Rolling Stone's Scores

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For 5,917 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 34% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 62% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 6.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 Magic
Lowest review score: 0 Know Your Enemy
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,632 out of 5917
  2. Mixed: 2,245 out of 5917
  3. Negative: 40 out of 5917
5917 music reviews
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    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sweeter
    The 10 songs on Sweeter, DeGraw's fourth album, are taut, efficient and hook-packed, with guitars bolstering the big choruses....He's also an incurable cheeseball.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Love After War
    Thicke spends a lot of time pondering romantic turmoil, but he's at his best when he reverts to classic loverman form.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ultraista
    Full of dazzling arrangements and killer beats. Memorable songs? Not so much.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    9th Ward Pickin' Parlor
    The real problem with coffeehouse stuff like "We Could Go and Start Again" isn't that it's corny--it's just tofu-bland. [6 Apr 2006, p.69]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Salt On Sea Glass
    On this long-brewing project with ex-Cibo Matto sound scientist Yuka Honda, she uses her soprano more conventionally but still makes magic, mixing feathery, Minnie Riperton-style soul singing with wind chimes, Fender Rhodes, and other trip-hoppy atmospherics.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Big Mess
    Until the band fully embraces their ping-pong guitars and surly one-liners ("I wish I saw myself the way you see me now"), Grouplove will likely remain a singles band rather than the new-R.E.M. their ambition hints at.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Velocity of Sound
    Compresses eleven impeccable examples of retro-cool songcraft into twenty-eight minutes that don't give a damn what year it is.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    In Love And Death
    The songwriting is all too callow at times, but McCracken's earnest moments suggest classic-rock romanticism rather than the cathartic self-pity of similarly worked-up young 'uns.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sleeping With Ghosts
    It's a rare rocktronic mix that actually grooves, even if the ride can be a little jittery.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Seeing Sounds
    The Neptunes don't necessarily need guest MCs to make a great album of their own, but if they want their rhymes to keep up with the strength of their tunes, they need to dig a little deeper than this.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Head Carrier
    The follow-up is looser and less burdened by the past.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Cheek to Cheek
    She sometimes blasts away at these songs rather than relaxing into them. But on challenges like the subtle Billy Strayhorn ballad "Lush Life," the queen of the little monsters more than proves she can be a sophisticated lady too.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Weezer (Red Album)
    It's rich, often funny material, but in Cuomo's ambition to make a career-sweeping tour de force-- telegraphed by the band's choice to return to estimable producer Rick Rubin--he badly overcooks the musical porridge, layering on overdubs, packing songs with key-change modulations and meandering instrumental codas, and generally refusing to hone and self-edit.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Spirit Of Apollo
    On Apollo, L.A. scenemakers Squeak E. Clean and DJ Zegon pull in a wild roster of stars for what feels like a playful unity jam.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    More Than Just a Dream
    The pleasures of the songcraft don't quite compensate for dopey lyrics, the bland vocals of Fitz and co-lead singer Noelle Scaggs, and the relentless spazzing-out.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    In a Warzone
    ["Skinhead Rob" Aston] doesn't have all that much to say about the government, but this is music best measured in bruises sustained than brain cells expanded.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Stories
    Too bad Stories brings so little to the EDM conversation.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Big Bang
    In the end... The Big Bang feels as hollow as a CGI-fueled Hollywood blockbuster.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Some People Have Real Problems
    The main attractions are Sia's smoky voice and quirky personality. Yet not enough of that personality makes it into the music.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Run The Road Volume 2
    Fans will find diamonds in the grimy rough, but for casual listeners, it might not be worth the search. [9 Feb 2006, p.66]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Third Gleam
    These overly literal ditties feel a little too simplistic. [Sep 2020, p.68]
    • Rolling Stone
      • Posted Sep 17, 2020
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Sam's Town
    On Sam's Town they seem like they're trying to make a big statement, except they have nothing to say.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Climate Change
