For 764 reviews, this publication has graded:
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47% higher than the average critic
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3% same as the average critic
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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: | The Naked Truth | |
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Lowest review score: | God Says No |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 517 out of 764
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Mixed: 199 out of 764
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Negative: 48 out of 764
764
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
He's an intuitive r&b stylist, with a firm sense of song structure (he's written for Justin Bieber and Beyoncé) and a conversational talk-singing voice that is as indebted to Justin Timberlake and Pharrell as it is to R. Kelly.- Village Voice
- Posted Jan 24, 2012
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With Weather, Ndegeocello shows how she's poised to follow Animal Collective down the rabbit hole and into a promised land of greater musical freedom.- Village Voice
- Posted Nov 17, 2011
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Take Care is a carefully crafted bundle of contradictory sentiments from a conflicted rapper who explores his own neuroses in as compelling a manner as anyone not named Kanye West.- Village Voice
- Posted Nov 16, 2011
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The result is a collection of songs where the choppy, dreamy prog of "Glass Tambourine" can exist within a few tracks of the pogo-inducing "Short Version" and still come off as a cohesive, energy-rush-inducing whole.- Village Voice
- Posted Sep 14, 2011
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Anthrax's tenth album, Worship Music, should rightfully be seen as a triumph.- Village Voice
- Posted Sep 14, 2011
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Overall the album is a triumph of collective will and creativity, but not every track fits every performer perfectly.- Village Voice
- Posted Sep 1, 2011
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Chief, like Church's other work, walks the line between hard Southern boogie and softie singer-songster sap, but with plenty of chug.- Village Voice
- Posted Aug 9, 2011
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Zomby's early work stood out for the care with which it was created, but even given that, there's something startlingly mature about the production here.- Village Voice
- Posted Aug 9, 2011
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There's not much screaming on Last Summer. Like I'm Going Away, it's a basic, modest studio-rock record, the kind common in the '70s, with flavorful detours reminiscent of that era.- Village Voice
- Posted Jul 13, 2011
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That's Black Up's predicament: It wants to be experienced viscerally, but it's being stripped of life by over-intellectualization.- Village Voice
- Posted Jul 5, 2011
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Once the heat and light brought by Lloyd's nuclear P-bomb wear off, King remains utterly replayable.- Village Voice
- Posted Jul 5, 2011
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Righteous dilettantes, the Coathangers' songs are simple and jarring-they're irreverent towards melody and their hooks jut at odd angles.- Village Voice
- Posted Jun 28, 2011
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It's a true testament to the band that its windswept glory-rock stays exhilarating for nearly 80 minutes.- Village Voice
- Posted Jun 28, 2011
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Vernon seems torn between selling his lyrics and using his voice as just another emotional cue in the thick mix. But if you're looking for an album to get lost in, who knew a guy previously feted for stripped-down "realness" would provide the year's best?- Village Voice
- Posted Jun 28, 2011
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Finally Famous, which contains a handful of other tracks produced by No I.D. as well as collaborations with the likes of the Neptunes and Wiz Khalifa, is a slick triumph filled with muscular drums and rolling synthesizers.- Village Voice
- Posted Jun 28, 2011
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Beyonce's art is delivery, and 4 is a gorgeous frame for her voice at its absolute best.- Village Voice
- Posted Jun 28, 2011
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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.- Village Voice
- Posted May 25, 2011
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Eye Contact delights with its danceability and synthetic pleasure, but it's frontwoman Lizzi Bougatsos who holds the jams together.- Village Voice
- Posted May 9, 2011
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Garbus's engagement is loud and hard to ignore. That she engages without despair is the part I find most admirable of all.- Village Voice
- Posted Apr 19, 2011
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Screws aspires to the high-end pop of Lowe's Pure Pop for Now People or the Flamin Groovies' mid-'70s work, and gets there more often than not.- Village Voice
- Posted Mar 31, 2011
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What makes this record better than Accelerate is the feeling that R.E.M. have figured out how to be R.E.M. again--how to affect the signature balance of folky and punky that's inspired bands far less worshipful than Pearl Jam or the Decemberists.- Village Voice
- Posted Mar 15, 2011
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James Blake's most compelling moments come when you can't tell where he stops and the machines begin.- Village Voice
- Posted Mar 2, 2011
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What really strikes you about its 17 tracks (only two failed to make the final cut due to sample- and guest-artist-clearance issues) is Saigon's sincerity.- Village Voice
- Posted Feb 24, 2011
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21 probably isn't the best album Adele has in her, but it just might make her famous enough to finally be a pain in the ass.- Village Voice
- Posted Feb 24, 2011
