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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    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Who I Am
    In this side project, he's not trying to be too different from the Bros, just going for a more retro-soul vibe with a band of old Prince alumni.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    I-Empire
    The results so far: mixed. I-Empire is full of big, faintly Eighties-sounding chiming choruses and arms-outstretched melodies, and DeLonge deploys the signposts of significance all over.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    White Lilies Island
    Imbruglia's delicate, sweet and well-behaved singing isn't the ideal vehicle for expressing angst, even if most of these minor-chord, gray-skies anthems seem to be yearning to do just that.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    No Boys Allowed
    Her second album is hit-or-miss, with failed attempts at pop crossover (the Timbaland collabo "Breaking Point") and sub-Rihanna reggae moves. Still, the high points are worth digging out.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Timbaland Presents Shock Value
    Shock Value doesn't feel as random and indistinct as many albums by producers using all-star lineups do. [19 Apr 2007, p.62]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Somebody's Miracle
    On Somebody's Miracle, she goes for a folksy, acoustic style, but she still oversings, holding notes too long and tackling pop choruses she doesn't have half the voice for.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Animal
    It's repulsive, obnoxious and ridiculously catchy--thanks to songwriter-producers Dr. Luke and Max Martin, who envelop Ke$ha's bratty raps in percolating beats and buzzing bass lines.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Payable On Death
    Ultimately, the inspirational message... gets lost in uninspired rhymes.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Wild Ones
    Here he largely defers to producers (including Dr. Luke) and guest stars (Sia, J. Lo), and watches the cash roll in.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Lonely Road
    Much of the time the Jumpsuits end up sounding like a lesser version of Hawthorne Heights.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Unleashed
    Most of the time he sounds like a pipsqueak trying to play grown-up--a Lothario whose pickup lines land, time after time, with a thud.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Michael
    This is not a Michael Jackson album. Jackson was one of pop's biggest fussbudgets: Even when his songs were half-baked, the production was pristine. He would not have released anything like this compilation, a grab bag of outtakes and outlines assembled by Jackson's label.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Mail On Sunday
    For much of his debut album, Flo Rida seems like he's trying to match the broad appeal of "Low," but he has only limited success.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Godfather Buried Alive
    Godfather doesn't sound dated; it sounds dateless, in a bad sense--boilerplate raps and beats that could have been recorded whenever and wherever. [16 Sep 2004, p.78]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Music For Cougars
    On their sixth album they're still turning out pop rock so good-natured it practically gives you a big smile and a fist-bump.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Old Boots, New Dirt
    Even his big, guitar-driven songs owe as much to Nickelback as to Nashville – if the pedal steel on ''Two Night Town'' sounds forlorn, maybe that's because it’s competing for attention with gravelly alt-rock distortion.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Prophets of Rage
    12 hardrocking lefty diatribes against government conspiracies ("Drones – they got ya tapped, they got ya phone," Chuck D raps in "Take Me Higher"), civil injustice ("We fuckin' matter," he declares on "Who Owns Who") and, in the case of B-Real's rhymes, restrictive weed laws ("Legalize Me").
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    EP2
    As with EP 1, released last fall, this four-song set feels like a faint echo of the band's later albums, 1990's Bossanova and 1991's Trompe le Monde, lacking those records' frizzy menace, zany propulsion and memorable tunes.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bitchin'
    Bitchin' offers little you haven't heard before--even if you haven't heard a Donnas record--but it should go well with a beer or six.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Earth vs. the Pipettes
    The voices can't equal, say, Bananarama's depth of feeling. But in tracks like "Captain Rhythm"--which partly suggests "Da Doo Ron Ron" on Jupiter--the Pipettes still ride the dance beat like a rocket ship.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    No Fixed Address
    They're masters of generality, packaging all the bland blue-collar fantasies and unrequited nostalgia of an According to Jim rerun into formulaic head-nodders. The Canadian rockers' latest set is no exception, though they've cast a wider net this time.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Saints Of Los Angeles
    The trip down memory lane helps the Crüe connect to their old sound: Much of Saints rocks with the same raucous fun as their Eighties albums, delivering glam guitars and arena-size choruses on cuts like the wickedly catchy 'Down at the Whisky.'
