Spin's Scores
- Music
For 4,260 reviews, this publication has graded:
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50% higher than the average critic
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3% same as the average critic
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47% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.6 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: | To Pimp A Butterfly | |
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Lowest review score: | They Were Wrong, So We Drowned |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 3,058 out of 4260
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Mixed: 1,147 out of 4260
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Negative: 55 out of 4260
4260
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
Rough and Rowdy Days is a typically astounding, kaleidoscopic journey through the last half-century of American history. ... Dylan lapped us a long time ago. He’s still sprinting far ahead. And now he definitely can’t be caught.- Spin
- Posted Jun 25, 2020
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There’s no particular secret to what makes RTJ4 the best Run the Jewels album and one of 2020’s best by anyone. It’s shorter and more acute.- Spin
- Posted Jun 5, 2020
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On Chromatica, she seems too afraid or to removed from the Koons-loving side of herself to get too bizarre or to let the production dominate, two of Artpop’s best qualities. ... Chromatica functions as both stopgap escapism and yet another portrait of someone among us who’s trying to patch together her identity again.- Spin
- Posted Jun 3, 2020
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Fetch the Bolt Cutters is definitely the product of cabin fever and occasionally feels claustrophobic but it’s an undeniably fascinating and complex collection of songs. It manages to refine many of Apple’s already good ideas and displays a distinct sonic evolution.- Spin
- Posted Apr 17, 2020
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There’s a feeling of forward momentum to the entire album but we might not like where it’s headed.- Spin
- Posted Mar 27, 2020
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These eight tracks are big, bold, dynamic, and show a particular mastery of modular synthesis.- Spin
- Posted Mar 27, 2020
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Gigaton has a little something for everyone. It’s a complex, dynamic album full of earnest emotion and subtle humor. Its form factor recalls both 1996’s No Code and 1998’s Yield.- Spin
- Posted Mar 13, 2020
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Green Day’s 13th studio album set sees them step outside of their comfort zone, experimenting with a range of new sounds and styles. However, this leads to mixed results.- Spin
- Posted Feb 7, 2020
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What you get on Perdida is a band that as they get comfortable with another new singer, is pumping out songs that are more reflective of who they are today.- Spin
- Posted Feb 6, 2020
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Gathered from scraps of the You Want It Darker sessions and cobbled together with contributions from Beck, Feist, Bryce Dessner of the National, and more, it’s a worthy postscript to Cohen’s farewell, another clear-eyed look at the inevitability of death.- Spin
- Posted Nov 25, 2019
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This record is scattered enough to alienate fans who want more consistently upbeat music. But if you’re onboard for the weirdness, the sequencing works surprisingly well.- Spin
- Posted Nov 22, 2019
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Alex G continues to find the sensitivity in rough edges, and offers uneven poetry for our own relentlessly uneven lives. ... An overarching commitment to juxtaposition and bricolage that’s palpable throughout the tracklist. In their brevity and slapdash composition, they feel like essential components of the Alex G m.o. It’s that m.o. that holds House of Sugar together, even as it rejects a single unified concept or “story.”- Spin
- Posted Sep 17, 2019
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At an hour and 45 minutes, it’s a lot. But throw QC’s formidable team at streaming services and something will probably stick. ... For anyone willing to take the full plunge, it’s a mostly satisfying chance to hear the sound of contemporary rap evolving in real time.- Spin
- Posted Sep 5, 2019
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Being bombarded with mortality is a tall order for what is ostensibly a summer pop album; but rather than let her words fade into the background of washed synths and drum machines, as on previous releases, the breathing room in the production of Norman Fucking Rockwell leans into the intimacy.- Spin
- Posted Sep 5, 2019
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Like its predecessor [Reputation], Lover shines when the bombast is stripped away and the songs are humble and discreet, even muffled.- Spin
- Posted Aug 26, 2019