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The Magic Place, Barwick's first release on Asthmatic Kitty (after two self-released albums), trails a dreamlike reverie across its 45 minutes.- Village Voice
- Posted Feb 22, 2011
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this time, she has found a middle ground therein, an appropriately murky backdrop as she channels another of her early inspirations: Bob Dylan. Like vintage Bob, Shake pores over history's indignities with a fine-toothed comb.- Village Voice
- Posted Feb 15, 2011
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He's the smartest guy in the room and bent on walking into rooms where nobody wants to listen to him [...] These are the juxtapositions that make Kaputt-and all of Bejar's music-smart and worthwhile.- Village Voice
- Posted Jan 25, 2011
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Each of these songs offers more exquisite details than I could earmark in twice this space, many of them literary, which the English prof's dropout son rightly claims as his calling. But secret brilliance is more likely to emerge from the sops to his hip-hop base.- Village Voice
- Posted Jan 3, 2011
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Their stupendous debut full-length, The Fool, triangulates Moon Pix–era Cat Power's ghostly, morbid, gorgeous bedroom folk with the Slits' lithe, muscular post-punk.- Village Voice
- Posted Dec 22, 2010
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I increasingly doubt I'll crank much of whatever comes next from this self-enamored rascal nearing the limits of his gig, but he's had his uses: He's vexed all the right sticklers and coined ample catchy hooks during the commercial breaks.- Village Voice
- Posted Dec 22, 2010
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In every way that matters, it's typical Frisell-as lyrical in approach as it is eclectic in outlook, touching on Stephen Foster, Blind Willie Johnson, Benny Goodman, the Carter Family, and Little Anthony and the Imperials, together with its characteristically wounding originals.- Village Voice
- Posted Dec 22, 2010
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You also come away wondering why Ribot isn't as widely celebrated as Frisell. Don't tell me contemporary jazz has room for only one high-plains drifter.- Village Voice
- Posted Dec 22, 2010
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Paris looks back to dance music as soulful catharsis and emotionalism, not the cold thump that's taken over as of late.- Village Voice
- Posted Dec 16, 2010
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It remains to be seen if The Lady Killer will continue his hot streak, but it should-it's one of the best records of the year, and also his most commercial, and that's not an insult.- Village Voice
- Posted Dec 8, 2010
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Kanye is rapping and singing better and with more tenacity than he ever has on Fantasy, but also less often, wisely allowing others to speak for him-every single guest artist on this album senses the moment and rises to the occasion.- Village Voice
- Posted Dec 7, 2010
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She can still sound strained and thin, and often strays into a pitch that drives some people crazy; but she's learned how to make words sound like what they mean.- Village Voice
- Posted Nov 24, 2010
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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.- Village Voice
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It's got a few clunkers and slow spots, and, especially given the depressive tempos Johnson's so fond of, it's inadvisable to ingest in one sitting. But surprisingly Guitar is packed at least as solid as his last set, and it's less conventional to boot.- Village Voice
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Majesty Shredding is the band's first new studio album in nine years, vigorous and kicking, much more so than you'd have right or reason to expect out of a band this deep into their career.- Village Voice
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It's easy to hear what Iyer means when listening to Solo, his latest disc. For sheer cohesion, it tops Historicity, and since he's alone at the piano throughout, his reflective streak is telegraphed.- Village Voice
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2008's You and Me arguably represented a high-water mark in the Walkmen's sturdy career; the new Lisbon does nothing to erode that goodwill. On the whole, it's less raucous than its predecessor.- Village Voice
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On Interpol, he and his bandmates manage the seemingly unmanageable task of finding new wrinkles in a tightly defined sound, one that's been theirs for nearly a decade.- Village Voice
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The lyrics themselves--overstocked with darkness, paranoia, and bodily fluids--are as indecipherable as the vocals are buried. They're scene-setters. It's the death-disco groove that intoxicates and defines this City.- Village Voice
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While Str8 Killa is every bit as consistent as his first two tapes, there's a sense that Gibbs has hit his ceiling, both artistically and in what he can hope to accomplish without a record deal.- Village Voice
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The ridiculously extravagant and extravagantly ridiculous new Teflon Don is certain to only rile folks up further; in its sound, scope, ambition, and arm's-length relationship to reality.- Village Voice
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She remains vitally important to The Discourse for that reason alone. Maya both reminds you of that fact-of that sickly sweet spot only she can hit-and warns you how long and punishing a road it can be to get there. For her, and for you.- Village Voice
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The resulting, mercifully final product is, as you might have suspected all along, fantastic, by turns triumphant, defiant, and gleefully crass.- Village Voice
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These songs, for all their Top 40 disco glitter (will.i.am. signed her to his label and executive-produces here), compel with their tradeoffs between vulnerability and euphoria, though if you aren't paying attention, they're slick enough to pass as merely exceptional pop-radio or club-floor fodder.- Village Voice