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hood Billionaire
    The Miami MC's seventh LP explodes with none of the ambition or scope of March's Mastermind--playing it safe, like a knockoff version of Jay Z's back-to-basics speed bump American Gangster, from 2007.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Raven
    Reed has once again stretched the boundaries of popular music and, in doing so, has honored Edgar Allan Poe's illustrious legacy, along with his own.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Boomkatalog One
    Despite their fakeness, Boomkat fill the smarter-than-your-average-pop void left by fellow film-music switch-hitter Vitamin C.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Planta
    Their music is punky, clubby, intensely annoying and other qualities their fans will describe as "fun," but therein lies the band's integrity: They tend to stay out of the middle of the road.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Full Circle
    Rhyme schemes are frequently sophomoric, the production is already slightly dated, and the monotony of down-tempo songs is barely broken by cliched floor-stompers about Escalades and playa haters.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Everyday Demons
    Everyday Demons will satisfy metal fans who are in between favorite albums, but if your tastes don't run along the lines of The Simpsons' Otto the bus driver, you can take a pass.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Music From Another Dimension!
    The usual forehead-slapping decisions are here: goopy Eighties production, tired synth horns, a Diane Warren ballad.... The best thing about Music From Another Dimension! is the chance to hear Joe Perry and Brad Whitford play guitar.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Baptized
    The sound on Baptized somehow links U2 to Rascal Flatts, adding Springsteen stances in "Wild Heart." More unexpectedly, there's also a banjo shuffle.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Forever
    Aside from a couple of ponderous, buzz-killing instrumentals, Forever is one long rave.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Jesus Is King
    The plaintive, direct singing mode is West’s best delivery vehicle across the album. The rapping is uniformly lackluster when not delivered by one of the brothers Thornton in their return as legendary rap duo Clipse.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    In The City
    The rest of Rudolf's self-produced debut is a middling rock record dressed up in sleek digital clothes.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Damita Jo
    Smacks of trying too hard.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Chronicles Of Life And Death
    They falter by attempting to stray from the formula they've mastered. [28 Oct 2004, p.100]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    HitNRun: Phase One
    If only he'd really relax and let it flow a little more.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wiped Out!
    The warmth of "Sweater Weather" and the rest of the Neighbourhood's debut album is gone on Wiped Out!, replaced by a ponderous kind of cool.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dangerous Dreams
    The album's flat production values eventually dull the rhythm section's choppy bite.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Ocean Eyes
    Love songs like "On the Wing"--a ballad with a plush, twinkling electro beat where the singer lies awake dreaming of his beloved-- are serious mush, like an amorous e-mail you'll regret in the morning.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Weezer [Black Album]
    Even if he primarily composed on pan flute, it’d still be what it is--another edition of their signature precise, poker-faced California pop-rock. ... Though this time out the sense of irony is somewhat less blanched and the music a great deal more fun.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Illusion Of Progress
    Most of the time, though, the band sticks to its comfort zone, with songs that proceed through a sequence of genre clichés as Lewis howls out woe-is-me's and lists of grievances.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Anthem of the Peaceful Army
    There’s an element of the ridiculous in this. But there’s also a charm to their guileless, retro-fetishist conviction. And dudes have chops.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Witness
    Throughout, Perry is less like the so-unusual, candy-coated Cyndi Lauper of "Teenage Dream," and is more an anonymous disco crooner, a breathy moderator leading us through passionate but muted songs of longing and empowerment.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship
