- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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It is simply the bravest, most emotionally wrenching record she's ever issued.
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There's more Patti Smith in her than there is Patsy Cline.
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Williams continues taking chances, lyrically and stylistically, but with a success rate that would only be acceptable of someone with less songwriting talent.
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She is simply magnificent.
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BlenderUnlike 2001's spare Essence, this album prickles with the lyrical details that make Williams's work exceptional. [#15, p.126]
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Williams' captivating lyrics are gut-wrenchingly intimate.
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A perfectly imperfect set, it's looser, blowsier, and more what-the-hell? than anything she's done.
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World Without Tears... is the singer-songwriter's rawest album to date -- it's often closer to all-out rock than it is to either alt-country or the singer-songwriter tradition -- and it's also her best release so far.
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MojoIt is all heart, it is truth and it is beautiful. [Jun 2003, p.94]
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She remains utterly, excessively self-involved.
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World Without Tears is a complex, multifaceted album that musically highlights Williams's continued blurring of musical genres and poetic lyrics.
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Q MagazineShe sounds gloriously rough-edged and authentic. [May 2003, p.114]
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Musically, it's as superb as anything she's ever done.... But underneath the sublime sounds, something crucial is missing.
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SpinWhile Essence was lyrically spare, World marks Williams' return to the painful sensuality of the specific. [May 2003, p.109]
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It's an album filled with appetites and their consequences.
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Beyond the musical unevenness of an album whose finer qualities interleave those mounting miscalculations, a rising suspicion that misery is of more comfort to her than happiness makes the tenor of Williams' songs increasingly hard to bear.
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UncutIt's the most extraordinary smorgasbord of styles, moods, modes, a far more daring, jolting record than 2001's Essence. [Album of the Month, May 2003, p.88]
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A band record, a groove record, a riff record; something lowdown, dirty, smoky.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 18 out of 21
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Mixed: 2 out of 21
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Negative: 1 out of 21
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Oct 28, 2010
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RussAug 14, 2007
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BrianKFeb 14, 2007her best? it's a toss up between Car Wheels on a Gravel Road and this album. She is truly an amazing performer and songwriter.