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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    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    IV
    The band’s masterwork to date, IV delivers a listening experience as thrill-packed and invigorating as the loftiest comparisons you can throw at it.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Centipede Hz
    Those who decried the last album's lack of spontaneity will be satisfied with Centipede Hz, but it hits hardest when the guys lock into something that works.
    • 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
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Rhumb Line
    The Rhumb Line--defined as a straight-shot line across all meridians, for the geospatially uninitiated--mostly just thrums with an uncommon sort of pop radiance.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Held
    Held is a haunted forest worth getting lost in, but don't expect to be on your own for long.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lux
    It's an acquired taste, but is undeniably calming with its softly vibrating, reverb-rich piano and synth improvisations, enhanced by exotic Moog guitar from Leo Abrahams and treated violin-viola textures from Neil Catchpole.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Unbreakable
    Unbreakable is much closer in sound and spirit to her peak self, and her most solid release in years.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    200 Million Thousand
    Grimy and disheveled, clever and infectious, it's a sloppy heap of classic pop, psychedelic haze, spastic rock, and teenage disaffection mixed to lo-fi imperfection in some kid's filthy garage.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Woman, A Man, Walked By
    On A Woman, A Man Walked By, they create a world both beautiful and depraved, an unhinged record heavy on heartache and bristling with aggression.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    There's Always Another Girl
    Hatfield has again delivered a crisp collection of tunes that mostly succeeds.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Security
    The album's lengthy tracks are daunting for the casual listener, but the CD casts a spell reminiscent in its raw power and political fervor of TV on the Radio's triumphant "Return to Cookie Mountain."
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Afraid Of Ghosts
    Produced by buddy Ryan Adams, and featuring guest shots from Bob Mould and Johnny Depp, Ghosts is a gorgeous, contemplative effort rooted in loss.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Upside Down Mountain
    Conor Oberst has long exhibited an affinity for reinvention. One thing remains consistent, however, and it’s abundant on his latest: a raw laying bare of emotion delivered with a poet’s ear for lyrical specificity.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mind Bokeh
    There's not a dud minute to endure in the dreamlike 52 of "Mind Bokeh,'' which sounds far less like a sixth album than a second wind.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    When The Devil's Loose
    Bondy’s supple vocals and the roomy song arrangements let him shake off the world-weary gloom at times for the more peaceful evocations of the piano waltz 'On the Moon.'
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Consolers Of The Lonely
    Not content to merely shake up the music industry by releasing Consolers with only one week's advance notice, the Raconteurs have also had the nerve to drop a near-classic album.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Triangle
    The short, melodically complex songs cohere into an often stunningly moving suite.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Working Man's Cafe
    Sonically, Working Man's Café is also a triumph.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Silver Pony
    The program for Silver Pony is a balanced mix of originals, standards, and rearranged pop songs.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Belle and Sebastian Write About Love
    Four years since its last offering, Belle & Sebastian pick up exactly where it left off - more or less - as a confident, pop-obsessed band that is just as interested in replicating the 1960s harmonies of the Zombies as it is in forwarding the cause of well-produced baroque rock.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Acid Tongue
    What it has in common with its superb predecessors is Lewis's invaluable understanding of what works for her.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    High As Hope
    The songs on “High as Hope” don’t have as much youthful urgency of past anthems, but Welch’s thoughtful words and the raw power of her melodies keep the songs compelling. The lush production by Emile Haynie (Lana Del Rey) and Welch herself (her first production credit) bolster each song with sweeping atmosphere.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In The Vines
    The album's Gothic-tinged Americana is an uneasy road but blazes a trail worth exploring, one that is more about the journey and not so much about the destination.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Interstellar
    A major step forward, this new album sounds nothing like the work of her peers.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Before the Frost...
    Frost is prime Crowes, a set of songs about dudes who are buzzed, crooked, and haunted, all delivered with bluesy swagger and infused with psychedelic spirit.... The Crowes delve into hippie square-dance jams and bluegrass gospel tunes with an earnest zeal, though style trumps substance on most of the tracks.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Four MF's Playin Tunes
    A tight set of well-slung tunes that show the elements of a classic quartet outing in nice balance.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Twice
    The daughter of Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook continues to find the sweet spot between reggae and dub’s poppier elements and the sheer breeziness of her voice.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lukas Graham
    Lukas Graham connects best when relying on pop smarts, without reaching for grand epiphanies.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Silencio
    It's a bright, pretty album, so much so that it may surprise when the lyrics come into focus and reveal Sadier's concerns.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Sermon On Exposition Boulevard
    The overall hush of "Sermon" occasionally leads down some sleepy roads. But with a real sense of creative spark at its heart, "Sermon" is a worthy entry into the Book of Rickie Lee.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tales of Us
    The album has a movie score feel, but this time every track is its own short film.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tribute To [EP]
    Tribute To captures James’s sense of admiration, anguish, and awe for the quiet Beatle in an intimate solo recording that is three parts haunting reverb and one part pop melancholy.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    OnMyRadio
    With his fifth album, he pretty much follows his Philly soul formula (even though he now lives in Atlanta), gliding his lithe vocals over keys and an acoustic instrumental dynamic that allow him to shine.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Is Your Love Big Enough?
