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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    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Hard Way
    On one of this year's smoothest and best discs, Hunter makes The Hard Way go down so easy.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Wanting
    Jones furthers the exploratory path he's committed himself to, with tranquil yet compelling acoustic steel-string guitar compositions built from thoughtful open tunings ("Of Its Own Kind"), expressive bottleneck guitar ("Even to Win Is to Fail"), and even banjo ("The Great Swamp Way Rout").
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Push Any Button
    She jumps around genres like a Bowie-esque chameleon, but this new effort is a staunch improvement from some of her musical wanderlust.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gift Of Screws
    Gift of Screws is only his fifth solo record. Perhaps that's why the singer and guitarist (who turns 60 next month) still sounds so vital and passionate, especially on the voluptuous, opening songs 'Great Day' and 'Time Precious Time,' where his luminescent riffs and nimble finger-picking shine.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Cool
    Fiasco builds on that promise [in "Food & Liquuor"] exponentially with the triumphant Cool, which gets extra style points for bringing back the idea of the headphones hip-hop album.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Attention Deficit
    Well, there’s no doubt that he delivers with a rigorous, intelligent set, but let’s not go overboard. Attention Deficit proves there’s still room for growth.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Gloaming
    Appropriately, each track on the debut from this masterful quintet of Irish and American musicians feels like a freshly flipped spade of sod--its ripe turf’s most ancient facets made new just by touching air.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It's Real
    blast it loud and blast it proud. This is a summer album. It’s as colorful and sweet-tart as a cone melting in the sun, rolled in crunchies and glitter.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Out of the Game
    Masterful... this new album marks a return to the pop chops and killer hooks that initially made Wainwright so celebrated.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Chief
    Church and his co-writers also shine as clever lyricists, making his formula-following peers sound even more generic.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bad Witch
    Production-wise, the album sounds amazing, every multilayered arrangement and synth tone calibrated for maximum headphone-listening pleasure. ... Reznor is still making records that crackle with restless energy.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love Letter
    It's a back-to-basics collection of beautifully sung and arranged tracks emphasizing romance and devotion.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Signed and Sealed in Blood
    The Boston-accented mash-up of Irish folk and punk is still infectious.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Reign of Terror
    That's not to say that the siren-squeal guitars and drum-machine breakbeats aren't still a blast; but on Reign of Terror, Sleigh Bells have started thinking about what happens underneath them.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Deerhoof Vs. Evil
    The resulting record is at once deliciously fragmented and oddly together - each track thriving on Deerhoof's unnerving balancing act of composure and recklessness.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Election Special
    Cooder is mad as hell, but because he's a virtuoso with a wry sense of humor that balances indignation and despair, the songs stand as songs, not just soapbox speechifying.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gamel
    Gamel melds past and future, resulting in a present joyfully reconfigured.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Counterfeit Blues
    Most of the time, though, it argues for just how good Lund’s evocative, regionally rooted songs are, no matter their rendition.
    • 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.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Liberman
    Fueled by exploration and musical experimentation, Carlton’s reinvention finds her a long way from “A Thousand Miles”--and in a better place, artistically.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nabuma Rubberband
    This is the kind of artistic leap every band hopes to make.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lamp Lit Prose
    “Dirty Projectors” struggled toward hope, but Lamp-Lit Prose has found it, and at its end it opens toward new possibilities.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Cherry Thing
    For all of the scorching discordance (Gustafsson's ambitious "Sudden Movement"), there are also passages of divine lyricism ("Golden Heart," "What Reason"). A welcome return.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The King Is Dead
    The King Is Dead is the Portland, Ore., band's most streamlined effort since 2005's "Picaresque," and it's a welcome reminder that frontman Colin Meloy can write evocative songs where the words stand on their own.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    All Eternals Deck
    There is trial and guarded promise in these songs, with Darnielle's restless voice finding human constants in even the most nonhuman of scenarios.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Humanz
    Some of the band’s unique flavor still remains, as in the collaboration between Albarn, Pusha T, and Mavis Staples on “Let Me Out,” an unlikely match that wonderfully locks together. But without a unified sound or story to focus on, the album sometimes falls into the modern sinkhole of too many options presented at once.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love And Its Opposite
    On her gently magnificent third solo album, Tracey Thorn--the beguiling voice of Everything But the Girl--tackles serious big-girl issues.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
    The thicker the walls of sound this time around, the better, too--the forward-marching layers of distortion throughout "Rano Piano" and at the end of the hyper-cinematic "You're Lionel Richie" are the most purposeful and satisfying aspects of the album.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Little Dark Age
    MGMT spikes the formula with just enough outsider charm to milk an album’s worth of inspiration from the tired aesthetic. It’s not going to inspire legions of imitators à la “Oracular Spectacular,” but Little Dark Age should be both hooky and eccentric enough to please MGMT fans of all stripes.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Two Eleven
    With her producers subtly augmenting her vocals with lush harmonies, Brandy executes these songs with confidence.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Big Sur
    There are 19 songs here, and at some point one feels replete, but they are concise--some in the manner of a sketch that leaves options open, others more decisive, like the sharp coastline vista once the morning fog has cleared.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Traveler
    Funny, poignant, melodic, and warm, Miller shows that his travels have served him well as a songwriter.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hesitation Marks
    There is nothing hesitant about this collection of songs which manage to be fraught with heated emotions while simultaneously composed of chilly, fidgety grooves.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Balm In Gilead