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The Gaslight Anthem's profound affection for and commitment to their forebears are just as present as they were before, but only here does the band sound as eager to bury as to praise them.- Village Voice
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Drake is not changing rap, because the thing Drake is worst at is rap. It's everything else that can-and probably will-change. Perspectives, tempos, the very notion of entitlement . . . they're all up for grabs.- Village Voice
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White Crosses is all shiny and fresh and proudly expedient, without proving a thing except that Against Me! are fully capable of doing it again.- Village Voice
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MPP is filled with enough new achievements that it's a waste of space to lament the past. It's a rhythm record with an atmosphere.- Village Voice
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Scarface remains trapped in the four-cornered room of his mind, but he seems to have found a measure of peace in solitude, turning out quietly masterful albums like this one, and letting time turn him into a weathered monument.- Village Voice
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Byrne's singing was never exactly the first thing you loved about him--he so often has the high-pitched blankness of a sustained yawn. But he sounds lovely here, age bringing a surer and rawer tone along with more confidence in his question mark.- Village Voice
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808s & Heartbreak can be queasy and even morally indefensible sometimes. But that puerile sentiment also gives it its force.- Village Voice
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Even when veering wildly away from good sense--and 'Change' is hardly a sensical move--there’s an unwitting pop hit right around the bend.- Village Voice
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Swift may not possess the vocal power to fully sell her more lyrically generic material (Underwood's great gift), but for the most part, this remarkably self-aware adolescent's words don't falter, masterfully avoiding the typical diarist's pitfalls of trite banality and pseudo-profound bullshit.- Village Voice
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The first 25 minutes of this loose compilation come as close to perfection as you could hope....The five remixes that make up the rest of The Singles aren't bad by any stretch, but they all try to drag the band closer to conventional dance music, whereas the band's power lies precisely in the way they already belong on the dance floor without overselling themselves or smoothing out their rougher edges.- Village Voice
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Love Is All's boisterous clamor is the real draw here. The band skips over cerebral tricks and hep posturing, instead going straight for adrenalized kicks, and it's a rush that lasts long after the record ends.- Village Voice
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After myriad delays and label woes, it's clear the interminable wait for new material was worth it.- Village Voice
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Its darkness relative to the other stuff here (blues shuffle, surf pastiche, Les Paul tribute, B.B. King duet) is startling, even if the tune turns out to be about his wife.- Village Voice
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The record moves with an ear toward its broader gains as one song diced into eight, another crafty epic that takes its theme from this year's headlines.- Village Voice
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With Ropechain, the emotional turnaround's reversed: An initial, burning desire to hate everything about this album--the stylistic mish-mash, the artistic blackface, the blah cover art--gives way to wary admiration, even though it's hard to shake the sense that its creator's something of a jerk.- Village Voice
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Ms. Alecia Moore turns tragedy into a huge artistic coup once again on the only somewhat inaccurately named Funhouse.- Village Voice
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The music is often cresting and joyous, implying sweating bodies careening through a space designed to hold half their number.- Village Voice
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As the dying industry is still breathing in the toxins of useless filler, patrons like John Legend are fully indulging their creativity in all its flawed glory, just like the soul giants of yesteryear.- Village Voice
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School of Seven Bells, is a far more meditative and electronic affair dominated by former On!Air!Library! entrancers Alejandra and Claudia Deheza, who sing in mesmerizing siren-song unison, even if they sound like a grade-A hookah-bar act at times.- Village Voice
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Everything Russell recorded is worth a listen, but while 'Close My Eyes' will likely soon stand alongside 'This Is How We Walk on the Moon' and 'That's Us/Wild Combination' as one of the most instantly pleasing songs in his discography, this collection only occasionally captures him at the height of his powers.- Village Voice
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These tracks are meticulously constructed to engulf and consume, making layers out of the Casiocore and stone-drones that contemporaries like Black Dice and Growing use to build careers.- Village Voice
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The Secret Machines takes the band back where they started, focusing on blistering psych-rock that's nonetheless accessible and doesn't sound like it's overcompensating for something, even if there's plenty to compensate for.- Village Voice
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Like her game soprano, which breaks apart with the same lucid strength it sometimes uses to soar with trepidation, Land of Talk's music unleashes its own aggressive logic.- Village Voice