    The pleasures of Is Your Love Big Enough? are unquestionably immediate, but the real excitement is in wondering where her curiosity takes her next.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Crazy Love
    What does it mean when a crooner of the Great American Songbook is at his best on original tunes?
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Electric Slave
    Although it meanders in places, the mood remains high-spirited.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Life Death Love and Freedom
    Eschewing any concept of "radio ready" and singing with a gruff immediacy, Mellencamp tackles all of the titular concepts on this folk- and blues-based material with a sense of liberation that is keenly palpable.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Stronger With Each Tear
    The queen of hip-hop soul splits her loyalty between three masters with the agility of a gymnast, but she manages to hold a mood with seamless transitions between each.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rock or Bust
    Rock or Bust is a solid, if short, sharp shock.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    No Coast
    Despite the time away, it sounds like the band has emerged with all of their tricks intact.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Deepest Lake
    On its fifth record, the group creates a rich, fully realized work.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ce
    Veloso's voice and songs are newly elastic, inspired by the economy and daring of the trio of electric guitar, bass, and drums that accompanies his acoustic pluck.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    That's It!
    That’s It! is no radical departure, sonically speaking. Will these songs stand the test of time? Maybe, maybe not; but they sound pretty good right now.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mess
    The group deftly submits to the forms and tropes of electro-pop and vintage EBM.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Rome
    The great, and only, disappointment with Rome is that once you've heard the album, you'll want to watch the movie it accompanies. Except there is no movie.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Love Is Everything
    Love Is Everything is not his strongest release of recent years, with a few too many generic midtempo cuts and stately ballads. But Strait is the type of consistent artist and singer whose marginal cuts are often better than some folks’ best and that is true here, too.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Strange Little Birds
    Re-examining its signature brat rock through an industrial prism, Garbage forges something more haunting and honest.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Big Music
    Some other songs miss the mark, including the clumsy “Concrete and Cherry Blossom” and the annoying “Kill or Cure,” but diehard fans will still find plenty to like.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Seeing Things
    Dylan, as a songwriter, may have lost interest in grand rock-band arrangements but not his sense of melody or storytelling.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?
    A couple of pleasant but less memorable midtempo numbers are saved by O'Connor's still towering voice, one that conjures rage, humor, grief, joy, and unbridled passion in a way that still grips the heart and amazes the ears.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The MF Life
    The Canadian vocalist Melanie Fiona's second disc is a more fully realized and personal set of songs than her debut.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Detours
    Crow's strong, eclectic new album, "Detours," is filled with optimism about finding a way to correct her course.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Wasteland Companion
    Full of surprises and refreshing detours, this album sometimes feels like M. Ward on steroids.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rooster Rag
    It's a versatile tour de force with Feat's four singers tackling mostly picaresque themes that would make Helm proud.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pura Vida Conspiracy
    Drenched with joy in its own noisiness, the album is nonetheless easier listening than some of the group’s earlier work.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Day After Tomorrow
    Baez has never sounded wiser, or more deeply human.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    MTMTMK
    It dabbles in the kind of commercial electropop that's coming up all over the continent--but it costs the band some of its earlier warmth and subtlety.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pe'ahi
    A decade in, this duo is still drawn to the dark side and the beauty lurking beneath it.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pieces of Me
    The Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter takes a major leap forward with this vivacious, smartly conceived work.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Son Little
    His self-titled debut on Anti- Records requires several listens before it comes into focus as a shape-shifting exploration of identity both personal and universal.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Future Present Past [EP]
    Finally, the Strokes sound as if they’re having fun again.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mosquito
    It’s the group’s most far-flung album, supporting Karen O’s recent claim that Mosquito offers something for everyone.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pom Pom
    The 69-minute opus isn’t always accessible, but inviting, even sentimental, tracks (“Put Your Number in My Phone,” “Picture Me Gone”) balance out the more surreal, irony-laden larks (“Jell-O,” “Sexual Athletics”).
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Green Naugahyde
    Overall, the writing is richer, peaking with the somber songcraft of "Last Salmon Man."