    Like its namesake, this music has healing properties: the beauty of its melodies and the wisdom of its words soothe the soul and remind us what a peculiar treasure Jones is, a fact too easily forgotten in the rush of passing fashions and the wake of the artist’s own pocked path.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    What Matters Most
    Streisand, who produced it herself, has a soft spot for orchestrations that are just a little too sweet, languid piano balladry, and lilting, midtempo cocktail-hour ambience that would be more fun if it had some swing.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Way Down Low
    Way Down Low, is one of the greatest vocal albums I've ever heard.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Astral Weeks Live At The Hollywood Bowl
    This is a stroke of genius.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
    How Big How Blue How Beautiful is a record about maneuvering around and through matters of the heart--sometimes triumphant, sometimes sad, and always deeply felt thanks to Welch acting as tour guide.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    New
    While there are a few silly love songs in the batch, some of us still haven’t had enough.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Don't Stop
    Don’t Stop is an electro-pop truffle--a tasty confection with a hard, glossy shell surrounding a smooth, melt-in-your-ear interior of cheeky, playful lyrics.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Manifestra
    Just about every note and lyric on Erin McKeown's Manifestra is a step away from the norm. Yet the songs are so beguiling you can't help but follow.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hummingbird
    Produced by Aaron Dessner of the National, the Brooklyn, N.Y., indie rockers who once took Local Natives on the road as the opening act, the album feels like a pronouncement, as if to highlight how much the quartet has grown since its last outing.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Same Old Man
    His latest is one of his best in recent years.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Red Barked Tree
    As late efforts go, Red Barked Tree sounds alive, vital, and appropriately restless; and as aging rockers go, Wire remains well worth whatever wait comes next.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hypnotic Eye
    Hypnotic Eye offers the band mostly in lean, mean, garage-rock machine mode firing up the fuzz and swagger.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Living With The Living
    Leo manages to skip from tender, unadorned romantic pop crooning to full-throttle punk yowling to Celtic-flavored folk-rock without losing the listener, the beat, or the message.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Shine
    While the music always beckons, the words sometimes repel.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kitty Wells Dresses: Songs of the Queen of Country Music
    Cantrell's voice bears an affinity to Wells's, but it's her ability to capture what she points to as most affecting about her predecessor--the simultaneous restraint and emotiveness of her singing--that makes this tribute fittingly evocative.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Red
    It's not Bob Dylan, but the songwriting is leagues ahead of where Swift was as recently as two years ago.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Red Beans and Weiss
    His recorded output is sporadic, which makes his latest, Red Beans and Weiss (terrible title, terrific album) such a welcome pleasure.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World
    What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World is one of the indie-rock band’s most enjoyable and lively efforts in recent memory.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    E-MO-TION
    An album that’s incredibly enjoyable even as Jepsen stands on the precipice of heartache.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Who's Feeling Young Now?
    Disjointedness and pretension are twin possibilities, but the Punch Brothers avoid both pitfalls; what results is always interesting, and sometimes spectacular.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    III
    It makes for an often remarkable synthesis of the visceral and ethereal. The nine streamlined, artfully structured songs are patient and less dense, frequently relying on the separation between beats for power.
    • 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.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Unrepentant Geraldines
    Her fans will be glad to hear the muse has finally led Amos back to making the type of carefully crafted but pleasingly quirky pop music that helped make the singer-songwriter’s name in the ’90s.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pentatonic Wars and Love Songs
    Taylor’s tunes build and build like good dramas; he tells stories through song, and the music does the talking as much as the lyrics do.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Motivational Jumpsuit
    The tracks that are fragments lack the weird self-contained logic and momentum that carried earlier song scraps. Still, then as now, GbV chucks out some solidly driving tuneage.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Simply Grand
    Simply Grand is an album whose charms are too subtle to catch on the first spin or third, but enough listens will make it clear that the album's title is nothing more than a statement of fact.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Reason Why
    With the assistance of ace songwriter-producer-multi-instrumentalist Wayne Kirkpatrick "The Reason Why" does what all good records should do: It makes you laugh, cry, hoot, holler, and breaks your heart.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Proof of Youth
    On Proof of Youth, the samples are made-to-order--Chuck D chips in on 'Flashlight Fight,' and Brazilian artist Marina Vello shows up on the riotous 'Titanic Vandalism.' Precious else has changed.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Everything Ever Written
    Overall, a nice effort by these never-say-die Scots.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Wise Up Ghost and Other Songs
    While a few of the experiments feel a little arid, the best songs balance menace and buoyancy, melody and groove.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wheelhouse
    Per usual, the writing is sharp and the guitar playing impeccable. Paisley cooks through honky-tonk, country swing, the blues, rockabilly, and weepy ballads with assured command.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Morning/Evening
    [The music] gurgles gradually into consciousness like the titular binary, the colors of sunrise and sunset enveloping in the electronically rooted compositions.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Growing Pains
    After all the sermonizing and confessions, the idea that we have to learn to live without clarity may be Blige's most arresting, and galvanizing, message.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gliss Riffer
    The album comes across as an adrenaline-filled milestone, filled with whimsical and personal transactions between the past and present.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    22 Dreams
    Weller can seem like a dilettante, selling himself as Roy Harper one minute and Marvin Gaye the next. But that's easily forgiven. At least the Mod-father isn't resting on his laurels.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wake Up!
