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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    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hold On!
    Hunter keeps on doing what he does, and on Hold On! he’s doing it as well as he ever has.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Islah
    The album doesn’t shy from its broad ambitions, offering a glossy club jam (“Kno One”) and an after-hours groove (“One Thing”), tracks that require Gates to ease back his flow and craft a knockout hook to carry the song, something he also does on the anthemic “2 Phones.” But as a lyricist, Gates is closer to Ghostface Killah or Beanie Sigel.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cayamo Sessions at Sea
    This delightful album revisits artists that Miller recorded during cruises in 2014 and 2015.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gumption
    Gumption exhibits a mastery of texture and tension that’s surely a harbinger for the exciting career Miller has ahead.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    This Is Acting
    While Sia has declared her awareness of the cheese factor in her hired-gun material, with its broad themes of self-empowerment and survival, she has a real gift for making it palatable.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    MartyrLoserKing
    The often elliptical lyrics are both penetrating and hypnotic--the sounds of words are as vital as their meaning.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Anti
    With its sense of unease, quiet, and longing, much of Anti is unlikely to grab ears on first listen or play well to Rihanna’s broadest base of fans. But it is an interesting artistic curveball in her heretofore hits-driven career.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pawn Shop
    The 11 tracks, all co-written by the Osbornes, expertly capture TJ’s beguiling baritone and John’s nimble fretwork, with fewer concessions to pop-country trends than might be expected from a major-label act.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Catastrophist
    A sudden turn to classic rock feels like one of the weirdest moves of Tortoise’s career--but it also feels so right.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dystopia
    The band is brawny yet nimble, wriggling and writhing in a groove one moment, pivoting into pummel mode the next.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    You're Dreaming
    At the heart of the mood is something that only comes naturally: the plaintive croon of hand-in-glove brotherly harmonies.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fortune
    His latest release, Fortune, weds his marvelous lyrical economy to music that ranges from spare acoustic guitar to a clanging junkyard sound, and proves once again that he’s a ringmaster at turning misery into art.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    New View
    Subtle hints at emotional undercurrents enhance the potency of Friedberger’s lyrics.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Death of a Bachelor
    Bachelor doesn’t always hit.... But Urie’s charm and willingness to maximize his songs’ pop-spectacle quotient make Bachelor an often-delightful accompaniment to 2016’s earliest, chilliest weeks.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Goin' Your Way [Live]
    Tthese renditions make this whole more than the sum of its estimable parts.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blackstar
    The album is dense and intriguing, neither a straightforward rock record nor so wildly experimental as to be inaccessible.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Film Music [Box Set]
    A sublime, succinct overview of the composer’s sprawling catalog.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Solo: Songs and Collaborations 1982-2015
    Thorn’s ability to craft a full character portrait from just a few lines is starkest on the tracks from her 2010 album, “Love and Its Opposite.”
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Alone in the Universe
    Few of the new tracks reach that level of greatness [of his classic hits], and flimsy lyrics mar a couple. But several worm their way into the ear endearingly.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kannon
    A singular listening experience, Kannon is best consumed at extreme volume and with an open mind.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Head Full of Dreams
    Clearly, the members of Coldplay haven’t completely shaken off their ghosts. But just as clearly, they’ve found joy again in “Dreams.”
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Return of the Tender Lover
    A satisfying mix of adult pop-soul love songs that evoke his early work. These amiable, adroitly produced and arranged songs confirm his inimitable knack for graceful melodies and effortless hooks.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kill the One You Love
    Less visceral than Beach House and more rhythmic than Trespassers William, GEMS creates its own distinct shade of contemporary dream-pop. Usher’s angular guitar work and layers of synths provide a luxuriously designed sonic backdrop for Pitts’s doomed romanticism.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shadow of a Doubt
    Every song here features cascades of syllables, careful integration of repetition, and narrative momentum.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    25
    If there are no uptempo blazers on the order of "Rolling in the Deep" or "Rumor Has It," the album doesn’t suffer in quality for the lack.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Incredible True Story
    With the creative confidence to go with his considerable skills and heart, Logic crafts some polished and appealing material.... Overall, a step up for the sophomore.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    First Comes the Night
    No one does heartbreak and yearning quite like this veteran singer-songwriter, who sounds renewed here with a streamlined sound in these 12 carefully observed, beautifully sung songs.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mr. Misunderstood
    Church had already set the bar high for himself with his watershed 2011 release, “Chief,” and more disparate 2014 album, “The Outsiders.” He vaults over that bar with “Mr. Misunderstood,” in some ways a love letter to music itself and to the ways it can save a soul, a heart, a sense of self.
    • 99 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bootleg Series, Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965-1966
    It’s fascinating to hear how some songs started in one direction and darted into another one entirely.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Return to the Moon
    On Return to the Moon, their debut for 4AD, the duo play off each other’s strengths--Knopf’s kaleidoscopic art rock and Berninger’s impressionistic storytelling--to skim the best of both worlds.
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