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shangri-La
    If dance is the religion YACHT's preaching this summer, consider us converted.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My True Story
    What sets this collection of doo-wop and early rock era tunes apart from the jaded pack is Neville's peerless voice and crystal clear passion for the material.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    B4.DA.$$
    Sometimes his influences, especially Nas (“On and On”), are transparent, but nothing here feels derivative. The production, filled with scratches, sonic invention, and live instrumentation by DJ Premier and Lawrence’s Statik Selektah, among others, often matches the MC’s audacity.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nocturne
    The sophomore LP from Virginia dream-pop project Wild Nothing, bandleader Jack Tatum at times seems fixated on darkness. But that doesn't stop the songs from glistening with a melancholy polish.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cole World: The Sideline Story
    The story goes that Jay-Z told Cole he had his whole life to make his debut album. Cole may have taken that literally, but it was worth it.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    True North
    Bad Religion shaves its anti-establishment messages down to bare essentials and sounds practically feral.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rated R
    What works as therapeutic psychodrama for the singer doesn't always work quite as well as pop music, which, from the shiny surfaces, it's clear everyone here is still striving for.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Phantom Punch
    Unlike previous efforts at stylistic hop-scotch, "Phantom Punch" is Lerche's most comfortable album since "Faces Down."
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Last Train to Paris
    As with most of Diddy's ventures, his presence is largely behind the scenes as he turns in intermittent rhymes and fleeting commentary on the album's story line.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Betty Wright: The Movie
    Betty Wright: The Movie doesn't reinvent its maker so much as it extracts her essence.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Christian a Tunde Adjuah
    Trumpeter Scott and his quintet simmer and stretch their way through vast emotional terrain.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Heartthrob
    The songs are less oblique than their last couple of albums, almost to a fault.... But their lyrical theme of being embattled with themselves remains.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rest in Chaos
    After an all-covers debut, this second album is a major step forward.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Four Stars
    It is an exceedingly agreeable collection of ultra-catchy garage-pop complete with slash-and-burn guitars, wheedling psychedelic organs, gauzy ballads, dollops of Motown stomp, and loads of love laments both despairing and fidgety.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Reason and Rhyme: Bluegrass Songs by Robert Hunter & Jim Lauderdale
    Add Lauderdale's terrific musical stylings, the twangy expressiveness of his singing, and his backing ensemble's crack playing, and what results is a classic bluegrass sound that is yet just a turn off-center.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Era Vulgaris
    Somehow, it all works together, from the psychedelic guitar warble to the bits of prog to the almost country-style harmonies.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rattle That Lock
    Gilmour’s fourth solo record summons a heady dose of the grandeur he brought to Floyd.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hawk
    At times it feels like this music will rise above simple pleasure, to something more fearsome or fearless, something unquantifiable and haunted--for now, however, the dichotomy between male and female will have to do.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Safe Trip Home
    It's taken nine years and two tries, but Dido has finally given her debut the follow-up it deserves.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tuskegee
    Richie and his guests are having such a good time and the songs themselves are so irresistible it's easy (like a Sunday morning) to get caught up in the spirit.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Dreamer/The Believer
    All of the tracks are produced by No I.D., with a fluid, melodic head-bobbing nod to R&B, giving Common plenty of room to weave his dreams.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Teeth Dreams
    The rock quintet wastes no time reestablishing its high-energy bona fides on Teeth Dreams.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Warpaint
    It’s not always clear where these songs go, but coming back to them, you start to appreciate the understatement.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Troubadour
    Troubadour, the Somali-born artist's follow-up to his great debut, is a smart fusion of influences.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mature Themes
    If there's any cohesion here, it's the realization that it all emerges from the brain of one man who runs his vision through various filters.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Here for a Good Time
    King George isn't breaking new ground, but Here for a Good Time doesn't threaten his crown.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lifeline
    It's a beautifully composed disc that Harper fans should love -- and it should also convince boomers, especially, that there's still great new music out there.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Beware
    With the help of an expert new backing band, Oldham wrings a polished grace out of this material, from ballads ('I Don't Belong to Anyone') to smoldering anthems ('Afraid Ain't Me').
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Parastrophics
    Rather than switch directions, or dig deeper into familiar turf, Mouse on Mars sound re-energized here, broadening and brightening their loopy forward vector.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ghost on the Canvas
    An impressive array of musicians - Chris Isaak, Brian Setzer, Billy Corgan, Dick Dale - help make it a fitting tribute to Campbell's accomplishments.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Undercurrent
    This fourth release from the Texas native is in a singer-songwriter mode; four songs feature just Jarosz and acoustic guitar, while others are tautly arranged progressive-folk gems with backup from guitarists Luke Reynolds (Guster) and Jedd Hughes (Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell).
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everybody
    They take prime garage rock and global beats from past works and flirtatiously commingle them to craft a gossamer rock - steady creation.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hello Hurricane
    More than a couple of the mid-tempo light rockers here lack teeth, some of them even lack gums. We’ve heard Switchfoot as weepy soundtrack peddlers before, but Switchfoot the rock band, it turns out, is pretty darn good.
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