For 3,119 reviews, this publication has graded:
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35% higher than the average critic
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3% same as the average critic
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62% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 7.7 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 65
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1,689 out of 3119
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Mixed: 1,319 out of 3119
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Negative: 111 out of 3119
3119
music
reviews
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- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
From its framing gimmick and its anti-folk folk songwriting to its he-has-to-be-kidding song titles and its show-offy instrumentation, Illinois should reduce to a simple stunt performance. That it's pop-art of the highest caliber, instead, cements Stevens as one of the most vital voices in music today.- Slant Magazine
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It fully merits high praise as both the best work of Vanderslice's career and easily one of the best albums of what has been a refreshingly strong year for music.- Slant Magazine
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As we approach the halfway point of 2006, it's unlikely that a more vivid or arresting debut will drop this year, marking St. Elsewhere as not only an audacious accomplishment, but one of the year's best.- Slant Magazine
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Each orphan stands proudly on its own as the vestige of an old idea or a forgotten path—proving that even Waits's missteps still manage to point in the right direction.- Slant Magazine
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Boxer works best as a mood piece; it's also the first National release to work as a whole, and it's the best album I've heard so far this year.- Slant Magazine
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Brash, insightful, wry, and, above all else, smart, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend confirms that Miranda Lambert is far more than just the latest in a long line of bad girls: She's a country music legend in the making, and the most vital artist Music Row has produced in a generation.- Slant Magazine
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Both on a song-for-song basis and as singular cohesive work, Emerald City demonstrates Vanderslice's masterful control of craft at every structural level and his unrivaled ability to make the political personal.- Slant Magazine
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There's actual substance to unpack in the album, but Aesop's indomitable presence on record and his knotty co-production with Blockhead and El-P make what he says incidental to how he says it.- Slant Magazine
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White Chalk, wholly self-contained and uncompromised, is a work of literary depth and complexity.- Slant Magazine
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It is no small feat to write melodies as memorable as Berman's exceedingly quotable lyrics, but on each song here, he does. Lookout Mountain is an outstanding work of art.- Slant Magazine
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It is not only the Hold Steady's best record, but acts as a culmination of all of the ideas, stories, musical paths and character journeys that they've so pointedly led us down before.- Slant Magazine
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TV on the Radio have finally made an album that someone other than hyper-analytical music critics might actually enjoy.- Slant Magazine
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Soulful and almost structurally flawless (it's the most minor of complaints that the middle run of songs are all about a half-minute too long), Merriweather finds one of the most talented, most creative pop bands finally and gloriously figuring it all out.- Slant Magazine
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Maybe its sunstroke, but I feel compelled to suggest that two young Canucks trading in sludgy punk-pop tunes may have crafted a rock album that gets closer to perfection than any other album this year so far.- Slant Magazine
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Less ambient and more grounded than the preceding tracks, it's the one song on the album you wouldn't want to hear at the party; rather, it's a subtle, evocative slow-burner best saved for the cool air and the long walk home.- Slant Magazine
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Though it's only to be considered "pop" in the most obscure sense, and it goes to show Albarn has a pretty warped concept of the term, Plastic Beach provides the almighty shakeup that pop music has needed for some time.- Slant Magazine
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Even though it's as ambitious an exercise in freeform genre-splicing and pure, amp-blowing volume as has been attempted in the past few years, it's always at least as fun as it is smart, taking the three great pillars of guilty-pleasure music (deafening arena-rock swagger, sugary pop hooks, and delirious dance beats) and rolling them together into a singularly appealing cacophony.- Slant Magazine
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The effort to canonize My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy as one of hip-hop's all-time high points is already underway, and I'm confident that Kanye's new album can weather the backlash that all potential classics must confront.- Slant Magazine
- Posted Dec 7, 2010
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A tremendous leap forward from Tune-Yards' previous efforts, w h o k i l l proves that Garbus isn't just a brainy artiste with a killer voice, but an event, someone to take notice of, a new center of gravity in the musical underground.- Slant Magazine
- Posted Apr 29, 2011
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The songs from the Mellon Collie sessions speak not only to the quality of that abundance, but also to the Smashing Pumpkins' status as some of the most creative and successful purveyors of sensitive but cerebral art rock.- Slant Magazine
- Posted Dec 4, 2012
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- Posted Oct 31, 2014
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D'Angelo's assuredly delivered a great album, one that, even in these nascent days of our receiving it, already feels like something that's always been, that's necessary, and that was probably worth any wait.- Slant Magazine
- Posted Dec 17, 2014
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It's this funhouse-mirror approach to the past—backward-looking but never self-consciously “retro”—that makes Music from Big Pink feel truly timeless. This goes double for this anniversary edition, which features a revelatory new mix supervised by veteran engineer Bob Clearmountain. His work brings a feeling of presence to the album.- Slant Magazine
- Posted Sep 4, 2018
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On a purely musical level, it’s a bold experiment in pop craft, a collection of songs on which Apple stretches her talents in adventurous new directions. ... Fetch the Bolt Cutters is Apple’s most timely—and timeless—effort yet.- Slant Magazine
- Posted Apr 22, 2020
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A fully realized crystallization of her melodic instincts and the themes that she’s previously explored. She wrote most of the album in 2020, holed up alone in a Melbourne apartment while riding out the Covid-19 pandemic, and as such a sense of solitariness permeates its 10 songs.- Slant Magazine
- Posted Nov 8, 2021
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Once again, they infuse their brand of punk with a hefty dose of pop songcraft and meticulous production, courtesy of producer Jesse Gander, Premonition conjures a dark, enticing dynamism unparalleled even by their own extraordinary output.- Slant Magazine
- Posted Dec 2, 2022
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Although it has some thematic overlap with Glass Boys, One Day amalgamates its disparate lyrical and musical ideas, as well as the confidence of its performances and compositions, into a novel, thrilling 40 minutes.- Slant Magazine
- Posted Jan 24, 2023
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