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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    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mountain Battles
    In many ways, what follows is the perfect distillation of the Breeders' catalog (and Deal's attendant side project, the Amps).
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Walk It Off
    Problem is, Walk It Off is recorded like a single, 45-minute Big Event, rendering the alleged omniharp, tubular bells, and timpani mere liner-note abstractions.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Do It!
    Do It! is the first Clinic record that seems assembled from bits of old Clinic records, its personality the result of combined ideas rather than new ones.
    • 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
    • 80 Critic Score
    Colin Meloy Sings Live!
    But in clearing away the ear-candy clutter that's increasingly come to define his band's records (for better or for worse), Meloy enables even observers less convinced than those caught on tape to admire the tidy architecture of his material.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    X
    It's not the production, as copiously sexy as it is, that makes this great: It's that Kylie has an ear for fantastic pop-rock tunes restyled for 2008, and she approaches them not as merely amusing sonic glitter, but as totally vital music.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Get Awkward
    Thankfully, if anything differentiates the terrific Get Awkward from its hardly inauspicious predecessor, it's that this one may be even less complicated. Whereas the debut made room for actual relationships and a couple of headlong jams, this is a tighter, blunter assault, affording Pearl only just enough room to summarize B-movie plots or super-soak society.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Mail On Sunday
    The result is so robotic in its attempt to jolt every single pleasure center every single second that any twist of human joy, lust, awareness, or reflection is assimilated into its brittle, crunky Borg cube.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Street Horrrsing
    Street Horrrsing is, to your dad's ears (unless your dad is Lou Reed), a whole lot of noise. But what virtuosic, complicated noise it is.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Odd Couple
    A hastily crafted follow-up, a subpar sequel, much more "Rocky V" than "The Godfather: Part II."
    • 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.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Welcome To The Dollhouse
    These gals are older, more cohesive, and more enchanting than before, plus Maxim-approved.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Too Old To Die Young
    Too Old to Die Young is a fully plugged-in affair that expands on the muscular sighs of its predecessor and ups the rhythmic ante.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Alopecia
    It's his lyrics, brutally honest and often desperate, that elevate Alopecia from curiosity to conquest.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Trilla
    Like any good corporate-mandated sequel, it reprises the strengths of its original product with as little variation as possible, to predictably diminished returns.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Real Emotional Trash
    With Malkmus, a spade is never a spade, and his usual counterinclinations set Trash aquake with tension: pop that's coy but direct but rambling but surreal.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Good Time
    Jackson's songs don't seem uninflected so much as just plain skimpy, but their word-shy inertia suggests a sly detumescence that only the very successful can imagine, let alone turn to the service of their art.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Saturnalia
    The result's a bit grungy, sure--but there's also an undercurrent of dark, sinister country and blues that suggests they're not just rehashing old times.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Quaristice
    Quaristice demands to be heard, but stubbornly refuses to be the soundtrack of your life. That's art, and perhaps it's only pegged as "difficult" because it won't sing along with you; neither will the Chrysler Building, but that doesn't make it any less beautiful.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Transnormal Skiperoo
    Earthy rhythms provide both a welcome backbeat and a sense of history.
    • 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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Seventh Tree
    This whole thing sounds great, though: rue, clenched fists, and closed eyes mixed at an arena pitch.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Discipline
    Discipline is the most cohesive deep-groove album from La Jackson since "Control."
    • 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.
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