    The guy who promises to "pull a little hair/smack a little oooh" on "Educate Ya" may not always be as charming as his one-world groove, but he knows how to host a party.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Anthem
    From the bubble grooves of the boldly titled "I've Got Soul" to the easeful power pop of "Cut Right Through Me," their pro-rock competence is pretty impressive too.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Rize of the Fenix
    You wonder if Black and Gass have finally turned into the overblown wanksters they parody.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pacific Daydream
    Butch Walker's post-postmodern production sometimes overwhelms the songs, but its best moments--"Weekend Woman" could be Weezer's "Good Vibrations" with is everything-but-the-sink hooks and a catchy, Lady Gaga–like bridge--gamely make up for the places where Pacific Daydream sounds like Weezer by Numbers.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Paradise [EP]
    Del Rey is far from a great singer, and her songs tend to drag. But her shtick--1950s torch balladry spiced with sexed-up 21st-century provocation--is at least conceptually sharp.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Harsh Light of Day
    The only significant change from their breakthrough effort, 1998's All the Pain Money Can Buy, is more expensive, expansive-sounding production and an increasingly overt Beatles influence in both the songs and sonics.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Blueprint 2: The Gift & the Curse
    One more strong record from hip-hop's most dependable voice.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lost Highway
    Lost Highway moves in on Nashville as shrewdly as "It's My Life" skimmed Stockholm seven years ago. [28 Jun 2007, p.71]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Rockpango
    Their latest is a rudderless band's reach for roots and realism.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Johannesburg [EP]
    Too many forced climaxes here lack the organic sense of drama the Mumfords summon at their best, and the pan-African elements aren’t integrated into the pop-rock song structures, so the lively polyrhythms and keening vocals merely decorate the swelling choruses rather than transforming them.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    True Romance
    It's a loose concept, but it delivers.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Careless World: Rise of the Last King
    Tyga's strength isn't in introspection, but curation.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Emancipation Of Mimi
    There aren't any great songs among Mimi's club tunes and pop-chart-conscious tracks, and Carey is still suffering from a serious crisis of confidence.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Music Is My Savior
    Mims can’t carry a whole album, and Savior is long on quasi-Southern junk rhymes about Mims’ general excellence and panty-melting suaveness.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Appeal: Georgia's Most Wanted
    Besides the distortion-laced "Gucci Time," the biggest change-ups here are drab gangsta ballads: "Haterade" features Pharrell at his most insufferably croon-y, and "O'Dog" makes you actually wish guest singer Wyclef would stick to politics.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rodeo
    Left on his own, Scott can grow tiresome. "I Can Tell" sounds monochromatic without another voice to push this astute curator. Some rock stars are better leading bands than going solo.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    She Is Coming [EP]
    She Is Coming is an unkempt little EP that tries to cram her wild oeuvre, from molly to Mark Ronson, into just six songs. That said, you can’t deny Cyrus remains a freak of pop nature.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Business Is Business
    Such moments excepted ["Oh U Went" and "Wit the Racks"], the content of Business Is Business feels bland, especially for an expectations-thwarting artist like Thug.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Til The Casket Drops
    Songs like the fluffy synth jam "Champion" make it sound like they spent too much time at Pharrell's beach house.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    My December
    The tunes come up seriously short on choruses and heavy on the Alanis Morissette references.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Battle Studies
    Battle Studies is terrific when Mayer drops the seriousness, pondering and sending up his reputation as a rake.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lift Your Spirit
    Highlights like the boisterous "Can You Do This" and an EDM-free mix of "Wake Me Up" (just in case anyone forgot he's that guy) are plenty radio-friendly, but the songs never quite add up to a cohesive album.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Introducing Joss Stone
    For the most part, Stone employs her remarkable instrument with focus and nuance on Introducing, and the result is an album full of solid pop-wise R&B.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ye
    The Life of Pablo was chaotic, insecure, yet often brilliant. Ye is more chaotic, less secure, with enough sporadic flashes of brilliance to make you hungry for much, much more. It could have been worse.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Simulation Theory
    Most of Simulation Theory could be about our surveillance state and/or a relationship. The blurring results in clunkiness.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Love Is a Four Letter Word