    In the end, even if it's only a brief aside, both the Roots and Legend expand through experimentation.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Big Doe Rehab
    This isn't new territory for Ghostface, and it's something of a marvel that his signature narrative style still feels fresh on his seventh solo outing.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Never Learn
    Li virtually proves to herself that pop need not be soulless and manufactured.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Food
    As Kelis herself once said, “Tasty.”
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Truth About Love
    On her sixth album, The Truth About Love, the singer-songwriter born Alecia Moore continues her winning ways.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Women As Lovers
    Women as Lovers reveals itself as a nifty little album.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everything Will Be Alright in the End
    While there’s a back-to-basics glee in the album’s geeky power-chord pop tracks, a largely instrumental three-song closing suite is neatly epic, triggering Pink Floyd chills.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ritual in Repeat
    The performances finally have weight, if not depth.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Clearing
    It's the most ambitious and evocative they've ever sounded.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    El Pintor
    A return to form, it brims with fresh ideas, in everything from the looser production to the chordal detours that suggest the trio is ready to tweak its formula.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tarot Classics [EP]
    Its new four-song EP continues with that sturdy foundation [from Astro Coast], even as it occasionally hints at larger arena-rock ambitions.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Human The Death Dance
    He's still one of the most enjoyable lyricists in hip-hop, and he successfully communicates what he's feeling in a dark and enlightening fashion.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Serotonin
    At its best, Serotonin dresses nostalgia in neatly pressed new clothes; it's easy to catch yourself singing along as if you'd known some of these songs for half of your life.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Trouble in Paradise
    Jackson is more adventurous here.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ashes & Fire
    Following an uncharacteristic hiatus, singer-songwriter Ryan Adams returns with this lovely, low-key effort.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Body Talk, Pt. 2
    Danceable, downtrodden songs buoyed by a hint of self-willed confidence are Robyn's specialty
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shocking Pinks
    Throughout, Harte infuses much of the record with the chopped-up high-hat propulsion of DFA-style dance-floor abandon that makes studying your history a lot of fun.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shrines
    Pulling the entire effort back from the precipice of cliché is the immediate charisma of vocalist Megan James, particularly engaging when hurdling over cleverly constructed lines of wordplay.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Seasons of Your Day
    It’s prime Mazzy Star, the work of a band that knows what it does well. And then does it beautifully
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tales from the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles
    A great overall effort.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Incidental Hum
    Among 12 originals there are a couple of failures (“Winslow” is soft, creamy, and dull), but the vast majority insinuate themselves into your brain with repeat listens. Not much commercial potential, but a job well done.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Paper Airplane
    As usual, Krauss and Union Station have produced another gem.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Confess
    It's rare to find a musical package this self-consciously stylized that isn't designed to cover up for a lack of substance.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Conor Oberst
    With Oberst, there is little filter; the gems and the rubbish all emerge from the same place. Oberst's talent and his unevenness are all of a kind.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Poseidon And The Bitter Bug
    Poseidon follows the pretty but predictable model that has worked for the Indigo Girls for 20 years, and outdoor pavilion crowds everywhere will no doubt be thrilled with the result.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tin Can Trust
    A job well done.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Let It Burn
    The church is never far from Foster's vocals, and even though the predominant sound here is a blues shot through with organ and echoing slide guitar, she seems closer to gospel than ever.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    English Electric
    It’s comfortable, familiar, expected, and joyful.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Watershed
    The mellifluous melodies and tasteful instrumentation fall in line with the adult-contemporary pop of previous albums such as "Ingenue" and "Invincible Summer."
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Another Round
    This is a very solid set that places its emphasis on the vocalist’s smooth, rich tone and effortless phrasing.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tied to a Star
    Mascis doesn’t just go unplugged here; he pulls back the curtain to reveal a troubadour at his most vulnerable.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dreamin' Man Live '92
    Even in their nascent form, these songs are powerful, soulful, and hopeful.
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