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So with Murs for President, he just did what he does, churning out another strong album of choppy retro samples that pretend chipmunk-soul and snap never existed.- Village Voice
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These guys were rubbish as careerists, essentially banishing much of their stronger material to the depths. So think of The Power of Negative Thinking as the great unveiling.- Village Voice
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His new Double Night Time is a relatively introspective affair. It's also more satisfying as headphone fodder, thanks largely to a phalanx of synthesizers (burbling arpeggios cushion most tracks) and vocals from Jeremy Greenspan of Junior Boys.- Village Voice
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It's a page out of Mogwai grandchildren Ratatat's playbook, and it shows these Scots doing something we haven't seen them do in a while: evolve.- Village Voice
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Jenny is a definitely a chosen one in the talent department, but she doesn't really let on.- Village Voice
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Ne-Yo's fantastic third CD, The Year of the Gentleman, reconfigures "grown and sexy" by detailing relationships with an often uneasy mix of heartache, reflection, wit, lust, and resignation.- Village Voice
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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.- Village Voice
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The real problem, though, isn't the music (accomplished and catchy enough for distracted listening), nor is it Nelly's own verses (more stylish than substantive, as always). Rather, it's that a dedicated capitalist--hear his "Buy me the mall" manifesto on 'Hold Up'--is using a business model that's on its way to extinction.- Village Voice
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The group never abandoned its orquestra live, and that may be why this return to form sounds so welcoming.- Village Voice
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The Stand-Ins, reportedly taped at the same time as "Stage Names," is an improvement, not least because Sheff punishes himself (rather humorously) for the sin of relying on tragic heroes at all.- Village Voice
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Singer Justin Ringle often muffles his words or loses them altogether (as though a wool scarf were covering his mouth) as he trudges through cadences reminiscent of Ryan Adams or Iron & Wine's Sam Beam, delicately dotting his stanzas with multi-dimensional characters weathering the winters of their existence. Which is more enriching than it sounds.- Village Voice
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His first two albums were well-crafted, uncompromising in their focus, and exceptionally entertaining. The Recession makes it three.- Village Voice
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Diehards will probably resent their new predictability and homogeneity, but the group's mature phase is capable of generating one hell of a pop album.- Village Voice
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While Where You Go may not be his masterpiece, as a distillation of the space-disco aesthetic, it's unparalleled.- Village Voice
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Her voice is rich, finely textured, and more expressive now than when it hit r&b charts in the 1960s. But her recordings can sound monotonous. That's not true here.- Village Voice
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Mostly the fascination here is with sounds-not-songs, which is fine for the year Portishead came back, as long as the Faint have enough dial tones and farts swiped from Thom Yorke's basement tapes to deck out Fink's traditionally one-note delivery when attention wanders.- Village Voice
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Newman is a master of sardonic humor, be it subtle or slapstick. Harps and Angels is further proof.- Village Voice
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Weaponry is essential: a particularly overwhelming headphones album not unlike some of Boredoms' more hypnotic work.- Village Voice
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As far as eagerly anticipated debuts go, Partie Traumatic is loose and unforced in its extreme eagerness to please.- Village Voice
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Highlights of Fate coming back 'round one last time give satisfying closure, but also tease what's coming when it's inevitably cued up again.- Village Voice
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The only thing Britney ever did better was cut loose, and even through Breakout's title suggests both a debutante's cotillion (leaving Disneyland and entering the airwaves) and an emotional liberation, Miley often sounds held-back and controlled.- Village Voice
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Though the result doesn't quite reach the rarefied heights of 2005's Separation Sunday or the following year's nearly equally great follow-up, Boys and Girls in America, it fits nicely alongside LCD Soundsystem's "Sound of Silver" and the National's "Boxer" as a poignant example of veteran artists maturing gracefully, capturing that feeling you get just after the peak, when you've started noticing the decline but haven't figured out what to do about it yet.- Village Voice
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Controversy aside, without any truly addictive tracks, you can't consider Nas's latest among his greatest. But it's hard not to appreciate the effort.- Village Voice
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No doubt about it, from first note to last, Mar Dulce (loose translation: "the Sweet Sea") is a most tasty dive.- Village Voice
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The clever (and accurate) branding that associated the warm, metallic grids of those thumb pianos (or likembes) with repetitive electronic music. On that front, 7th Moon doesn't disappoint a bit.- Village Voice
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Sure, the novelty helps, and if it recurs too often, the glee of hearing Nelson and Marsalis mesh will diminish. But hearing once how they play with and against each other is a real treat.- Village Voice
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