    He's added more world-music textures to his folk pop, and turned up the blissed-out vibes on Love Is a Four Letter Word.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    C'mon C'mon
    It's frustrating to imagine how much more power Crow could amp up by tattering the edges of her best songs and avoiding the crowd-pleasing delicacy that makes her sound like a Sheryl Crow cover band. Led by Bob Seger.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    There's A Fire
    Despite a few arresting moments, such as the big-muscled title track, the band never stumbles on much that's recognizably its own.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Some Loud Thunder
    Less energetic and more all-over-the-place, it's ramshackle rock full of drones and jangles that crest and hum, with Alec Ounsworth splashing his warbly David Byrne alto around like cheap paint.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Michigan Boy Boat [Mixtape]
    Yachty is a great ambassador for Michigan rap, but as Michigan Boy Boat illustrates, he’s far from the best practitioner of the style. He is the protagonist of the mixtape, but he isn’t its anchor.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Made In China
    Made In China soon disintegrates into demo-quality slackness. [8 Sep 2005, p.116]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Tropical Storm
    Only the thickly gnarled riddims of the Sly-and-Robbie-produced "You Babe" really sets your ass to swaying -- and in the process, that song underscores just what a weak Storm this really is.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Golden State
    Gavin Rossdale's delicious rasp is still unequivocally sexy, but his melodies are rote versions of the same old song.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Speed of Things
    They tentatively attempt lounge-y jazz ("Dark Water") and falsetto disco ("War Zone"), but their real energy goes into harmonies so fussily layered and childlike that all their lonely yearning can't help but come off as precious.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Girl Talk
    Nash can't sing or rap--she tries to do both--and her tunes are anemic; her punk postures are borrowed from musicians smarter and more talented than she.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Lonely Avenue
    Formal knowledge works against them as they go from unfunny Randy Newman ("Levi Johnston's Blues") to too-cute Barry Manilow ("Belinda") to overdone Elvis Costello ("Password," about breaking into a girlfriend's e-mail).
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Grace Potter & the Nocturnals
    Potter's youthfulness can make for flower-soup lyrics but backlit by a no-nonsense band that massages Memphis grooves, light rock and pinot-noir reggae, it all bursts with promise.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Identified
    Hudgens hews to the Disney content code, only occasionally tiptoeing into double-entendre. Hudgens can't really sing, so her producers handle the heavy lifting.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Picture Show
    They still favor mannered Anglophile synth pop that has somehow retained its "alternative" branding three decades after the Eighties.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Feed the Beast
    Of course, even the weaker songs have their dance-floor potential. Petras is, above all else, a pure fan of pop music and the feeling it exudes. But in chasing her new status as the type of pop star who has Top 40 potential, she abandoned the freakishly forward-thinking personality that built her a base to begin with. Here, the beast has been tamed.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Detour
    Not every guest spot works--Lauper's idiosyncrasies don't quite mesh with Alison Krauss's pristine bluegrass harmonies on Dolly Parton's "Hard Candy Christmas." But Lauper and Willie Nelson are simpatico originals on "Night Life," and "You're the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly," with Vince Gill playing Conway to her Loretta, is Cyndi's kind of shtick.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    0304
    Essentially a wanna-be version of Madonna's American Life.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Revolutions
    Too many forgettable concoctions make this just another so-so DJ mix. [10 Jun 2004, p.91]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Red Letter Days
    A straightforward barnburner of an album.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    We Are Young Money
    It's inconsistent, veering from Drake (always solid, but distracted here) to very average MCs like Gudda Gudda. One bright spot is sassy newcomer Nicki Minaj.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    SZNZ: Spring [EP]
    Grading on a curve, the composition, “Opening Night,” deserves a solid B. It’s dorky, catchy, and whimsical. ... The rest of their springtime retreat sounds generally more Weezerish. ... As with the corniness of “Opening Night,” Cuomo’s strong knack for vocal melodies throughout saves a lot of otherwise half-baked or cliched lyrics.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Kiss
    Kiss too often defaults to mediocre dance pop like the Owl City collaboration "Good Time" – heavy on Disney-fied thump, light on memorable hooks that might highlight her unassuming adorableness.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wasteland, Baby!
