The Boston Phoenix's Scores
- Music
For 1,091 reviews, this publication has graded:
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63% higher than the average critic
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3% same as the average critic
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34% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.2 points higher than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 74
Highest review score: | Pink | |
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Lowest review score: | Last of a Dyin' Breed |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 956 out of 1091
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Mixed: 88 out of 1091
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Negative: 47 out of 1091
1091
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Sep 7, 2012
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- Critic Score
At a certain point, the xx need to turn off that reverb pedal and learn to sing above a whisper - but I'll be damned if they haven't worked their magic again.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Sep 5, 2012
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- Critic Score
A no-frills, consistently engaging album with heart - and hooks - to spare.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Sep 4, 2012
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This may be the most uncharacteristic of his albums, but by venturing outside his comfort zone, Hawley has in turn made his best.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Sep 4, 2012
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- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Sep 4, 2012
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- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Sep 4, 2012
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Stripped down to a bare, live-band essence, and with the old-school touch of Roth/Daptone, Antibalas go places by simply playing it safe.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Aug 31, 2012
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- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Aug 31, 2012
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With your headphones strapped, the album's dirty optimism will brighten even the darkest, stalest airport-layover experience (true story).- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Aug 30, 2012
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Light on laughs and riffage, the title/cover entendre makes it hard to tell if it is supposed to be so terrible or a joke about being so terrible... But the long-available cover of Radiohead's "Street Spirit" is inspired, and first single "Nothin's Gonna Stop Us" grafts one candy rope hook after another into one of the year's finest melodies.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Aug 29, 2012
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It's the album's more subdued tail end, particularly "Ahead of Myself" and "Temptation," that shows a songwriter rising above his comfort zone to deliver a career-defining transition.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Aug 28, 2012
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It's perhaps overly long (53 minutes) and hard to penetrate, but Animal Collective's creativity glows brighter than Ric Flair's hair.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Aug 28, 2012
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Gira's career has been one of violations and risks; there are plenty here. However, his trademark brand of post-rock/ambient alienation may finally leave listeners indifferent.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Aug 28, 2012
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- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Aug 24, 2012
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America is a beguiling, remarkable work, a deep, carefully measured, completely idiosyncratic breath released on the dawn of a promising day.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Aug 22, 2012
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Ascent is stuffed with psychedelic guitar virtuosity, moments where Chasny leaves this plane and enters one of those transcendental, mind-freaked, head-tipped-back, eyelid-fluttering states that few are capable of.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Aug 15, 2012
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Cooder, like a Keith Richards/Woody Guthrie hybrid, observes [the current political scene] all as a damn shame, with little condescension and oodles of wit.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Aug 14, 2012
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Crafted with worn elements of the electronic cannon, his third LP as Shed doesn't offer much that's fresh. Rather, it's nostalgia and recontextualization that drive this effort.... [Yet songs, I Come By Night, You Got the Look, and Follow the Leader] are all indicative of mastery.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Aug 14, 2012
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Yeasayer remain the new-millennium kings of studio manipulation, and it's downright jaw-dropping that they're able to experiment so wildly in the context of such catchiness. Fragrant World feels like a victory lap.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Aug 14, 2012
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Embracing those basics of simplistic pop, the kind that doesn't need to be over thought, works nearly all of the time, and though a little bit of depth to the proceedings would have been nice here and there, a robust hook will do just as well.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Aug 7, 2012
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[Their] strange blend of influences can be fascinating... but Instinct - clocking in at a bloated 14 tracks and 56 total minutes - runs out of gas way before reaching the finish line.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Aug 7, 2012
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On Life Is Good, he's lyrically and musically rich as he's been for years now.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Aug 7, 2012
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On C.A.R., Cohn finds a loophole to get one of those rad concepts out of just that: a depressive who longs for suburban utopia.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Aug 2, 2012
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Idea of Happiness never tries to re-imagine the concept of the summer album or, at the very least, the genre of synthpop.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Jul 24, 2012
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Ocean brings substance with style, rather than style demanding to be considered substance.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Jul 24, 2012
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Teeming with B-sides, live tracks, and demos, much of it previously unreleased, 21 is both exhaustive and indispensable.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Jul 24, 2012
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The many-splendored guitar blitz of Major rings in the return of good old-fashioned butt rock, but played to the squarely measured rhythms of '90s emo and Northwest indie stuff like Built To Spill.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Jul 24, 2012
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The writing is as crisp as the playing, ornate but without added contrivance, a credit to producer Joe Henry. A tuneful 10-song novel.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Jul 20, 2012
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The British duo's second full-length in as many years mashes ghostly electro-pop tendencies with live instrumentation, empathetic orchestration, and tape-machine snippets, creating a world that is both compulsively listenable and eerily foreign.- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Jul 19, 2012
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- The Boston Phoenix
- Posted Jul 19, 2012
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