American Standard
by James Taylor
  • Record Label: Fantasy
  • Release Date: Feb 28, 2020
User Score
8.5

Universal acclaim- based on 4 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 4
  3. Negative: 0 out of 4
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  1. Grantram
    Apr 24, 2020
    9
    JT has yet again delivered an light-n-easy ride through the catalog of great American music. So it's not going to blow your mind -- Exactly, and it's not supposed to. As mentioned in the companion 'making of' video clip: Taylor plays songs in a way that makes you think he wrote them. Great. And that's why we keep listening. The critics' composite 60 score is an acknowledgment that no newJT has yet again delivered an light-n-easy ride through the catalog of great American music. So it's not going to blow your mind -- Exactly, and it's not supposed to. As mentioned in the companion 'making of' video clip: Taylor plays songs in a way that makes you think he wrote them. Great. And that's why we keep listening. The critics' composite 60 score is an acknowledgment that no new ground has been broken here, so boo hoo for them; yay for the rest of us.… Expand
  2. jwolfyesj
    May 3, 2020
    9
    I guess you must be a Baby Boomer to appreciate the warmth and style of this man. As critics get younger, it's all more cerebral, absent just the human emotion evoked. I loved it, not for the arrangements, but his ability to put his signature on songs he obviously always appreciated.

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
60

Mixed or average reviews - based on 8 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 8
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 8
  3. Negative: 1 out of 8
  1. Classic Rock Magazine
    Apr 8, 2020
    60
    A classy, slick, impeccably executed album of covers, but a disappointing successor to US No. 1 Before This World. [May 2020, p.83]
  2. No Ripcord
    Mar 20, 2020
    30
    Every solid moment on American Standard is outmatched by a one to ten ratio of awry choices for songs that shouldn’t be hard to ruin. It’s almost impressive to see James Taylor screw up songs that are fundamentally easy to cover.
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  3. Boston Globe
    Mar 3, 2020
    40
    The ghosts of more well-known recordings hover over “American Standard,” and they’re enough of a distraction to make one think that a better tribute to these compositions might have been a Taylor-curated playlist of the versions that originally captured his imagination all those years ago.
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