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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Collapse into Now
    What makes this record better than Accelerate is the feeling that R.E.M. have figured out how to be R.E.M. again--how to affect the signature balance of folky and punky that's inspired bands far less worshipful than Pearl Jam or the Decemberists.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    James Blake
    James Blake's most compelling moments come when you can't tell where he stops and the machines begin.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Greatest Story Never Told
    What really strikes you about its 17 tracks (only two failed to make the final cut due to sample- and guest-artist-clearance issues) is Saigon's sincerity.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    21
    21 probably isn't the best album Adele has in her, but it just might make her famous enough to finally be a pain in the ass.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Magic Place
    The Magic Place, Barwick's first release on Asthmatic Kitty (after two self-released albums), trails a dreamlike reverie across its 45 minutes.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Let England Shake
    this time, she has found a middle ground therein, an appropriately murky backdrop as she channels another of her early inspirations: Bob Dylan. Like vintage Bob, Shake pores over history's indignities with a fine-toothed comb.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Kaputt
    He's the smartest guy in the room and bent on walking into rooms where nobody wants to listen to him [...] These are the juxtapositions that make Kaputt-and all of Bejar's music-smart and worthwhile.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Late Registration
    Each of these songs offers more exquisite details than I could earmark in twice this space, many of them literary, which the English prof's dropout son rightly claims as his calling. But secret brilliance is more likely to emerge from the sops to his hip-hop base.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Fool
    Their stupendous debut full-length, The Fool, triangulates Moon Pix–era Cat Power's ghostly, morbid, gorgeous bedroom folk with the Slits' lithe, muscular post-punk.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The DeAndre Way
    I increasingly doubt I'll crank much of whatever comes next from this self-enamored rascal nearing the limits of his gig, but he's had his uses: He's vexed all the right sticklers and coined ample catchy hooks during the commercial breaks.
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