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
    • 40 Critic Score
    Narrow Stairs
    It's their mediocre album.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Call Me Crazy
    Call Me Crazy arrives and hedges the bet: Downy pop blooms next to pedal-steel-driven barroom weepers. The title is apt--this one’s got a pronounced multiple-personality disorder.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Get Ready
    Neither as bad as you might fear nor as good as you might hope.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Viva La Vida
    When the pastoral Eno flourishes that started Vida off so promisingly return for a quick coda, Martin reverts back to his suavely crooning self, but blows it with his first four words: "And in the end . . . . " Bam, you're thinking 'Abbey Road,' and while Vida is far from a dog, it's just another unflattering comparison that the record itself needlessly invites--an extremely overconfident way to handle a crisis of confidence.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Parachutes
    There's little on Parachutes that demands attention or punctures the pensive spell, and, unlike Travis's, Coldplay's hooks are slight.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Goblin
    The repugnant misogynistic bullshit on Goblin sort of cancels any goodwill I have toward the guy. Particularly because it feels more like search engine optimization; Tyler makes no bones about his desire to hit the pop charts, and on too much of Goblin, he's doing it in the tawdriest way possible.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    King of the Beach
    Williams's record is brisk, clocking in under 40 minutes. But it takes far more risks, dabbling in Animal Collective–ish psych pastiche on "Baseball Cards," Kurt Fauxbain dummy posturing on the riotous "Idiot," and Phil Spector homage not once but twice-on the magical "Da Doo Run Run"–lifting "Mickey Mouse" and, less impressively, with a rip of the "Be My Baby" beat on "When Will You Come."
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dynamite Steps
    Gorgeously produced by the Syndicate, many of these tracks are piano-driven, mid-tempo dirges that take a while to get rolling; occasionally, as on "Be Invited," they just circle the block.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Tipping Point
    For a group who can be so compelling when they aim high and fall short, an effort so squarely average is all the more disappointing.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ta-Dah
    Arch and ostentatious, their music both falls victim to and exalts in Warhol's 15-minutes-of-fame declaration. Like a screenprint of a soup can, it's at once timeless and pointless.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    From A Compound Eye
    That Eye is neither great nor terrible and often very good can be attributed to one part talent and two parts luck. But the fact remains that Pollard is far too willing to leave all the heavy lifting to the listeners.
    • 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.
    • 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?
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Manzanita
    One problem though: Mia peaks too soon. That opener is by far the strongest song. The rest is by turns meditative, breezy, intimate, and snoozy.
    • 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.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Venomous Villain [VV:2]
    VV:2 does have a bit of a for-hire feel.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Gorillaz
    It's what you might expect from a bunch of musos playing with Cubase or ProTools: sampled loops, Brixton dub, trip-hoppy tangents. U.N.K.L.E.'s bratty nephew, really, though the album sounds like the group locked the metronome on "heavy funk groove"--chugging and satisfying at first, it feels exhausted by the fifth or sixth track.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Drag It Up
    Drag it Up doesn't have the gut-level impact of the older stuff.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Together We're Heavy
    Grandiloquent, glorious gobbledygook.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Burned Mind
    Every track is a pure battle, with searing bursts of abrasion chopping at lava flows of insane density.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    In The Absence Of Truth
    In the process of adding new facets to their sound, Truth winds up reinforcing self-imposed limitations.
    • 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.
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