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They continue to blur the lines between art, psychedelia, alt metal, and prog rock with undiminished curiosity and skill. ... As with previous work, on Fear Inoculum, the band’s songwriting can at times seem like a riddle, daring listeners to lean in and figure out exactly what is going on.- Spin
- Posted Aug 21, 2019
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Some classic records have been made in this mold; plenty of dull ones, too. So Much Fun is somewhere in the middle, with a handful of legitimately great songs, only a couple you may end up skipping, and none that sound like someone forgot to send them to the mastering engineer.- Spin
- Posted Aug 21, 2019
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The Center Won’t Hold is a real-time examination of the fraying that takes its toll on peoples’ insides and outer shells during times both good and bad. Agitations about screen-borne life and unpleasant urges bounce off grander existential horrors; there’s no digging out of them, this record bellows, but thrashing around and attempting to find others to share the burdens will at least stave off malaise.- Spin
- Posted Aug 20, 2019
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Port of Miami 2 further cements Ross as a mainstay among the aging elite—those rappers whose names now carry them further than their music does. Playing it safe with the sequel to his far more ambitious debut LP, Ross regurgitates that which people have come to love from him, or at least have accepted as his standard.- Spin
- Posted Aug 14, 2019
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An ambitious but interior new sound. On i,i, Bon Iver’s expanding universe feels at once new and familiar. ... Vernon is still the dominant creative force, but on i,i, he steps confidently into the role of curator and conductor (an approach he may have adopted from his work with Kanye West). The result of this collective energy is an album that’s both frank and easygoing, reveling in the magic of close personal relationships.- Spin
- Posted Aug 13, 2019
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A swaggering, electric, and passion-fueled statement that lives up to the towering persona being put forth at its outset. ... African Giant is easily Burna Boy’s most cohesive and strongest project, with even the diverse list of guest stars—from Damien Marley to Nigerian rapper Zlatan to Jeremih and Future—being used expertly without overkill. Burna Boy is the true star at the center.- Spin
- Posted Jul 31, 2019
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Purple Mountains was produced and accompanied by Jarvis Taveniere and Jeremy Earle of Woods, with eight other musicians filling the gaps. The arrangements, some of the most gracious Berman’s ever had, hum and glow with foggy organs and soft golden horns. Their serenity is at odds with his desperation: This is a portrait of a shattered man.- Spin
- Posted Jul 16, 2019
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His voice emerges from the din only occasionally, embodying the sound of ANIMA itself: half-man, half-machine, totally immersed in the beat.- Spin
- Posted Jul 2, 2019
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Bandana isn’t a sequel so much as another helping of what worked so well the first time: a selection of Madlib’s finest beats, cave-aged and peppered with the same Gibbsian blend of lighthearted flexing and street philosophy. It’s a more refined take on a proven formula, with sterling track after sterling track cementing Gibbs and Madlib as a remarkably effective duo.- Spin
- Posted Jun 28, 2019
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The result is Help Us Stranger, the group’s richest batch of songs to date.- Spin
- Posted Jun 24, 2019
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Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest distinguishes itself in Callahan’s catalog not just by its subject matter, but also by the holism of its compositions. Paradoxically, they achieve their feeling of tossed-off informality through an astounding intricacy of form.- Spin
- Posted Jun 18, 2019
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They’re about the feeling--everything tween inside every grown adult, and thus they are still unmistakably Carly even as she tries on new sounds. When Dedication falters it’s in the latter half, where her producers seem to be trying to chase pop, or at least Spotify “airplay,” by making her sound like everyone else.- Spin
- Posted May 21, 2019
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What first makes the record baffling is also what makes it fascinating, as the band toes the line between experimentation and self-sabotage. They wring maximum potential from bizarre ideas.- Spin
- Posted May 17, 2019
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A mediocre album without the ambition to flirt with the terrible, Beauty Marks manages to land in the middle of Ciara’s discography when boldness is required.- Spin
- Posted May 16, 2019
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For listeners coming into the album without knowledge of its overarching concept, PROTO is also full of pop-forward compositions that are striking in their own right. ... For a record about the development of machine cognition, PROTO is remarkably human at every turn.- Spin
- Posted May 14, 2019
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