kind of expert carnival of noise, even as its songs are longer (six of the 12 creep over five minutes) and flirt with jam-band explorations. Oddly, though, it feels like a step back.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Autumn of the Seraphs
    Opener 'From Nothing to Nowhere' also makes the case that Pinback's ready for some new fans: It's fast and furious, nicely setting a tempo that suggests they're not fucking around while conveying a (much-needed) immediacy through Rob Crow's voice.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Shine
    Coupled with other woodwinds, these horns sound elegant, almost classical. But too often the lead tenor veers dangerously deep into Grover Washington territory--such meandering (God forgive me if it's Wayne Shorter) damns otherwise lovely arrangements to elevator-music oblivion.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Big Doe Rehab
    The album might actually play to Ghost's strengths too much; virtually every track is a straight-ahead adrenal banger with a screaming soul sample and a death-obsessed narrative.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Growing Pains
    Growing Pains could use more of this insouciance, or another song that harnessed all her gifts as well as Breakthrough's "Be Without You" did. Confusing confessions with wisdom, Blige would be more fun if she'd shut up for a while and luxuriate.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Jukebox
    Jukebox's few truly memorable moments--such as the shimmering 'Silver Stallion,' which takes the jaunty country-rock tune popularized by the Highwaymen and turns it into a late-night whisper, à la her version of '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction'--are dwarfed by the merely adequate ones.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Brighter Than Creation's Dark
    The best song on the Drive-By Truckers' new 19-track monolith, Brighter Than Creation's Dark, will remind you why you like them; the album's worst song, which is in fact the worst song they've ever done by a substantial margin, will teach you to love them again.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Made In The Dark
    They're very much of their time--friendly indie kids from the Go! Team to Hot Hot Heat are cheerily dabbling in dance music nowadays--and much better than most of those peers.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lust Lust Lust
    The Jesus and Mary Chain comparisons are still apt, though they're creeping out from under the shadow of 'Happy When It Rains' and heading toward something far scarier, as traces of Throbbing Gristle seem ready to disrupt their noise-pop vigil at any moment.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Field Manual
    His optimism is renewable and satisfying, and for it Field Manual is enjoyable overall.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Promises Promises
    Shattered, scattered voice and guitar can't help planting some bizarre memory garden of l-u-v.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Heretic Pride
    While he looses some duds ("New Zion," "So Desperate," and "How to Embrace a Swamp Creature" are skippable) and a set of slightly duller lyrics, the conceits of the songs—the central images of good floundering in an evil world, of contented monsters, of the naiveté of the faithful—serve to substantiate the album as a whole more than any one line, verse, or song does.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Working Man's Cafe
    It could have come across as professional formalism enhancing a half-assed satirist's latest free-market nightmare, but Working Man's Café adds lyricism to the reportage and makes itself useful enough.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Seventh Tree
    This whole thing sounds great, though: rue, clenched fists, and closed eyes mixed at an arena pitch.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    New Amerykah: Part One (4th World War)
    New Amerykah seems adherent to the old "cohesive studio album" mold of the soul/neo-soul eras.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Midnight Boom
    More glamorous but less versatile, the Kills are the easier listen, particularly if their superficiality is taken to be deliberate.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hold On Now, Youngster
    For a band about whom most of the talk (pro and con) has focused on their unrelenting giddiness, Los Campesinos! have produced a debut that's surprisingly muddled emotionally.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Mad & Faithful Telling
    'Basso Profundo,' sticks out like a sore thumb, overindulging the band's penchant for melting-pot quirk before the listener's had a chance to acclimate, throwing off the balance of an otherwise perfectly paced album.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    NY's Finest
    Finest is at its finest when the beats ride out wordlessly, and bloodlessly.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Volume One
    There's nothing offensive about anything on Volume One, which, with its catchy melodies, universally appealing lyrics, and mellow production, might just be a hit.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pretty.Odd.
    There may be a deep coat of irony smeared about here, but in the end, Pretty. Odd. is exactly what it says it is.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Accelerate
    'Sing for the Submarine's' winking nods to old song titles ("electron blue," "gravity's pull," "high-speed train") are painfully self-aware. It's a sharp contrast to the rest of Accelerate, on which R.E.M. stop overthinking things--and start roaring toward the future.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Picture Of The Three Of Us At The Gate To The Garden Of Eden
    The short songs too often find him serving up tasty, melodic morsels, only to snatch them away before you're fully satisfied.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Shine
    Estelle turns Shine into a durable debut, pleasant and shrewd.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    April
    A song or two will keep you warm and contented, but take in the full album and April will smother you worse than a down comforter in July.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rabbit Habits
    Rabbit Habits, the Philadelphia group's first for Anti-, turns down the amps, reduces the Jolt intake, and generally bids for newfound maturity and restraint. The surprise is that it mostly works.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Saturdays=Youth
    Anthony Gonzalez nurtures nostalgia but isn't enslaved by it, and Saturdays=Youth teems with equal parts ache and pomp as a result.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Robyn
    Her appeal is questionable when she tries to sound like an American rapper, but on tracks where she just sings--the immaculate junk symphony of 'Be Mine,' the excellently Japanese 'Bum Like You,' the Autobahn power-ballad 'With Every Heartbeat'--she gives Europop a swift Swedish energy and presence.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rising Down
    The production style displays unique shadings and shifts in sound, suggesting an attention to sonic detail emblematic of a drummer with the deep musical (especially jazz-related) knowledge that ?uestlove owns. But this may also sustain the most oft-heard complaint against the Roots: the seeming inability of their lead vocalist, Black Thought, to unfailingly deliver "hip-hop quotables."
