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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    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Gifted
    Those expecting Wale to finally take his game to the next level will have to wait as his third record is inconsistent and mostly forgettable.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Santana IV
    The album generously includes 16 new songs, so if you’re a fan you’ll find enough to like. But finding a new lyricist should be a higher calling.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Joy
    The songs give off good vibes, even when alluding to the missteps that undid guitarist and main writer Trey Anastasio and ultimately his band. That lack of friction is a problem with Phish.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    My World
    Bieber is indistinguishable from any of a thousand prefab pop aspirants with musical inadequacies that need glossing over in the studio.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    All We Need
    Raury’s spirit and intent are laudable, but his broad lyrics and potpourri musical approach need refining.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Soul Punk
    Occasionally, it's quite good, as on When I Made You Cry, which conjures early Michael Jackson. Other times, it's dreadful.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mylo Xyloto
    For an album unabashed in its intimacy, the bigger moments are all that more rattling. Not everything turns a new corner.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Digi Snacks
    RZA, the Wu Tang Clan's great producer and MC, brings his third chapter in the saga of Bobby Digital, and it's a fragmented, often compelling set.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Court Yard Hounds
    Robison's focus, on introspective ruminations and the vagaries of relationships, is relentlessly earnest. And as well-played as the music can be, lyrically it’s a very bumpy ride.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    5 Seconds of Summer
    The lyrics leave no room for subtext--“Good girls,” goes the kickiest song’s thesis, “are bad girls that haven’t been caught”--and the gleaming instrumentation sounds untouched by human hands.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bingo!
    The results are mixed. Some of this is merely a hobbyist homage to his roots (his shuffling cover of Jimmy Reed's "You Got Me Dizzy'' is unexciting), but some of it crackles.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rise To Your Knees
    Rise is a welcome, if uneven, return.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Kiss Land
    Unfortunately, Tesfaye can veer toward the portentous with his youthful, conflicted lyrical vision, which often confuses sex with love.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Loved Me Back to Life
    She experiments at times with a more gravelly voice, suggesting a bid for more street appeal, but the overall effect is stiff and mechanical, minus the warmth for which she is known.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    My Own Lane
    Ink mostly relies on a nasal singsong flow that, too often, accidentally detours into monotony over slickly produced club beats borrowed from better sources.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Before This World
    “Far Afghanistan” is an interesting detour, a new side of Taylor as he ponders the hardships of a soldier and the devastation of war. It’s not enough to distract from the glaring fact that Before This World doesn’t add much to Taylor’s beloved catalog, but doesn’t detract from it, either.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    L.A.X.
    LAX spins beautifully at first, but, like a '64 Chevy with chrome rims that hasn't paid a visit to the mechanic in 20 years, it doesn't take long before the wheels come off entirely.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Stockholm
    She has her rock credibility to lose--and it’s in tatters after some of the mediocre material here.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    That's Why God Made the Radio
    Not unlistenable, but simply not special.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Field Manual
    Field Manual is, on the whole, pretty solid and the vocals, on the whole, are pretty terrible. In other words, the album sounds exactly like a solo record by a guitarist/producer.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Demi
    Demi sounds like Lovato’s grasping for hits, when she used to sound like she was making music and having fun.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fellow Travelers
    Jonathan Meiburg’s weary, swooping baritone (he sings like a sentient cello) and the sighing cabin-folk that works so well for “A Wake for the Minotaur” (an original duet with tourmate Van Etten snuck in on a technicality) flattens out much of the album.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Barragán
    There’s plenty of occasion for beauty here throughout, but the band seems intent on disrupting the pleasant view.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Kings & Queens of the Underground
    It’s as if Idol stumbled into a Renaissance Faire, answered someone’s questions about his old hits, then decided to record it, surveying his lazy, crazy, drug-hazy Sunset Strip days to the accompaniment of flutes and lutes.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sweeter
    The results are predictably formulaic.
    • 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.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Spirit Of Apollo
    Girl Talk succeeded by deconstructing pop hits; we heard every prerecorded sample in a new way. N.A.S.A., on the other hand, just slaps everything up there, and expects it to stick. It doesn't.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Changed
    The title track may be about rebirth, but on Changed, Rascal Flatts remains the same as ever.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Based on a True Story...
    The album may be based on a true story, but it doesn’t offer enough personal touches to distinguish it from a lot of other tales coming out of Nashville.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Lost Highway
    The band does little more than take the easiest trappings of country and plug them in.
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