Paste Magazine's Scores

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For 4,085 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 67% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 30% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 76
Highest review score: 100 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band [50th Anniversary Edition Deluxe Version]
Lowest review score: 10 Songs From Black Mountain
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,649 out of 4085
  2. Mixed: 400 out of 4085
  3. Negative: 36 out of 4085
4085 music reviews
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    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END!
    Having zigged for a while, Godspeed zags (of course) on G_d’s Pee, bringing back some of the inscrutable elements that made the band so interesting in the first place.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Head of Roses
    Wasner has you in her grip from the scratchy layered vocals and slippery synths on album opener “Heads” all the way to the melancholy, dwindling notes of “Head of Roses.”
    • 86 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    New Long Leg
    Some grin in the face of the absurd and rotten, and others reflect all the hot air back outward. Dry Cleaning make an art of doing both.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Is 4 Lovers
    With Is 4 Lovers, they not only prove that they can stretch without compromising, but also that intimacy and discovery can still be rockin’ AF.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Promises
    There’s a timeless quality to Promises, an inscrutable sense that the album could hail from 30 years in the past or 30 years into the future.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Under the Pepper Tree
    While kid-friendliness is a great merit of Under the Pepper Tree, its ineffable beauty makes the album a fast favorite for a person of any age to unwind after a long day.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Sketchy.
    Tune-Yards continue to make meaningful and joyful art after the watershed moment of reckoning on their last album.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Oh No
    Xiu Xiu’s esoteric lyrics and challenging, textured sounds are part of what make them so singular as a group, but can also be overdone. OH NO’s moving moments of catharsis and uplifting hope are muted by how exhaustingly over-the-top the rest of the album feels.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Today We're the Greatest
    On Today We’re the Greatest, they make great music sound effortless.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Chemtrails Over the Country Club
    Chemtrails Over the Country Club is a record full of euphoric highs and baffling lows. It’s an enjoyable listen that cinematically celebrates Del Rey’s vocal prowess.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers
    It may be called The Moon and Stars, but June’s latest showing for Fantasy Records is music to consume while perched by a window fragmented with sunbeams. Just the sound of June’s voice is enough to defrost any lingering icy memories of a cruel winter.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    These 13
    Throughout, Bird and Mathus span a wide swath of human experience, and the practiced ease with which they do so, and their easy rapport, suggest that maybe they ought to do this more often.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 64 Critic Score
    When You See Yourself
    As they’ve grown bigger, their songs have become increasingly interchangeable, and while that’s made for a certain measure of consistency, it’s anything but exciting.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Carnage
    Nick Cave may very well be the avatar for the idea that what we think of as “mellow” can be “heavy” and vice versa. With Carnage, he and Ellis prove that point yet again. Believe it or not, they also stretch themselves again, suggesting there may be no end to the inspiration they have up their sleeves.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Working With God
    Working with God shows us that the Melvins are indestructible at this point. Where their single-mindedness might grate from one perspective, from another perspective, they’ve become the picture of dependability we can only hope all bands would reach.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    The Shadow I Remember
    Another perfectly solid Cloud Nothings record that expertly straddles that imaginary knife Baldi was balancing on earlier.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 92 Critic Score
    Little Oblivions
    Even with booming guitars, pounding drums and soaring instrumentals, Little Oblivions feels just as intimate as Baker’s more, well, intimate albums. It’s an impossible task to make a massive capital-R Rock album sound just as home in an arena as it would in a living room, but somehow, some way, Baker has managed to crack the code.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Cool Dry Place
    Cool Dry Place is unexpectedly groovy, with hooks and rhythms worming their way into hearts and minds in more ways than one.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Open Door Policy
    After a two-album stale patch a decade ago, The Hold Steady have rebounded to become more adventurous than they were before, and Finn’s storytelling has never been stronger.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Who Am I?
    Where tracks on My Mind Makes Noises had a tendency to blend together, Who Am I? flows without becoming repetitive. Winding between melancholy ballads, poignant love songs and screamable rock anthems, the album displays a range and skill that make Pale Waves a force to be reckoned with.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    New Fragility
    This batch is as tuneful and accessible as anything Ounsworth has written so far.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Tyron
    TYRON is an exciting follow-up project whose bifurcated structure encapsulates the duality of slowthai’s effervescent rap persona and the evolving interiority of Tyron Frampton.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Good Woman
    While their quiet folk songs are not a thing of the past, Good Woman benefits from the poppier textures and shiny new grooves implemented with help from Congleton.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    For the First Time
    Black Country, New Road showcases immense disregard for standard musical structures and an affinity for shrieking, discordant noise. Unlike their peers, they rely less frequently on jolting stops and starts, instead relying on gradual jazz and post-rock buildups.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Ignorance
    One of the best albums to emerge in this strange young year.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Medicine at Midnight
    At a brief 36 minutes long, Medicine at Midnight is a solid addition to a discography that raises the bar for what it means to be a rock act that seamlessly evolves with the times. It also exemplifies how the group isn’t afraid to stretch their imaginations whenever the mood strikes them.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Third Chimpanzee [EP]
    It takes several listens to realize that the tracks on The Third Chimpanzee each function on an interior logic that’s quite satisfying to climb into, like being inside a video demonstration of a Rubik’s Cube getting solved over and over.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    OK Human
    Weezer has always had heart, and OK Human shows the value of taking time to record instead of filling the silence with countless tours and albums. Weezer is finally taking risks outside of the formula that has worked so well, and they still have a lot of mileage left in them.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Strawberry Mansion
    Strawberry Mansion, named for a neighborhood in Philadelphia where both of Slim’s grandfathers grew up, is a little shaggy around the edges, and probably could’ve done with a four-song trim. But it offers a clear look at one songwriter’s experiences during a monumental cultural moment and frames them within his own personal struggles.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Collapsed in Sunbeams
    On Parks’ long-awaited debut album Collapsed in Sunbeams, her narratives remain vivid and often crushing. Likewise intact is her vibrant fusion of rock, jazz, folk and hip-hop.
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