    The sentiments are so genuine and earnest, it's hard to fault Arie for this gauzy blend of New Age-y self-help babble and sunny, plucky folk. [10 Aug 2006, p.98]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Light
    On bright pleasures like the New Wave-y 'We Will Walk,' Light comes close to becoming an attention-holding pop album. But it's dragged into earnest tedium by good-natured platitudes hippie-soul moments like 'Thunder,' on which Matisyeezy sounds like a self-serious indie rapper with a major vegan bent.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Silence Is Easy
    Sounds like Coldplay covering Barry Manilow.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Nightbird
    One could easily mistake Nightbird for something the duo made in the Eighties -- and if you love Erasure, you won't care.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Dangerous And Moving
    Although spunky cuties Julia Volkova and Lena Katina have improved their English-pronunciation skills, the hooks they're handed this second time around are decidedly duller.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    We Don't Need To Whisper
    DeLonge yanks heartstrings with so-so results.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hollywood: A Story of a Dozen Roses
    His fifth album balances bumptious party fare (the Pharrell-produced "Tease," the Eighties R&B glide "Baby's in Love") with dark-tinted slow jams.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Business Casual
    [Bemberger's] annoyingly wordy yelp carries only a few memorable lines and fewer melodies. [14 Oct 2004, p.98]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    All The Lost Souls
    Too much of All the Lost Souls is just pleasant ether, with Blunt showing a gift for drabness on forgettable ballads that make Coldplay seem like the Arctic Monkeys.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Escapology
    While 2000's Sing When You're Winning was a trashy masterpiece that the States ignored, Escapology sounds like a more self-conscious effort to craft a pop-rock blockbuster.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    California 37
    It's all catchy enough to keep you listening, slack-jawed.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Fly from Here
    Unfortunately, the band gets drowned out by weak vocals and synth goop – Steve Howe takes only a few disappointingly brief guitar solos, beyond his acoustic "Solitaire."
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Faith
    Faith consists of audio files recombined by producers and record executives into something coherent, listenable, and at times even enjoyable, but not quite dazzling. Maybe it’s not an Anthony Bourdain doc constructed with artificial intelligence, but it still feels a bit weird.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Palookaville
    Fatboy hasn't stopped pandering to his core crowd of fun-loving jalapeno-poppers. [14 Oct 2004, p.99]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Donda
    Donda occasionally gestures toward the truly shapeless writing on that LP [Playboi Carti’s Whole Lotta Red] but stops short of sounding as if West is truly articulating his id.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    For All The Dogs
    Drake meanders through yet another collection of superlong streaming bait. For All the Dogs may have its sparks. But too often, he settles for subliminal bars aimed at rivals like Kanye West and Pusha T, keeping it “gangsta” by putting down women and, of course, filling up the piggy bank.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Walls
    It’s fair to say Louis can break free as well. That doesn’t happen enough on Walls.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Horrorscope
    It's an almost perfectly consistent follow-up to the band's successful 1998 debut - perhaps a tad too consistent.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned
    The album equivalent of a Civil War reenactment. [30 Sep 2004, p.190]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The DeAndre Way
    A shaky stab at Soulja manhood, the third disc from the Crank That cutie finds him hitting drinking age, torn between pup and pit bull.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bring on the Comets
    Comets sounds best when Craig Pfunder trains his fake English accent on a chorus with a hot melody.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Universal Mind Control
    Huh? A Common album without a soul-jazz opener? Well, rap's deep thinker wanted to make club bangers. So he got the Neptunes to shape this sexed-up set.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Boomslang
    It's got all the atmosphere of a great rock record, but not the guts of one.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Just Whitney
    Lacks any fire whatsoever.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wake Up!
