Entertainment Weekly's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Lamp Lit Prose
    If Dirty Projectors was the band’s long winter, the sonic equivalent of holding space within which their frontman could probe and process, Lamp Lit Prose is the resultant progress, a gratifying spring bloom bearing the sweeter-than-expected fruits of Longstreth’s labor.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Kids See Ghosts
    While Kids See Ghosts feels more like a Cudi album than a Kanye one, it is a production showcase for both. ... The seven-song affair leaves you greedy for more when it’s over in a mere 23 minutes.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    God's Favorite Customer
    When Tillman is good, he is very very good: a master of classic melody, even if the source is meta, and something like a true poet when he wants to be.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    7
    7's artful wooziness is hardly new, but for Beach House, it feels like home.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Dirty Computer
    As a whole, Dirty Computer strikes the perfect balance between joy and sadness, offering a deeply resonant account of Monáe’s personal experiences as a black woman. Some of these experiences are unquestionably difficult. Yet in relaying them to us, Monáe never deprives herself (or the listener) of pride, joy, or autonomy.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Invasion of Privacy
    Where Cardi B struggles to perfect the timing of her flow, she makes up for it with the heft of her voice. Combining the gruff delivery of Biggie Smalls with the bird-flipping fire of Tupac Shakur and the bubbly aura of a tween star, Cardi deploys a hybridized power vocal that punctuates trap and bounce-heavy pop with a witty presence that makes her narrative universally accessible.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    American Utopia
    His new American Utopia feels very much like the sum of Byrne's essential Heads DNA and everything that's passed since then. [16/23 Mar 2018, p.107]
    • Entertainment Weekly
      • Posted Mar 12, 2018
    • 55 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Man of the Woods
    It’s a grab bag of styles and sonic mood boards. ... Once an artist who reshaped the contours of the Hot 100, Timberlake now seems content to ride out his own scenic route, as blithe and unknowable as he’s ever been.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Camila
    Cabello’s voice isn’t especially distinctive, but it’s instinctually pretty: effortless and warm, with an edge of morning-after rasp.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Songs of Experience
    In an age of hot takes and cold snark, the band’s grand earnestness feels like the artifact of another time, an art lost to nearly everyone save a few fellow statesmen (Mr. Springsteen comes to mind). And it’s all over the group’s 14th studio album, aptly titled Songs of Experience, a record so defiantly full of hard-earned hope and fortitude it seems to blot out the bleaker realities of 2017 through sheer Irish willpower.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Utopia
    Utopia is almost completely a sensory experience, fantastical soundscapes designed for secret snowflake rituals and Valkyrie picnics. In the midst of so much esoterica, it’s hard sometimes not to miss the more accessible Björk of the ’90s and early 2000s.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    reputation
    Reputation is an oddly bifurcated creation, half obsessed with grim score-settling and celebrity damage, half infatuated with a lover who takes her away from all that.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Red Pill Blues
    The R&B- and funk-laden Blues, their best and most cohesive set of the decade, is actually worth some appointment listening.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Thrill of It All
    Turning heartache into Top 40 magic is Smith’s strength--he famously thanked an ex for his success during a Grammys speech--but only a few moments here truly resonate emotionally. One of those is the staggering standout “HIM.”
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Meaning of Life
    As cohesive and self-assured as this collection feels, Meaning doesn’t seem especially interested in scaling the heights of early smashes like “Since U Been Gone” or “Because of You.” Instead, it swings low and sweet--a refreshingly real dispatch from an artist expressing exactly what she feels in this moment, and nothing less.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Lotta Sea Lice
    What Lotta Sea Lice lacks in flashiness, it makes up for with enduring tunes and performances that, low-stakes as they are, seem destined to resonate and yield fresh surprises for years to come.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Beautiful Trauma
    Pink reunites with trusted collaborators like Max Martin, Shellback, Greg Kurstin and Billy Mann on Beautiful Trauma. They help make the record sound both fresh and familiar, with occasional curves like the gospelized rave-up “I Am Here.”
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Masseduction
    Five studio albums in, it feels more like another new beginning, and pretty close to a masterpiece.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Colors
    The glossy production here sometimes neuters Beck's wilder inclinations. ... Still, as his first upbeat album in nearly a decade, Colors proves that Beck is still one of rock's most intrepid inventors. [13 Oct 2017, p.58]
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Tell Me You Love Me
    The best parts of the album are on the first half and showcase Lovato’s swagger, especially the standout gospel-tinged title track.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Now
    Those who would disparage her for not sounding like the “old Shania” are missing the point of this album--and with songs this good, they’re missing out, too.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Younger Now
    On Younger Now she is fully her father Billy Ray’s daughter, leaning into the echoey twang of spaghetti-Western stomper “Bad Mood,” rhapsodizing about dirty feet and backyard creeks on “Inspired,” and duetting blithely with godmother Dolly Parton on the summer-­camp jamboree “Rainbowland.”
    • 63 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Gemini
    It’s a sprawling set that displays many different sides of his personality, from party boy (the old-school groove “Levitate”) to spiritual dad (the gospel-charged “Church”). Although it is uneven and feels longer than its 60 minutes, Gemini is held together by Macklemore’s Everydudeness and a loose mixtape quality.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Wonderful Wonderful
    Although the new album doesn’t live up to its effusive title by recapturing the glory of Sam’s Town--there’s no “When You Were Young” here--it affirms that the Killers are far from dead yet.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    American Dream
    As gratifying familiar as much of American Dream will be to longtime fans, it also feels like exactly the album 2017 needs--urgent, angry, achingly self-aware. And catchy as hell, too. [1 Sep 2017, p.53]
    • 64 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Fifth Harmony
    Fifth Harmony’s pop-by-committee could have fared fabulously well had it risen in the heat earlier this year; instead it’s a harmless record that doesn’t quite demand a second listen.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Rainbow
    Rainbow, her rich, masterful third LP, is far more than a kiss-off to old demons--it’s an artistic feat, as Kesha unites stylistic forays with her sharp, weathered lyricism.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Everything Now
    Like Everything Now‘s subject matter, Arcade Fire gets a bit excessive--yet their fearlessness has resulted in some of the most ambitious music of their career.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Something To Tell You
    Mostly HAIM zero in on what they do best, and the result is a simple and staggering ode to the joy and craftsmanship of American pop.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    TLC
    If the new songs are likable enough, none eclipse those of their peak. Luckily, TLC has always had as much to do with an emotional connection as with the music. Here, they stoke it in ways likely to give longtime fans a nice glow.
Page: