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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    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Chrome Dreams II
    Chrome Dreams II, on which various Neils commingle to an extent not heard on record since perhaps 1989's "Freedom," immediately comes off as the 61-year-old artist's freshest effort in years.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Intoxication
    The slick Shaggy sex formula is intact, plus he steps off the well-worn with booming first single 'Church Heathen,' already scorching JA parties with its keen indictment of religious hypocrisy, and 'All About Love,' featuring his raw, ragged, utterly compelling singing voice. 'Body a Shake' comes harder than before.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hurricane
    The cast includes Sly & Robbie, Brian Eno, Tricky, Wendy & Lisa, and aristocratic former lover Ivor Guest, who brings his experience as a soundtrack composer to an album rich with cinematic splendor.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards
    This is nightmare music--a blue-collar purgatory made of American mythology and populated by its grotesques.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mantaray
    Mantaray, Siouxsie's blazing solo debut, earns accolades with no trace of fatigue, padding, or confusion, as on-it and of-the-moment as Justin Timberlake.
    • 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.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Since We Last Spoke
    RJ and his sampler wander the record crates of shared memory, and come up with progressive rock and Northern soul songs that have little to do with anybody's idea of revival.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Black And White Album
    It's nice to have a record with a plan.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Barricades & Brickwalls
    Chambers's two solo records are more fun than a barrel of Foster's, mostly because she doesn't sound daunted by the history of the music.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    blink-182
    I miss the penis jokes, I sincerely do, but when life's little fuckups sound like cosmic conundrums--and here I'm referring not just to the new disc's big choruses but, more importantly, to its snaking structures and unrelentingly urgent harmonies--now-and-then comparisons fail.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Fragile Army
    The Fragile Army actually has substance—thematically, musically, and lyrically.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Log 22
    From giddy choruses to whistling hooks to sensual trip-hop to desperate rockers to Velvets chugging to smoky chanteuse atmospheres to guitar workouts over austere-then-soaring strings to dance remixes waiting to happen, these are expert songsmiths showing off their craft, more impressively than ever before.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    News And Tributes
    Their latest one-ups the competition with punk that's theatrical and unrefined, melodic but treacle-free.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Massacre
    It is hands-down the most diabolically sensous collection of baby-making gangsta music since Pac's All Eyez.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Private Press
    The record sounds like it came a year or so after Endtroducing--which is to say, it goes a little deeper in summoning Gothic textures and awesome drum samples, and arrives as a delayed, well-fitting follow-up to a landmark.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Carnival II: Memoirs Of An Immigrant
    Just when Carnival II begins to feel comfortable in hip hop, Paul Simon hops onto the mournful 'Fast Car' and a massive Bollywood ensemble powers the roiling 'Immigrant.' [Dec 2007, p.108]
    • Village Voice
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Past Life Martyred Saints
    She has a huge talent for drama--when to build, when to break, when to whisper or coo or yell, when to camp a while in a looping melody and when to move on--and the album's 37 minutes feel majestic and unhurried.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Way I See It
    Even while Saadiq pays homage to soul's golden era, he brings his own flavor through his tell-tale tenor; still, if it ain't your cup of tea, just slip this in your parents' record collection and they won't notice a thing.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    As I Am
    As I Am--very much an album about the condition her condition is in, very much an album in the old-fashioned sense, a complete work: one you shouldn't subject to shuffle before you've given Keys's sequencing a chance to work its magic, its rising and falling arcs, its gut-punch-and-goose-bumps denouement.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everyday
    Everyday has at least six tracks more beautiful than U2's "Beautiful Day"; the album, needless to say, kicks All That You Can't Leave Behind's behind.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mezmerize
    Mezmerize should be enough to keep A.D.D.-ers occupied for six months.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Desire
    What Desire offers instead is at times cerebral and at times depraved, but invariably provocative.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ash Wednesday
    At its best, Ash Wednesday recalls the command of Arcade Fire's Funeral, as Perkins finds empathy through his whimsy-fueled, sad-bastard songs of experience.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Harps And Angels
    Newman is a master of sardonic humor, be it subtle or slapstick. Harps and Angels is further proof.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Audience's Listening
    The Audience's Listening is not only witty and lighthearted, but also artfully constructed, and you can hear the depth in its machinations.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Worldwide Underground
    Although sometimes her reliance on mood threatens to get the better of Worldwide Underground, Badu remains faithful to the old school of flow, a blend of drums and rhythm designed to service soul's best instruments: its vocalists.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Midnite Vultures
    It's a pastiche festival that works in the interest of groove every bit as hard as it does for knowingness and yuks.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    With The Lights Out
    So, in theory, this big Christmas stocking of demos, B sides, compilation tracks, and curiosities is mostly useful for its historical value, as context. The context, it turns out, rules.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
    Whether it inspires bosom-heaving, jersey-rending, or chopper-flagging, Explosions in the Sky will have true believers again faint with praise.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hard Candy
    All in all, Hard Candy could be the greatest swan song to a pop career this side of Let It Be, if you wanna get all hyperbolic about it.
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