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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    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Come Around Sundown
    It confirms that the group's sudden success wasn't overnight, but rather overdue.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Circus
    The fistful of dance tunes are fashionably stern, saddled with ominous strut and anonymous throb. But Britney is a palpable presence here, a flesh-and-blood singer.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    MDNA
    MDNA isn't a perfect Madonna album, but it greatly surpasses its immediate predecessors when Madonna cracks that hard candy shell and allows us to get at the gooey emotional center: This is a Madonna who is angry, mournful, occasionally funny, and most of all, specific.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tre!
    Green Day still sounds best when it's confused, angry, and playing with abandon.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    System
    His dance-pop tunes are surprisingly fresh and emotionally meaty, without a hint of complacency.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Como te Llama
    Working more closely with his band, Hammond has given his songs more dimension, and the ambition.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Welcome to the Fishbowl
    As consistent and meticulously constructed as ever, Welcome to the Fishbowl is die-cast Chesney.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Awesome As F**k
    Green Day does its best to trap both the manic and the melodic energy of the big venue tour it undertook for "21st Century Breakdown" on Awesome as (Expletive).
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Big Dream
    It’s a vastly superior record, drawing you in with its electronic, murky ambience and the impression that these songs are coming to you from a singer submerged in water.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cheek to Cheek
    Their respective styles are occasionally at odds, but to amusing effect.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Perfect Symmetry
    It is a surprise and a thrill to hear that even as the band enters its "artsy" phase--expanding its instrumental palette to include mewling saws and clattering percussion--the songs remain uniformly excellent from stem to stern.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Weezer (Red Album)
    The songs are consistently vibrant, catchy, and well-built.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    More Than Just a Dream
    The group wisely broadens the musical palette here and goes full-bore pop by adding bigger choruses, alluring sonic textures, and electronic rhythms.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Stories
    Stories drags a bit at the end, the low point being a reggae-lite track starring former Fugee Wyclef Jean and the fusion-minded Matisyahu, but when it hits, it hits big.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Some People Have Real Problems
    Some People Have Real Problems reveals the other Sia: plucky, bubbly, and growling purposefully through assertive pop songs.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Talk That Talk
    We turn to Rihanna for kicks, sure, but also, thanks to a voice whose limitations give her a supple vulnerability, for a tinge of bittersweet pain. Talk That Talk is at its best when it's working that angle.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    True Romance
    Ultimately, Estelle's fine pop instincts (Time After Time) buoy True Romance through some choppy waters.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Music Is My Savior
    [A] fluid, likable disc.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Last Light
    With each new release, its sound becomes more polished, and Last Light finds a groove between a radio-ready opus and an experimental jumble.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Battle Studies
    Even when the proceedings threaten to get turgid, the intimacy of Mayer’s expression never wavers, and in many ways that’s the album’s greatest victory.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Love Is a Four Letter Word
    The songs about heartache don't detract from the optimistic vibe of this 12-song collection.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Babel
    The London quartet's hallmarks--plucky banjo, hard-driving acoustic guitar--are in place, but the songs are bigger and bolder, right down to Marcus Mumford's exuberant wails that now grind with more grit.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    American Central Dust
    As usual, singer and songwriter Jay Farrar has a few things on his mind, and his lyrics have grown more plain-spoken and potent with time.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lonely Avenue
    Lonely Avenue is musical nirvana for lovers of the deft balance of sassy snark and sincere sentiment.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Beat The Devil's Tattoo
    Acoustic ballads, space-rock forays, and splashes of glam bubble up before it’s all over, while a pervasive darkness holds the album together. Happily, it seems BRMC’s odyssey continues.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Julian Plenti Is... Skyscraper
    Banks’s debut solo outing is a leap forward--and notably away - from his band’s rigid blueprint that hinges on cold calculation and angular rhythm.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Devil You Know
    Proving itself to be more than a reunion cash-in, Heaven & Hell--the re-brand for Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio on vocals--has a batch of new material that is every bit as menacingly delightful as 2007's concert tour that revived the lineup after 15 years.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I'm with You
    There are spots that are curiously flat, which feels illogical given how much Flea's bass bubbles, Chad Smith's drums skitter and thump, and how captivating Klinghoffer's left-turn fillips can be.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Guitars and Microphones
    Guitars and Microphones is right in line with Pierson’s penchant for spiky dance pop, but it’s also a more revealing look at the atomically redheaded siren.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Greetings from California
    While the music might be chilled-out, an innate tension invites deeper listening.
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