Spin's Scores

  • Music
For 4,237 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 50% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 47% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 To Pimp A Butterfly
Lowest review score: 0 They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Score distribution:
4237 music reviews
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    These songs never reach catharsis or resolution to their grand queries, but nonetheless find moments of joy in the process of seeking answers.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    In shifting the lyrical focus away from one songwriter’s experience—exemplified by the previous hyper-emotional adrenaline rushes of “Drunk II” and “In Love Again”—some of the lovelorn charisma that made Mannequin Pussy so special has been lost. Nonetheless, the record’s disparate strands mostly hold together, a formidable document of their fire and fury—and one that’s needed more than ever.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    WWW stretches Whack’s stylistic range, reintroducing an artist who seems more deeply in tune with her emotions.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    While his desire to evoke the druggy euphoria of early U.K. club music has sometimes jostled against his ear for atmosphere (as on his contributions to the Shock Power of Love split with Blackdown), those two extremes are more fully integrated than ever on these two 13-minute tracks.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    This is Lage’s statement, and as both player and composer he seamlessly connects Django Reinhardt to Joe Pass, Charlie Christian to Bill Frisell, all the way forging his own paths, his immense talents given voice by his joyously open spirit.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Webster’s commitment to alt-R&B-style repose, along with some keen sonic quirks, are just a couple of the ways the 26-year-old Atlantan contrasts the ’70s-era singer-songwriters she’s so often compared to. Still, the sheer musicality of what she does deserves boomers’ approval.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    When Sheer Mag is on, they’re turned up to 11. Playing Favorites proves that joy can show up defiantly, wearing a sleeveless denim vest, and sometimes, a rollicking good time is the glue holding our hearts together.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Across nine tracks, singer/guitarist Niko Kapetan and drummer Bailey Minzenberger bounce effortlessly from fragile ballads to punk rippers to chamber-pop crescendos, somehow both fully in control and barely holding it together.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The surprise here is less that an album about emerging, stronger, from sorrow’s all-encompassing shroud somehow goes down like a goblet of spiked sunshine. The surprise lies more in how much more emotional power the guitarwork—fluid, generous, measured—brings to bear, how much weight it carries this time.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Stapleton is looser, bolder and surer of himself, a recipe making this his best project yet.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The album isn’t perfect. The pensive closer “Childhood” is too precious in its “where did the time go” wonderings. Lead single “Edging” is a mediocre punk number even Green Day might have left behind, and “When We Were Young” is undercooked and appears to battle its own time signature. But it’s still the band’s best work in 20 years, and rocket fuel for this new chapter and whatever follows.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A collection that is arguably a candidate for jazz album of the year: Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)). Branch likely would argue that this is both punk and jazz — or neither.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    It’s a bold step forward for the now 20-year-old Rodrigo—an incisive unraveling of the chaos and disappointment of young adulthood, dating and fame with a side of sizzling with zingers and rage. It’s her Melodrama.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Slowdive has outdone itself on its fifth full-length, Everything Is Alive, which elevates its pre-breakup work in ways that feel nearly unimaginable. Indeed, Slowdive in 2023 is capable of writing both the hands-down most affecting song of its career (“Andalucia Plays”) as well as its most in-your-face (“The Slab”), while also incorporating modular synths as foundational elements in its creative process for the first time (they’re the first notes you hear on opener “Shanty”).
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    With so many legacy-artist posthumous sets, it’s hard to avoid a certain level of brain mush. The final stretches often feel like pointlessly processed outtakes of alternate takes of fake takes of imaginary takes. It’s like extracurricular archaeology, and it’s often not very fun. But even when you’re working up a sweat with your shovel, Funky Nothingness rewards the strain.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fans who pass this latest test of commitment will find another studied and resolute replica of one of Swift’s most compelling and formative albums.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    It reads like a book, its impassioned lyricism underscored by reverb, pedal steel guitar, and pattering, stick-clacking drums. The sound builds on the musical spaciousness of Ultimate Success, reflecting the environs of the Tornillo, Tx., ranch at which it was recorded. Indeed, the new album’s title offers a straightforward glimpse into its subject matter.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rancid doesn’t venture too far outside of its sonic comfort zone on Tomorrow Never Comes and 30 seconds into each song, it’s not difficult to guess their structure and how they’ll likely resolve. Rather than being a weakness, this is one of the album’s strengths.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Grohl (back on drums for the first time on a Foos record since 2005’s In Your Honor), bassist Nate Mendel, guitarists Chris Shiflett and Pat Smear, and keyboardist Rami Jaffee have imbued But Here We Are with new levels of depth, maturity, songcraft, and storytelling, ensuring it is far more than just an album about grief.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Injecting a familiar formula with a justified newfound seriousness, With a Hammer further cements Yaeji’s place as one of the most valuable producers active in electronic pop today.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A collaborative winner delightfully devoid of ego or pretense. Here, each voice works to create something greater than the sum of its parts, which is rare for supergroups.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Yes, there are a lot of elements put together here. The thing is, this is not about juxtaposition. It’s about synthesis and transformation.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Her most adventurous album yet. ... On Mañana Será Bonito, the future looks bright for Colombia’s next pop queen.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The project is very human and certainly the band’s most dynamic effort to date. Never has Paramore left so much space in its productions or allowed Williams to sound so sparse in moments, like her tiny frame might finally shatter. Nor has the band ever played so deftly with sounds of comfort and alarm, like a clock radio slicing through the most blissful dream.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This is no mere studio project. The Smile are an actual, organic live band.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    As the conviction of his verses grows throughout the album, so does the scope of its production. Building on the more upbeat instrumentals of last year’s Disco!, MIKE continues to expand his musical palette on production, adding dancehall, bossa nova and more to his signature slowed vocal loops. The result is some of his most uplifting songs yet.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sail on Sailor – 1972 is a fascinating look behind the curtain at the end of the Beach Boys’ most fruitful creative period.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    It’s an album of expertly crafted dark-pop confessions with flecks of glitter and aspiration — a purposefully fitful project mimicking her racing thoughts. The high-gloss pop production marks Midnights as a sullen sister to Lover, her honey-dipped 2019 effort, rather than a successor to 2020’s heartstrung Folklore and Evermore.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    On Being Funny in a Foreign Language, the lyrics remain flippant. The instrumentals are gone. On the following 10 tracks, you can feel Antonoff taking over to guide the band’s more straightforward pop songs. ... It’s the 2022 Antonoff playlist it was crafted to be. It’ll make a lot of people happy. It sounds like it made the band happy too.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Across 14 tracks, there is no obvious hit to match the enduring success of 2014’s “Archie, Marry Me” or 2017’s “Dreams Tonite,” each touting a cool 70 million listens on Spotify — massive numbers for a band that began in the outlands of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. But each song has its place and raison d’etre amid this fully realized batch of tunes detailing heartache, lonesome fury and wistful wonderment.