New York Magazine (Vulture)'s Scores

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For 158 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 45% higher than the average critic
  • 0% same as the average critic
  • 55% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 8.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 God's Son
Lowest review score: 10 18
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 96 out of 158
  2. Mixed: 40 out of 158
  3. Negative: 22 out of 158
158 music reviews
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    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Get Rich Or Die Tryin'
    Without question, 50 Cent has one of the most distinctive voices in hip-hop: He raps in a molasses-slow, beyond-laconic drawl, and chants in a singsongy patois reminiscent of dance-hall stars like Sean Paul. But there isn’t enough invention in the rhymes, and, worse, barely any humor.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Raven
    Reed coaxes great performances out of a few unexpected collaborators--Ornette Coleman delivers frenetic sax playing on “Guilty,” and downtown singer Antony warbles in a truly otherworldly soprano on “The Bed”--but these players are crowded out by the album’s sprawling mediocrity.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    God's Son
    Here, Nas is so fierce, so plainspoken, so lean with words, that he demolishes not just the oeuvre of our ruling rappers (yes, including Eminem's) and recalls the music's lyrical champs like Rakim, he even brings to mind hip-hop progenitors like Muhammad Ali in the "Rumble in the Jungle" era.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Charmbracelet
    What's particularly, notably bad here is its production.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Under Construction
    Strange and wonderful.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Blueprint 2: The Gift & the Curse
    What a curse Jay-Z's ideas represent: Nearly everything about The Blueprint 2 sounds like a retread, including its title.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    3D
    Charitable fans and critics will probably seize on the few sparks generated by 3D to eulogize TLC as vanguards. The truth -- that their riskier impulses were often tamped down by a conservative industry -- is somewhat more depressing.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Justified
    Timberlake and the Neptunes work hard at creating memorable songs, an admirable undertaking given the pathetic state of songwriting in pop music. But little more is expressed in songs like "Señorita" and "Take It From Here" than flowery notions of romance or brusque come-ons.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    American Supreme
    American Supreme proves that Suicide can reach backward and still remain ahead of the pack.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Shaman
    Trots out an unceasingly uninteresting parade of pop personalities singing against a patina of Latin music so drained of ethnicity and soul that it makes Herb Alpert seem like Sun Ra by comparison.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Melody A.M.
    Röyksopp is savvy at pulling out the joker in the pack just when the music threatens to become cutesy.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Sea Change
    Beck desperately aims for Johnny Cash's funereal blues, but the unremitting bleakness of Sea Change more closely resembles alternative rock's limpid whine.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Songs For The Deaf
    One of the heaviest rock albums since Seattle's heyday.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    A Rush Of Blood To The Head
    It's Coldplay's lack of humor, the very straightness of its lyrics, that makes the dourness so detestable. And where miserabilists past had a strong pop sensibility, Coldplay is content to create directionless palettes of sound.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Rising
    Springsteen refuses to allow himself either vengefulness or excessive pride, and he avoids too-literal musings on the tragedy that ultimately undermined songs like Neil Young's "Let's Roll."
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Halos & Horns
    Parton's risks here bring great, unexpected pleasures.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    By The Way
    By the Way is as enjoyable as being stuck in an elevator playing a Muzak version of "Under the Bridge."
    • 55 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Heathen Chemistry
    Psychedelia is really only compelling when ego takes a backseat to kaleidoscopic music, and the Gallaghers are, of course, incapable of such a gesture.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Murray Street
    Murray Street is like falling asleep with the TV on and waking to rapturous white noise.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Heathen
    For anyone with a critical reading of his long career, the album is a drowsy downer unconvincingly cloaked in interplanetary piffle.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Private Press
    It's less rootsy than its predecessor, as Shadow moves from the bohemian, jazzy hip-hop he's come to be associated with to more synthetic sounds like electro and synth pop.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Eminem Show
    The Eminem Show has pretensions toward real life, but it possesses all the resonance and revelation of a sitcom.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Frantic
    Ferry could seem too reverent toward the material on As Time Goes By, but his new album, Frantic, feels a lot looser (and less respectful) even as it revisits the singer's favorite sources (Dylan, Leadbelly).
    • 61 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    18
    Moby is no auteur, a fact made painfully clear by his terrible new album, 18, which revisits the already derivative territory of Play.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    When I Was Cruel
    An album of taut, bilious rock that -- propelled, not coincidentally, by original Attractions members Steve Nieve and Pete Thomas -- has all the teetering-on-unhinged feel of Costello's very best work.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Are You Passionate?
    Young's surprisingly conservative new album, Are You Passionate?, is simply frustrating, and worse, often as risk-averse as a CSNY reunion.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Under Rug Swept
    Morissette seems unwilling to step into unfamiliar territory.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Come With Us
    Ironically, little on the album captures the imagination the way narrower genres like techno, house, or even hip-hop often do
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    AOI: Bionix
    Bionix continues the party that began on the first AOI volume, Mosaic Thump, but without the endless collaborations that made that album feel forced.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Goddess In The Doorway
    Goddess is the only forward-looking project by a Rolling Stone since the band flirted with disco on "Miss You."
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