Entertainment Weekly's Scores

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For 3,519 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 81% higher than the average critic
  • 1% same as the average critic
  • 18% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 5 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 78
Highest review score: 100 The Idler Wheel Is Wiser than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More than Ropes Will Ever Do
Lowest review score: 0 Playing With Fire
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,085 out of 3519
  2. Mixed: 407 out of 3519
  3. Negative: 27 out of 3519
3519 music reviews
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    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Soberish
    Revels in nervy song structures and unexpected instrumental touches even on its more straightforward tracks, such as the "Polyester Bride"-echoing "Good Side." The horns that rise up to accompany Phair's solidified sense of self on the slow-burning "Soul Sucker" give her inner journey a heroic feel, while her voice's airy upper register makes the plea at the heart of "Lonely St." even more potent.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Sour
    Sour doesn't try to be "the next" anyone; instead, Rodrigo distills her life and her listening habits into powerful, hooky pop that hints at an even brighter future.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Delta Kream
    It often feels less like a distinct set of songs than a deliberate mood: a slow-rolling swagger through a bygone era, gilded by the band's own faithful imitations. That's bad news for hook-happy fans, maybe, but a living history lesson too.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Deacon
    Where Soil embraced the discord of romantic entanglements, Deacon, its follow-up, is a celebration of the opposite: the comfort and assurance that swells from deep connection. [Apr 2021, p.73]
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Chemtrails Over the Country Club
    Chemtrails is less a full transformation than the first step forward in another direction.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Justice
    Justice happily expand its sonic palette with more textures and tempos.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Revelación [EP]
    Revelación proves that Gomez is up to the task — and a far more versatile musician than she's been given credit for.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Flowers for Vases/descansos
    Flowers puts a lens on her weaker moments without any performative brightness. She simply lets her softer side shine. Gone are the animalistic vocals, replaced with a gentler tone that invokes a towering kindness and grace that pandemic-related solitude has allowed. ... She once again proves there is a fragile beauty that comes with facing the darkest parts of yourself, no matter how painful the process might be.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    evermore
    Swift's lyric-writing abilities feel leveled-up on Evermore, its characters drawn in pointillistic detail. ... Similarly, the musical risks on Evermore are bigger, both in scope and in payoff. ... Freedom from expectations has, both with this album and its predecessor, led to Swift's leaps giving new heights to her already-pretty-skyscraping career.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    McCartney III
    Like any contemporary Macca project, III feels like comfort food. Credit that voice, charming and unmistakable after decades of use. Hearing it anew is like curling up inside a warm blanket.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Nightmare Vacation
    Nasty can be funny and furious, bratty and spectacularly off-the-wall. [Dec 2020, p.101]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Dec 4, 2020
    • 65 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Wonder
    Accordingly, even though Wonder is his fourth studio album, it often feels like the sound of an artist still discovering himself in real time — the pleasant but vaguely unplaceable style of previous hits like “Treat You Better” and “There’s Nothing Holding Me Back” now gilded with swirling psychedelic pomp (on the expansive title track), ring-my-bell disco (“Teach Me How to Love”), and slinky R&B (“Piece of You”).
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Plastic Hearts
    Despite Cyrus' disavowal of Younger Now's Nashville sound, the best moments on Plastic Hearts come when she delves into power ballads, which blend the over-the-topness of glam with the teary storytelling of country music.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Positions
    There is be little risk and reward on Positions, yet Grande's simple desire to memorialize the beginnings of a new love in real-time, and the new fears it entails, has allowed her to create a body of work not beholden to the narrative of resilience. It might not make for her most arresting album nor her most dramatic, but it’s certainly her most sensuous.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Love Goes
    It's the prettily composed ballads — wounded, swooning, steeped in regret — that tend to lead.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Rendition Was In)
    It’s a living document and continued legacy of a once-in-a-generation talent.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez
    Snags aside — “The Lost Chord” sounds bloated, and bonus cut “MLS” sands the edges off JPEGMAFIA — Strange Timez (out Oct. 23) adds a delightful new chapter in Gorillaz’s ongoing tale of cross-pollination.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Wildflowers & All The Rest
    Suffused with warmth and memory, this set belongs among your Tom Petty records. [Nov 2020, p.97]
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Shiver
    Offers a new kind of glimpse into his private world, singing intimately of desire and raw vulnerability. Maybe that's why Shiver feels as liberated as it does: the sound of an artist in midstream, still discovering how far his voice can go. [Oct 2020, p.95]
    • 99 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Sign O' the Times [Deluxe Edition]
    On a purely musical level, this collection is a true beauty, with 63 previously unreleased tracks. ... For the completists, you’ll want this set forever in your life.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Smile
    Even at its sweetest, Smile still feels like the the too-familiar work of a star committed to remaining pleasantly, fundamentally unchanged--and that may be the only mortal sin pop music can't forgive. [Sep 2020, p.100]
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    No Pressure
    A much-needed corrective, a back-to-basics palate cleanser that rights the ship with help from co-executive producer No I.D., who was the guiding hand behind his debut record Under Pressure. It’s the cleanest album he’s ever made.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Made Of Rain
    Rain’s black-velvet melancholy makes it easy to pretend they never left.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    folklore
    Swift explodes the expectations of anyone preparing to call her music "diaristic," writing songs from different perspectives while putting her already-detailed work under a microscope. ... A content smile of an album on which one of the world's biggest pop stars, charts be damned, forges her own path and dares listeners to come along for the ride.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Roy Ayers JID002
    The album feels too short to be a definitive statement. [Jul 2020, p.75]
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Lianne La Havas
    Fans may be disappointed by La Havas' reserved lyricism here, but the femme gem "Sour Flower" and a take on Radiohead's "Weird Fishes" should be enough to compensate. [Jul 2020, p.75]
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Gaslighter
    By blending early-21st-century pop savvy with the storytelling that made country music so crucial to the American canon, Gaslighter is all fire and nerve, performed by three women whose musical bona fides are rivaled only by their rock-solid backbones.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon
    With stakes this high and a legacy to consider, the end result may or may not bear much of a resemblance to what Pop Smoke had in mind. Nonetheless, he sounds alive here, a motivated and vibrant hip-hop talent actively pushing towards that next level.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Rough and Rowdy Ways
    Rough and Rowdy Ways is a clear reflection of America’s jagged landscape — one of romance and mystery, creativity and fortune, protestations and politicking, conquests and colonialism. It makes for an exquisite, haunting listen.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Album
    The result is less experimental but feels more illuminating, erring on the side of verbosity in contrast to the concision of its predecessor. By stretching out various emotional modes, she suggests the multitude of ways to show up in the world as a woman — and as a wife and a mother.
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