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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    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Finding Forever
    With Forever, Common delivers the expected--political, lover-man, and battle rhymes told with wit and complexity over street-commercial beats--in spades.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Untitled
    Much of the music bears little resemblance to the down-tuned chug-and-glug found on the band's early records.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Planet Earth
    Anti-war, pro-environment, religious ('Chelsea Rodgers' only gives up trim if you're baptized), and funky, Planet Earth is still merely an excuse to tour.
    • 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.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Zeitgeist
    Thanks in part to the presence of Pantera producer Terry Date, this is the Pumpkins' hardest-rocking record ever.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Our Love To Admire
    Somehow the band manages to sound insincere and gorgeous at the same time.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
    Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, the group's sixth album, boasts an instrument roll call that might look swollen - trumpet, Chamberlin, cello, koto, flamenco guitar - but Spoon wear it well.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Cross
    It's all very outsized and uppity, falling right in line with the current dictum in dance music that every song must be able to be mashed up with both Kanye West and this week's indie-rock star.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Else
    The Else, is as tuneful and rockin' as all the rest.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Goodbye
    With Goodbye, he's finally got the levels just right. By moving even closer to the shoegazer sound, the result sounds less like pilfering and more like reinvention.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sirens of the Ditch
    The record smoothly lures and detours familiar, '70s-based rock-blues-country sounds and expectations while highlighting Isbell's character-actor flair.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    T.I. Vs T.I.P.
    T.I. vs. T.I.P. makes for a confusing listen, which is a shame—fans would probably never have questioned who T.I. is until he started questioning himself.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Easy Tiger
    The lived-in songs and careful presentation of Easy Tiger make for one of the strongest records of his second career as a solo artist.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Mix-Up
    Tossed-off, underdone, monotonous, unfinished, and redundant maybe, but not bad.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Desire
    What Desire offers instead is at times cerebral and at times depraved, but invariably provocative.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Fragile Army
    The Fragile Army actually has substance—thematically, musically, and lyrically.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Icky Thump
    The affecting style that made them the most imaginative revivalists of their generation has been replaced by half-assed and half-hearted prog rock.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    It's A Bit Complicated
    Here and there, Complicated sets up some promising scenarios—worrying about a platonic friend's reaction to a mix tape, or trying to initiate sex for the sake of outdoing a girlfriend's exes—but they never pan out.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Era Vulgaris
    With the band sounding listless and drained of ideas, it starts trying anything.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Good Girl Gone Bad
    Good Girl never settles on a sound, and Rihanna vacillates between aping Gretchen Wilson, Ashanti, Gwen Stefani, and Pink. Nonetheless, she often sounds every bit like the superstar she clearly intends to be.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Asa Breed
    Throughout much of Asa Breed, Dear achieves a serendipitous balance between the uplifting and the eerie, the hummable and the hypnotic, the tuneful and the texturally adventurous.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Everyday I Said A Prayer For Kathy And Made A One Inch Square
    Wheat's scrappy though sometimes endearing fourth album is clearly a stylistic protest against their only major-label release, 2003's bland, vexed, much-delayed-by-Sony Per Second, Per Second, Per Second . . . Every Second.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    It Won't Be Soon Before Long
    There's nothing wrong with making music for tweens, or lighter-lofting boomers. It's simply a matter of execution, and here these chums are scattered and grasping.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Lies For The Liars
    An album of the same-old, same-old.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fort Nightly
    Nearly embarrassing levels of enthusiasm, sincerity, and energy inform Fort Nightly, the band's surprisingly meaty debut.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Release The Stars
    Beneath the haughty schmaltz of his fifth LP—embodying Herb Albert one moment and a particularly peach-scented Little River Band the next—there are only momentary flashes of the high-quality torch songs we fell for so long ago.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Reminder
    Listening to this thing is like watching a pitcher throw a no-hitter.
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