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Nouns
    Nouns' title stinks compared to that of their 2007 debut, "Weirdo Rippers," but the jams are way better.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Just Us Kids
    He's always here to try to twist reality's wires some more, just so, and leave a little room to move.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Water Curses [EP]
    By submerging listeners gently, Water Curses never goes off the deep end.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Anywhere I Lay My Head
    Against all odds, Anywhere I Lay My Head doesn't feel like a vain stunt. Mostly.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    This Is Not The World
    This Is Not the World sounds more like a Buzzcocks record--a merry collection of punk cut-ups.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Songs in A&E
    The result ebbs and flows.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    VYP: Voice of the Young People
    Not a bad debut, finally, but someone should tell her that speaking for the young people doesn't mean merely becoming Shanice with attitude.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    El Rey
    Solidified by finally having a mostly established band, this record is less impressive than their pre-’90s work, but better than anything since 1994, and generally a welcome addition to their already established résumé.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Stay Positive
    Though the result doesn't quite reach the rarefied heights of 2005's Separation Sunday or the following year's nearly equally great follow-up, Boys and Girls in America, it fits nicely alongside LCD Soundsystem's "Sound of Silver" and the National's "Boxer" as a poignant example of veteran artists maturing gracefully, capturing that feeling you get just after the peak, when you've started noticing the decline but haven't figured out what to do about it yet.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Digi Snacks
    For all the extracurricular drama, it's pretty good.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Partie Traumatic
    As far as eagerly anticipated debuts go, Partie Traumatic is loose and unforced in its extreme eagerness to please.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    LP3
    LP3 is a stronger outing, though it's not necessarily harder or faster.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Untitled
    Controversy aside, without any truly addictive tracks, you can't consider Nas's latest among his greatest. But it's hard not to appreciate the effort.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Breakout
    The only thing Britney ever did better was cut loose, and even through Breakout's title suggests both a debutante's cotillion (leaving Disneyland and entering the airwaves) and an emotional liberation, Miley often sounds held-back and controlled.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fasciinatiion
    Mostly the fascination here is with sounds-not-songs, which is fine for the year Portishead came back, as long as the Faint have enough dial tones and farts swiped from Thom Yorke's basement tapes to deck out Fink's traditionally one-note delivery when attention wanders.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Chemical Chords
    Diehards will probably resent their new predictability and homogeneity, but the group's mature phase is capable of generating one hell of a pop album.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Brass Knuckles
    The real problem, though, isn't the music (accomplished and catchy enough for distracted listening), nor is it Nelly's own verses (more stylish than substantive, as always). Rather, it's that a dedicated capitalist--hear his "Buy me the mall" manifesto on 'Hold Up'--is using a business model that's on its way to extinction.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Acid Tongue
    Jenny is a definitely a chosen one in the talent department, but she doesn't really let on.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Broken Hymns, Limbs, And Skin
    The music is often cresting and joyous, implying sweating bodies careening through a space designed to hold half their number.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Evolver
    As the dying industry is still breathing in the toxins of useless filler, patrons like John Legend are fully indulging their creativity in all its flawed glory, just like the soul giants of yesteryear.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Alpinisms
    School of Seven Bells, is a far more meditative and electronic affair dominated by former On!Air!Library! entrancers Alejandra and Claudia Deheza, who sing in mesmerizing siren-song unison, even if they sound like a grade-A hookah-bar act at times.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Thr33 Ringz
    Even when veering wildly away from good sense--and 'Change' is hardly a sensical move--there’s an unwitting pop hit right around the bend.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Singles
    The first 25 minutes of this loose compilation come as close to perfection as you could hope....The five remixes that make up the rest of The Singles aren't bad by any stretch, but they all try to drag the band closer to conventional dance music, whereas the band's power lies precisely in the way they already belong on the dance floor without overselling themselves or smoothing out their rougher edges.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Love Is Overtaking Me
    Everything Russell recorded is worth a listen, but while 'Close My Eyes' will likely soon stand alongside 'This Is How We Walk on the Moon' and 'That's Us/Wild Combination' as one of the most instantly pleasing songs in his discography, this collection only occasionally captures him at the height of his powers.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ropechain
    With Ropechain, the emotional turnaround's reversed: An initial, burning desire to hate everything about this album--the stylistic mish-mash, the artistic blackface, the blah cover art--gives way to wary admiration, even though it's hard to shake the sense that its creator's something of a jerk.
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