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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    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Shelter From The Ash
    Shelter doesn't settle into one sound--which is fine--but it's never able to harness its manic energy into anything coherent.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Documentary
    A rep-building, played-out retread of gangbang reveries set to so-so def beats by this hiphop minute's latest multiplatinum matinee thug-idol for the girls-gone-wild set.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Honeycomb
    The set is just a curio, banking everything on Black's low register, which has the texture but not the stamina to pull off so many slow, velvet lullabies about sour romance.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    In The Future
    Too quick and severe on the brakes, Black Mountain stunt their own grandiosity in the name of dynamics or patience.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    At War With The Mystics
    This is the sound of a band run dry.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Chapter II
    Padded with medleys and between-song skits, hampered by a demonstrable lack of both personality and hooks, it's craven, depressing, and irresistible all at once.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Diamond Hoo Ha
    Now Diamond Hoo Ha, find Supergrass mired in a sort of stasis. We always knew the lads were limited to just three chords; with efforts that feel measured, contrived, and dawdling, they finally sound like it.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Seventy Two & Sunny
    Confused rock and r&b conceits wander into onrushing 16-wheelers of c&w—barbershop quartet-ish background vox, crisp git-fiddle plucks, lyrics equal parts syrup and cheer. The tightrope he's walking is dental floss, but he still leans into every note.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    All The Way
    Despite creating some killer drones in '03 and '04, the duo has been in decline for more than two years now, and the trend continues with All the Way.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    From The Valley To The Stars
    Serene but emotionally flat, Valley feels like too much church on a cold Sunday afternoon.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Public Warning
    It's all very funny and cheeky, but after a full album's worth it grows cloying, like a good Saturday Night Live skit that's two minutes too long.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Street Dreams
    Most tracks trade impact for cheesy hooks, skittery beats, and rudimentary keyboard riffs that can't help but evoke that jiggly seizure-type shit Puffy's dancers were big into a few years back.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys
    The reason this convoluted rock opera can't match the Who, U2, Green Day, or even Styx is that Danger Days is a story constructed without rising or falling action.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Coral Fang
    Those who looked at the Distillers as the hope of 2003 might be disappointed that Dalle's stuck in 1994.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Aha Shake Heartbreak
    Only once do the Kings offer an identity worth bugging out in a club over, on the reckless and fantastic "Taper Jean Girl." The rest of the time, it all seems more confused and cynically gimmicked than inspired.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Abandoned Language
    Abandoned Language is film noir compared to the group's previous claustrophobic slapstick, and unfortunately that newfound seriousness isn't such a good thing.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Malpractice
    His old-school MC sensibilities clash with his need to make unit-shifting quotas, and it trips up the record.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Motown: A Journey Through Hitsville USA
    Hitsville's unrelenting smoothness verges on kitsch and quickly becomes grating.
    • 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.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The R.E.D. Album
    When there is a firm hand reining him in, Game can still make good rap music. Left to his own devices, however, he produces a dismaying mess.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Brooklyn's Don Diva
    Take Foxy Brown's (belated) fourth album, Brooklyn's Don Diva, as the latest missed opportunity.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Turn The Lights Out
    [The album] s clogged with reverb-choked guitar riffs too woozy to propel the garage rock they ought to carry.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Can't Be Tamed
    A lot of its songs are ballads that ooze sap like an abandoned sponge.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Sea Change
    The most disappointing aspect of this record is that Beck has fallen into the trap of confusing earnestly repeated clichés for personal lyrics.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Pink Friday
    Pink Friday is full of boring....the most confounding thing about Pink Friday is that it lacks style, lacks weirdness, whatever your opinions of how deeply that weirdness goes.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Kamikaze
    Suggests nothing so much as Adrenaline Rush part two.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Merry Christmas II You
    The near-crazed desperation to please listeners for her own sake is all over Merry Christmas II You: A "gift" to her fans (or so she claims) that they, of course, must pay for, it's her fascinating, career-long saga of self-obsession in a nutshell.
    • 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.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Loose
    Furtado is game... but Timbo brings beats, not chemistry. Loose isn't a love child, but a bump-and-grind that never finds a groove.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Black Holes & Revelations
    Takes rock to Seussian levels of ridiculousness.
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