    Usually, the music--some of which is quite lovely--veers closer to the New Age neoclassicism of Vangelis or Kitaro, a warm fit for Francis' tender, elegant speaking voice.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Kris Allen
    The likability that helped Allen win last season is so carefully low-key here that it's nearly lost.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Midsummer Station
    His fluency with pop forms only makes things worse; Young spoils everything he touches. The Carly Rae Jepsen duet "Good Time" is grating enough to make you hate Jepsen, "Call Me Maybe" and also good times in general.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose
    For the most part, the old magical feeling sure ain't coming back. [2 Nov 2006, p.78]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Circle
    It does rock--if your idea of rock is Aerosmith doing Diane Warren songs.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Keys To The World
    In trying to wrest profundity from simplicity, Keys to the World is only profoundly disappointing.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    J. Lo
    Most of the songs on J.Lo, for all their craftsmanship, are easy to trace to last year's hits. And while dance pop doesn't necessarily demand great singers, Lopez is just scraping by.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Seventy Two & Sunny
    Country-crossover schmaltz.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Slipway Fires
    Most of the time, the lyrics are vague and unformed, and when they aren't, the band's lyrical details seem too singularly British to translate.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Back Home
    Alas, if you're looking for Slowhand to ignite the pyrotechnics, forget it.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    This Is Me... Then
    Most of the songs are pitched too high for her register, the production sounds cheap, and love has dulled whatever street edge she might have had.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Pressure Chief
    Only a handful of tracks -- including "No Phone" and the surprisingly sweet "She'll Hang the Baskets" -- push pleasure buttons like they ought to.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Devil's Playground
    The results are much better than his 1993 sci-fi shark jump, Cyberpunk, and so it automatically counts as the best thing he's done since "Cradle of Love."
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pop Trash
    The well-named Pop Trash shows off their jaded hooks and nasty wit; it's for fans only, but those of us who still crumple at the opening hiccups of "Hungry Like the Wolf" will be glad for another fix.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Incredible Machine
    Sugarland are ruthless in their desire to leave no radio-ready trick untried, but in the end it's too much machine, not enough heart.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Disconnection Notice
    Long on rote melodies and slickly produced SoCal stomp.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Latest Record Project, Vol. 1
    On the vast majority of Latest Record Project, he’s resorted to presenting off-the-cuff emotional reactions (and similarly tossed-off arrangements) as though they’re finished products. The result is a sometimes amusing, sometimes frustrating, sparsely thrilling, and largely unlistenable collection of rants and riffs.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Brave
    The club, not love, is her salvation, as she proves on 'Do It Well,' the only track that lets J. Lo do her thing: dance.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Size Matters
    The sludge is so overbearing that anyone born during the Eighties will wonder what once made them special. [28 Oct 2004, p.103]
    • Rolling Stone
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Matthew Morrison
    Verdict: a mildly charming, sometimes gawky LP that will please Gleeks and befuddle everyone else.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    New Glow
    The cuteness starts to wear thin pretty fast.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Unpredictable
    When the album works, it's because of Foxx's easy charm and A-list confidence.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    20 Y.O.
    Almost all of the tunes here (particularly "So Excited") try to replicate Jackson's early work, with diminishing returns.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Declaration
    On her fourth album, she's still doing the diva-by-numbers thing, alternating between angry-at-her-man anthems and lovey pleasantry.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    5.0
    He essays a few fashionably global-sounding electro-club tracks, including an Auto-Tuned one with T-Pain and Akon, and at least four numbers where he swipes guys' girlfriends. Keri Hilson and Kelly Rowland help him stretch out; Plies, Yo Gotti and T.I. add muscle
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Driving A Million
    Ultimately, Gwenmars is a Xerox of a Xerox, but this melodic, very big facsimile remains very listenable, indeed.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rise And Fall, Rage And Grace
    The album's latter half contains some welcome pop moments--'Nothingtown' and 'Let's Hear It for Rock Bottom' make going nowhere in life sound like hot fun--but the standout melodies often take a back seat to the diatribes, and Holland doesn't back up his disaffection with many good reasons to rally behind him.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Vultures 1
    Vultures is a serviceable record. The production, in typical post-My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy fashion, is sparse. While it won’t be confused for a masterpiece, it shows that West is still good at being a producer. He puts Ty Dolla Sign in position to sound as bubbly as he’s been since the Obama era.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    In My Mind
    Next to guests Jay-Z, Snoop and Slim Thug, Pharrell's playa-playa croon gets tiresome.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    City Beach
    Much of City Beach is sort of bland and a little corny.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    F.A.M.E.
    F.A.M.E. is a pop 'n' b album with something for everyone: bedroom ballads, dance-floor thumpers and even "Next 2 You," a puppy-love declaration with guest vocals by Justin Bieber.
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