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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    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Peace Love Death Metal
    The two-man, woogie-filled boogie team is fine for 30 minutes.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Winning Days
    Winning Days is still more interesting than any album by obvious progenitors Oasis because the good parts come up at the most random moments--spontaneous solo here, appealing harmony there.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ten
    Clouddead's problem is their stubborn refusal to express anything.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
    Though some sections are plodding and one-dimensional, others lock into place.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    America's Sweetheart
    America's Sweetheart is one big, juicy fuckup, and fortunately for Courtney, there will always be little girls who hate being little girls, and are looking for a fairy godmother to show them how to self-destruct. Unfortunately, Karen O, Brody Dalle, and Amy Lee all made cooler records.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Grey Album
    Of course it's a gimmick, but about half of it works anyway.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Apropa't
    This is the kind of thing indie boys put on when they want to have sex.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Kamikaze
    Suggests nothing so much as Adrenaline Rush part two.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Heavier Things
    While he's technically adept at playing the blues, it's perfectly clear the only heartache Mayer knows how to emote comes the morning after a night of hearty partying.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Televise
    Televise's second act stumbles through a glut of mid-tempo glumness.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Electric Circus
    Beautifully engineered, Circus sounds chocolaty and recombinant even when it doth protest the Enlightened Guy angle too much.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Last DJ
    Tom's not quite so lovable when he's preaching his anti-non-Petty doctrine in a series of songs that often don't rise above the level of mediocrity themselves.
    • 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.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dirty Dancing
    While it's tempting to write it off as but one more retro paste-up, Swayzak's uncanny sense of texture, timbre, and space justifies an approach that otherwise seems like a drift toward Alzheimer's.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Zoomer
    At times it's a bit like a post-techno Jesus and Mary Chain, burying tambourine rattle and two-chord bangers beneath an avalanche of clicks and static.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Reanimation
    Why didn't they travel this far out of the box initially?
    • 82 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Rising
    He sounds as genuinely hurt and confused as any of us, but if he's gained any insight into that hurt or confusion, he's not about to express it.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fashionably Late
    Nearly everything on Fashionably Late has a pristinely modulated solemnity, a refined, literal-minded perfection.... In a sense, Fashionably Late is too good--too enamored of the aesthetic straight and narrow, of reverse sentimentality--for its own good.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Murray Street
    The new album isn't terrible, just dull.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    18
    Nearly every song sounds like either a redux of or reject from its predecessor.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Maladroit
    Maladroit picks up where the Green Album slacked off, relying on the same chunky sonics that set "Hash Pipe" apart from Weezer's earlier, more lithe singles.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    When I Was Cruel
    Elvis makes you suffer for the good stuff with leaden conceits, overwrought hysterics, a useless reprise. And then he makes it all up to yoo-oo-oou.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Cake & Pie
    There are tracks on Cake and Pie that suggest Loeb might have been a badass had she realized herself when boofy bangs and women with lightning-bolt guitars were defining pop.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Gotham!
    By the second and third tunes, the game is up. We get it: Gang of Radio 4. This is Radio 4 Clash. And so on.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Scarecrow
    As if hell-bent on rewarding brand loyalty, however, Brooks does himself in by recycling his typical subjects.
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