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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    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Get Born
    The best tunes here have that boys'-club vibe of the best early-to-mid-'70s hard-rock bands, dead-on and nailed.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Invincible
    To really care about this album you have to be able to get into the pure hard sounds of the dance-track percussion and the way Michael tends to garnish them with his voice.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Hair, The TV, The Baby & The Band
    They've become lapidary masters. The trouble is, who's listening and learning?
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Red Bedroom
    These scuzzy Voidoids are as immature as Blink-182 were; they just have hipper ways of hiding it—like pretending punk and new wave were the same thing.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant
    Hand-clappable tunes and delicious cover design aside, sharp narrative-driven writing has been what saves the band from being merely annoying or silly or cute; too bad Fold Your Hands Child entirely abandons the vivid narrative vignette model.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hotel
    Impeccably made, hedonistic, lovelorn, catchy, compelling. But spiritual, messianic, visionary? Not by a long shot.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Id
    The Id suffers from the conundrum of all post-breakout second albums. You're disappointed either because the songs are not enough like the first one or because they're too much like the first but not quite as good.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ten
    Clouddead's problem is their stubborn refusal to express anything.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rise And Fall, Rage And Grace
    The patchwork of styles thrown around here distracts you from the album's strengths.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Chronicles Of Life And Death
    Good Charlotte have hooks for days and the fun, gloomy Life and Death sounds like a moody missing link between Fountains of Wayne and Thrice.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Como te Llama
    ¿Cómo Te Llama? is best when the songs seem to shake and quaver within their candy-coated shells; fittingly, that’s when they’re at their Strokes-iest.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ten New Songs
    Ten New Songs is all introspection, closer in sound to a technologically updated Songs From a Room.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Kasabian
    Still waiting for the next Lo Fidelity Allstars album? Wish there were more Stereo MC's-like stuff in car ads? Wondering where great songwriting teams like Gallagher/Gallagher have gone? Then Kasabian were made for you! They offer all the same thrills of the aforementioned artists, and they sound like Primal Scream, too!
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wincing The Night Away
    While Mercer's writing is still more satisfying than that of his peers, filler tunes like "Pam Berry" and "Black Wave" are a far cry from the tenacious stuff that made Chutes the subject of lavish hyperbole.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ghosts I-IV
    It's basically a minimalist record that coasts on one's predilection for NINoise.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Receivers
    Receivers is what die-hard fans refer to as the record too far.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Can't Stop
    I Can't Stop works as return to form, as proof that Green's groove, voice, and riffs are largely intact. But Green gets tied down when production's slathered on a bit too thick, as if every Hi Rhythm soul lick must be utilized to substantiate the comeback.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Stadium Arcadium
    Neither disjointed embarrassment of riches à la The Beatles nor conceptual magnum opus like The Wall, Stadium Arcadium is two hours of sometimes middling, sometimes masterful, mostly pleasurable mainstream rock.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    On My Way
    Beatles-style tunes crank out with steady snares, blaring power riffs, and languid keyboard interjections, but feel mundane.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    All Jacked Up
    Yeah, Jacked contains a few shadowy rewrites of Here for the Party tunes, but the players this time are more in sync with the star--the music is louder, beerier.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Revolution Starts Now
    It makes sense that, of the improvised songs, the rockers turned out best.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Here I Stand
    A little too sitting-on-the-dock-of-the-bay for Chris Breezy–trained earbuds, perhaps, Here I Stand is pure grown-man bidness.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Doctor's Advocate
    Doctor's Advocate isn't really all that dire, especially if you can get past the constant--and constantly labored--airing of, shall we say, grievances.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sweat
    Anchored by predigested melodic hooks, Nelly's songs seem composed with the sole intention of ending up as your next ringtone. [Combined review of both discs]
    • 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.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bionic
    Left unasked is the question of whether you needed that-the bondage theme, the 10-octave tantrum, the synth war, all of that-but don't expect the rest of her new album, Bionic, to inquire, either.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Maroon
    Throughout Maroon, though, producer Don Was mercifully dispenses with mawkishness in favor of a theatrical approach tailored for arena consumption.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    II
    This is a definite step up from the all-pall-and-no-pulse feel that made Espers' 2004 self-titled album too stuffy.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Party Music
    Many of the lyrics on Party Music amount to no more than slogans, maxims, opinions.
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