Boston Globe's Scores

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For 2,093 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 66% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 31% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 72
Highest review score: 100 City of Refuge
Lowest review score: 10 Lulu
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,670 out of 2093
  2. Mixed: 412 out of 2093
  3. Negative: 11 out of 2093
2093 music reviews
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    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Kisses on the Bottom
    The album is inconsequential.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Purple Naked Ladies
    Syd's uninterest in the topic on the dreary, sporadically interesting Purple Naked Ladies is disappointing, if not unforgivable.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Break the Spell
    Unlike Nickelback, Daughtry offers recognizable human emotions, even if they are rendered clumsily.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Here and Now
    The fist-pumping earnestness of the Bon Jovian "Spaceship" is less objectionable and far more bland. Say this about Nickelback: It knows what works.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Papercut Chronicles II
    A lot of this, though, is mired in generic rock/hip-hop fusion that feels dated and forgettable.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Coco Beware
    Debut album CoCo Beware swirls around just fine, but it's all shapes without edges.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Crazy Clown Time
    These songs lurch, sometimes crawl, through a swamp of woozy synths, twanging electric guitars, and portentous melodies.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mylo Xyloto
    For an album unabashed in its intimacy, the bigger moments are all that more rattling. Not everything turns a new corner.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Stronger
    As on her past albums, not all the songs on Stronger are worthy of what Clarkson brings to them vocally.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Divine Providence
    Deer Tick lacks the discipline not to attack the latter like a barnburner, as well as to fill every inch of its 75-plus minutes like Wilco did.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Great Escape Artist
    The Great Escape Artist does not dampen Jane's Addiction's legacy, but doesn't advance it either.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Soul Punk
    Occasionally, it's quite good, as on When I Made You Cry, which conjures early Michael Jackson. Other times, it's dreadful.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Solid State: Songs from the Long Play
    The pieces don't always fit, making Solid State her most uneven album in at least a decade. But every track offers the pleasure of Phillips's marvelous voice, which sounds like Scotch seeping through cracks in wood.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Working in Tennessee
    If this intermittently pleasant but insignificant album has a purpose, it's to prove that the 74-year-old country legend can still do it like clockwork.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Conatus
    Conatus is moody mermaid music.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Night of Hunters
    The bulk of the album's melodies and arrangements are too busily discursive to hum after the fact, making it tough for Night of Hunters to do what Amos set out to do: haunt the listener.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sweeter
    The results are predictably formulaic.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tha Carter IV
    Because of the jail time, Tha Carter IV feels like a comeback album when it shouldn't. Regardless, it comes off monotonous and redundant but, more than that, uninspired.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Tripper
    Mostly this parade of midtempo guitar-plus-keys tracks comes off as inert and paint-by-numbers.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sky Full of Holes
    Right on cue comes Sky Full of Holes, which continues the identity crisis that began on the flailing "Traffic and Weather.''
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rabbits on the Run
    Carlton's wheels are finally spinning forward, but they don't gain much traction.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Universal Pulse
    On its 10th studio album, 311 perhaps was aiming for familiarity yet falls short at tepid.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Within and Without
    Easy to listen to but impossible to feel excited about, this album is compelling evidence that chillwave's allure has been eviscerated.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    King of Hearts
    Lloyd shows little nuance, and Polow Da Don doesn't color in the tracks with enough interesting musical flourishes to mask some of the vocalist's weaknesses.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Revelator
    Expectations were high for this first joint record from the husband-and-wife team, but they generally settle for easy-listening, adult-contemporary blues music that rarely unleashes the power for which they are known.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Unfinished
    Unfinished finds Knight buffed, shined, and (sometimes conspicuously) Auto-Tuned for a new generation that already has its own idols.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Born This Way
    After months of hype, teases, and a handful of singles, Lady Gaga's new album has arrived - and it's a letdown, the most deflated moment in pop music this year.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Love?
    After all the processed cheese, though, you're left wondering: What's love got to do with it?
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Terra
    The hodgepodge of instrumentals and lopsided melodies felt like they were working together toward a weird, wobbly, warm center on "Mare," but on Terra they ultimately prove more confusing than captivating.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Nine Types of Light
    Could be that the breathlessly lauded TV on the Radio is operating on some encrypted frequency that's beyond mortal ears, but the Brooklyn, N.Y., head-trippers mostly sound asleep at the switch on their fifth album.
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