Rolling Stone's Scores

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For 5,914 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: 3,630 out of 5914
  2. Mixed: 2,244 out of 5914
  3. Negative: 40 out of 5914
5914 music reviews
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    • 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.
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