Boston Globe's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Same Old Man
    His latest is one of his best in recent years.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    No Way Down [EP]
    The results are pleasant enough, if you're paying attention, but there appears to be something about Air France's music that inspires a waking form of narcolepsy.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Anywhere I Lay My Head
    The balance is tenuous, and the "Tinkerbell on cough syrup" effect that Sitek describes in the liner notes as his aesthetic brass ring sometimes comes off more like Scarlett out of her league.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    II Trill
    The album is dark and menacing, and also better than the first "Trill," even if Bun doesn't threaten to slap anyone in the face with a pie a la mode.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    No, Virginia...
    Considering the album's disparate origins, its slightly disjointed feel makes sense but doesn't keep it from being a solid must-have for fans.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rockferry
    Husky-sweet and preternaturally seasoned, Duffy's delivery is as pungent as it is unaffected, and the songs, which the singer co-wrote, follow suit.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Brain Thrust Mastery
    Their copycat approach is a bit too formulaic - it seems they've lost their kooky chemistry found on the first album. Though these new tracks are enjoyable enough and may give the band more of a mainstream audience, there's nothing mind-blowing on the Scientists' latest experiment.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Narrow Stairs
    This time out the musical gambles are bolder and the outcome proportionally more dramatic.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things
    Mraz shines brightest on a pair of '70s-style piano-pop songs. 'Love for a Child' would be solid midtempo Elton John, complete with lyrics (viewing a failing relationship from the child's perspective) just oddball enough for Bernie Taupin.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tooth Of Crime
    Burnett has fashioned a sumptuously spooky, if lyrically opaque, work that feels both spacious and claustrophobic.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Gavin DeGraw
    While there is a darker sensibility thanks to a larger quotient of guitars than pianos this time out, there are also fewer immediate standouts.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Momofuku
    Costello gives us Momofuku, titled in tribute to the inventor of the Cup Noodle, and this collection goes down as easy and tasty as its namesake's ingenious snack.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Home Before Dark
    This year's model is not quite as stark or stirring as its predecessor; the emphatic melodic thrusts and vocal bravado of "Whose Hands Are These" and "No Words" will resonate with fans of Diamond's adult-contemporary glory.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shine
    Equally adept at slinging sharp rhymes and jazzy crooning, Estelle has a sweet sense of cool and charm.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Third
    Portishead's methods are hardly frozen in time. And that evolution is what makes these elaborately layered tracks such a knotty, mesmerizing listen.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Jim
    Old is made new again in the best possible way on what could surely be the perfect soundtrack for a sultry, soulful summer.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hard Candy
    Thanks to the blunt force of her personality, Hard Candy feels perfectly concerted, without a whiff of desperation.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Santogold
    Part of the appeal as with M.I.A.--is the attitude and defiant urban undertow that draw you in, and, while not immediately accessible, it's ultimately irresistible.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rising Down
    On the Roots' superb, inky-black tale of paranoia, 2006's "Game Theory," the walls were closing in. On the equally gripping Rising Down, the group's 10th album, out today, the walls are getting demolished.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This Kind Of Love
    Her voice is huskier, veined with the fine lines of age, but that only enhances the sultry sound of the Vineyard's favorite songbird.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mr. Love & Justice
    Bragg colors his brilliant Cockney-accented discourse with Appalachian folk on the Woody Guthrie-influenced 'O Freedom,' where he protests, "Freedom, what liberties are taken in thy name?" On 'I Keep Faith,' which features Soft Machine legend Robert Wyatt, he taps classic soul.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bittersweet World
    Simpson has always been the most appealingly self-aware of her pop-tart peers, and for the most part, she works wisely within her simple, spunky skill set.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Flight Of The Conchords
    The result is an album that is every bit as engaging as ear-candy as humor.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    E=MC2
    As sequels go, E=MC2 is better than most, boasting a higher, and more consistent, quotient of slinky, dance-floor charm and stronger ballads than "Mimi."
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lady Antebellum
    A rare find in any genre, the entire album holds up from stem to stern as the group deftly gives Nashville what it needs in terms of melody and production polish while mostly sidestepping assembly-line banalities.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Spirit
    The tracks are impeccably manicured, super-tuneful, and offer lyrics about the various agonies and ecstasies of love that are unremarkable in and of themselves but reach nuclear-threat levels of desperation thanks to Lewis's voice.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
    'We Call Upon the Author to Explain' goes the title of one song, but Cave offers no explanations and no justifications merely another lean, assured set of glamorously gloomy songs.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mountain Battles
    Alt-rock guru Steve Albini is back at the helm and once again proves the ideal midwife for the Breeders' fiercely independent vision.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Do It!
    No song is longer than three minutes and 30 seconds, and the band seems to be on a mission to get in, do it, and get out. It's that attitude that keeps Clinic a fixture, with an unsettling, enjoyable addition to its repertoire to boot.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rabbit Habits
    The exhumed-vaudevillian theatrics are still here, but by now they're starting to sound almost natural.
Page: