MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)'s Scores
- Music
For 178 reviews, this publication has graded:
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87% higher than the average critic
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0% same as the average critic
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13% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 13.5 points higher than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 86
| Highest review score: | American VI: Ain't No Grave | |
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| Lowest review score: | Definition Of Real |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 164 out of 178
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Mixed: 13 out of 178
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Negative: 1 out of 178
178
music
reviews
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- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
Just when I'd made my peace with pop prog and begun to hope arty prog would prove another casualty of the age of digital instantaneity, these postrock warriors get the bright idea of adding tune and humor to their higher mathematics.- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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This two-hour double-CD/triple-LP, their first product since 2001, is grand, somber, amelodic, arhythmic and slow, leaving plenty of time to admire the notes' altered states.- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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I still prefer 2004's disreputable "Winchester Cathedral." But this is a proper guitar fix nevertheless. [Feb/Mar 2007]- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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These are "rock songs" in Ned Rorem's dreams -- they're as ornate as a high-class geisha house.- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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The fun comes easier when he fools around with the title conceit, and even sometimes when he thinks about it.- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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This isn't the gauntlet "Fishscale" was. It's just a good bunch of songs. [Feb/Mar 2007]- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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They're unflinchingly unsensationalistic. But it's the beats that turn this into noir worthy of Jim Thompson. [Feb/Mar 2007]- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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Sure enough, the first time through, too many [of the songs] had faded on me. Soon, however, even ones I'd given up on were bum-rushing my earhole.- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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So much that is sprightly about the debut is subsumed here by ambition, to be kind, and privilege, to be brutally accurate. [Feb/Mar 2007]- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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Though smarty-pants Lemony Snicket fans may get references I miss, in between there are times when Stephin Merritt's monotonous low baritone seems merely inexpressive.- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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This album lays it on too thick... and declines the thematic burden of "Separation Sunday." As stories, on the other hand, the songs could convince anyone that kids have a hard time.- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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Though I wish the beats were less corny-orchestral, Fiasco marks his own turf in a three-song sequence that would have led the second side back in the day. [Feb/Mar 2007]- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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Never rousing and too often glum, the album is carried by its intelligence, integrity and terrible beauty. [Feb/Mar 2007]- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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None of it means a damn thing beyond what it is. Which is just what they were trying so hard to achieve.- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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What's most remarkable about this stylistic portmanteau is that every song is an original even though you assume several are among their shoulda-been-a-hit-but-wtf-is-it? covers.- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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If only she was as sophisticated as she thinks she is. Or as funny. [Feb/Mar 2007]- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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If opulence can signify liberation in this grotesquely materialistic time, as in hip-hop it can, then Beyoncé earns her props with a bunch of songs she says were inspired all in a rush by her "Dreamgirls" character. [Feb/Mar 2007]- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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The entire construction is a thing of grace -- conservative, and new under the sun.- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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As narrative and prophecy, a less coherent response to Christofascism than you might want, but one alt needs, held together and moved ahead by its forthright hooks and beats.- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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The musical construction is so jaunty that they can't be serious even if they're cutting their alienated fans out of the joke. [Feb/Mar 2007]- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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Such is the lure of his hypersensitivity that his admirers forgive and even applaud the extreme attenuation of this tastefully decorated click-and-loop.- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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Once a punky brat, Jemima Pearl now sounds like a punk broad -- like she might join the Donnas if that was a better job. But listen through the bigger voice and louder mix and you'll hear someone who's thinking all the time.- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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At least when the bassist ruled they livened up this overworked dynamic with beats. Now they tax it with tunes.- MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
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