    Wasteland, Baby! has enough encouraging displays of maturation to feel like a transitional moment for Hozier. At its best, the album carves out a space for the singer to work out his creative tensions as he finds new ways to make his straight folk influences more accessible without losing anything along the way.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Honky Tonk Time Machine
    Eighties pop shine cut with pedal steel/fiddle poetry, Texas swing, cantina blues and achingly-crooned nostalgia that generally doesn’t feel hard sell, even when things gets treacly. Which of course, they do.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Let It Rain
    It's a harrowing trip, and while clearly heartfelt, one is left with the impression that Let It Rain isn't so much meant to be enjoyed as pitied.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hands All Over
    Levine and crew could be blue-eyed-soul godheads, the 21st-century Hall and Oates. But they need to loosen up first.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Second Album
    Their second album isn't as radically unusual as its well-regarded predecessor, but the template remains the same.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Bright Lights Of America
    The Bright Lights of America, Anti-Flag's second major-label album and eighth overall, proves for the billionth time that good intentions don't always make good music.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Here We Go Again: Celebrating the Genius of Ray Charles
    Here We Go Again feels like a missed opportunity. Nelson's nylon-stabbing guitar is too scarce here, giving way to Marsalis' jazz band, a slick cast that rotates solos exhaustively.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Beat The Devil's Tattoo
    Devil's Tattoo is unremittingly grim, and undeniably fun. Few bands wear their frowns so well.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Julian Plenti Is... Skyscraper
    With this solo alter ego, he digs into his gloomy-balladeer side.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    As U Were
    Japanese-American hip-hop lifer Lyrics Born may never top Later That Day..., his career-defining 2003 album, but he still puts in an honest year's work.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Version
    An audacious set of... left-field covers (Radiohead's "Just," the Jam's "Pretty Green") turned into dance-soul tracks.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    20/20
    Less a great album than a group of scattershot bangers.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wildflower
    It's not just that the album would be more fun if it rocked harder; all too often on these songs she's straining for high notes or stranded in an arrangement that leaves her voice sounding breathy and reedy
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Only By The Night
    Only by the Night is long on astral, arena-ready largeness, with blippy keyboards, droney guitars and whoa-oh-oh backing vocals.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    All Delighted People EP
    Stevens is best balancing his composer side with his singer-songwriter side on songs like "Arnika," which packs all that avant-Andrew Lloyd Webber ambition into soft, simple benedictions for bedroom-size cathedrals.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Devil You Know
    Heaven and Hell excel at ye olde power-dungeon plod. Too bad Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler's most churning riffs tend to last mere seconds, before getting buried under attention-deficit arrangements and Dio's theatrical mythopoeia--which gets tiring when so many songs exceed six minutes.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Learning From Falling
    You're left pining for more of her delicious weirdness, more sitar solos, more of her trombone playing and Swahili lyrics.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Curse Of Blondie
    Too much of The Curse would be blandly anonymous if not for Harry's inimitable coo.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Guitars and Microphones
    A collection of brassy manifestoes about independence and, naturally, outer space.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sun, Sun, Sun
    Takes Rilo's bright romance to a dreamy L.A.-rock extreme.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Double Up
    This album piles on the bump 'n' grind.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Global Warming
    Vocally, he's less an MC than a greeter or a party promoter--and every­one on the planet is on his guest list.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Eat Me, Drink Me
    Forget what you know about this guy and it'll come off like a decent, and rather efficient, little goth-pop record.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Greetings from California
    The pristine production undermines any realness, like an amber-tinted Instagram filter.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    X
    Chris Brown's sixth album is adventurous musically and a total mess lyrically.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings
    The hair-shirt single "You Can't Count on Me" and the cheerily grim "Hanging Tree" are little masterpieces of pop craft, their arrangements and Duritz's invitingly petulant wail often echoing golden-era R.E.M. Sometimes that craft is enough: The latter song is so packed with guitar fireworks that its buzz-killing lines about freezing to death barely register.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Be As You Are (Songs From An Old Blue Chair)
    Be As You Are is plenty pretty, but aside from the mildly Caribbean-flavored "Guitars and Tiki Bars," it sounds like Chesney's drummer never got back from fetching the Coronas.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Laws of Illusion
    Sarah McLachlan's first disc since splitting from her husband, Ashwin Sood, feels scattered: The carefree single "Loving You Is Easy" feels out of place.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Evanescence
    The sometimes syrupy mix of piano, guitar and strings feels more like a formula than a genuine catharsis.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Donkey
    Donkey's plenty animated, but it lacks tunes that truly hijack eardrums, which makes it feel like a decent party--fun enough, but soon forgotten.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Evolve
    This aesthetic journey has alienated longtime fans missing the concise, angry Ani while attracting newbies charmed by her chops. Evolve speaks to both camps with a succinct summation of her experimental side, here focused and more refined.
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