Variety's Scores

Select another publication »
For 420 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 94% higher than the average critic
  • 0% same as the average critic
  • 6% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 12.3 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 85
Highest review score: 100 The Beatles [White Album] [50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition]
Lowest review score: 40 Jesus Is King
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 407 out of 420
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 420
  3. Negative: 0 out of 420
420 music reviews
view
per page
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Love, Damini
    On occasion, such symmetry and solace is overbearing and a little too perfect. ... Missteps such as these — especially on an album with nearly 20 songs — mean little when its main man has made yet another vocally and lyrically poignant, to say nothing of sonically immersive, step into the future of Afro-Fusion with “Love, Damini.”
    • 73 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    HONESTLY, NEVERMIND
    As a standalone Drake album, it’s deeply refreshing, and a dose of vibrant pop likely to reverberate through the remainder of the summer.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cruel Country
    “Cruel Country” captures a band wholly secure in its status; it does a handful of things very well, and does those things repeatedly, with few deviations.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Twelve Carat Toothache
    “Twelve Carat Toothache” finally feels like a transitional album for one of pop’s biggest stars. (And we do mean pop, not hip-hop) ... But with no small help from Bell, who’s the best kind of musical enabler, Malone’s turns of melodic phrase and aptitude for true confessions are making him a far more interesting artist than we could have guessed even a couple of albums ago.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Harry's House
    “Harry’s House” is a bit more intimate and less stadium-sized than its predecessor. Lyrically, it’s heavier and more serious in places. ... He’s built himself an enviable solo career that “Harry’s House” goes a long way toward furthering.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers
    It’s the sound of one of America’s foremost poets offering an all-access visit to the darker corners of his mind, unconcerned with whether anyone would choose to take that trip again. “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers” may not be a masterpiece, and it may not always be pleasant, but it’s clearly the work of a genius, accountable to no one but himself, intent on showing you all the scars that he acquired on his way to becoming the defining rapper of his generation, and plenty that came after that, too.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 94 Critic Score
    Live at the El Mocambo
    All of this is captured in pristine sound quality — that’s Richards’ guitar in the right channel and Wood in the left — even the weak, historic-interest-only songs from night one that are tacked onto the end. ... The concert captured here was the first day of the rest of the Stones’ lives — and 45 years later, you’re in that sweaty club with them.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Come Home the Kids Miss You
    Harlow builds upon his bedrock strengths and finds a heady musical elixir for his new album, a vibe more potent, direct and swaggering than on his first major label outing. ... If “Come Home the Kids Miss You” feels like Harlow’s “Off the Wall,” could his “Thriller” be very far away? Thankfully, Harlow is the type of artist that warrants that question.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    WE
    Superb ... The emphasis this time around is not on bells and whistles or external bombast but simply on the music itself.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Palomino
    It's easy to imagine a track like ["I'll Be Lovin’ You"] ending up in the hands of any number of hit-hunting younger singers, but impossible to imagine anyone else investing it with Lambert's precise calibration of wistfulness and swagger. And that goes for the rest of the album too. ... She's never sounded more perfectly at home.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    It's Almost Dry
    “It’s Almost Dry” is no break from form. While sonically much more cohesive than its chaotic predecessor, Pusha fails to push himself into new territories, making the entire album feel safe, rather than an attempt at growth. ... Still, musically, there are several outstanding moments that show off both Kanye West’s and Pharrell Williams’ production prowess.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Chloe and the Next 20th Century
    He’s elusive even in the midst of taking on a new musical persona that seems high-concept. But it’s that combination of intriguing opacity and occasional open-heartedness — and his twin inclinations between deep philosophizing and deadpan comedy — that give “Chloë” the oddball breadth to be one of the best albums of the year.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Growing Up
    If life was fair, these songs would be streaming out of the earbuds of every teenage girl (and hip boy who wants to belong).
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Fear of the Dawn
    “Fear of the Dawn” benefits from being so single-mindedly devoted to capturing a stream of consciousness that’s moving about as fast as the Colorado River, and would generate just about as much electricity, dammed up. ... He’s finally made an album every bit as hysterical as that trademark howl.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Wet Leg
    Above all, “Wet Leg” delivers on the infectious pleasure of music that was made by friends trying to make each other laugh — and we’re all in on it.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Crash
    So, whether she means “Crash,” as some sort of elaborate art joke or her most direct-ever (potentially) hit-filled work, Charl XCX is going out from her longtime label with a bang.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Unlimited Love
    It is this balance of experimentalism and familiarity, of the tentative and the trusted, that makes “Unlimited Love” utterly unstoppable and unlike anything you’re likely to hear this year.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 97 Critic Score
    Motomami
    An album that not only marks Rosalia’s true arrival, it moves her toward the front line of today’s musical innovators.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 95 Critic Score
    Once Twice Melody
    The kind of album you can put on and leave on: vividly atmospheric, melodically beguiling, and seductive enough to keep you coming back over and over.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Texas Moon [EP]
    Calmer and a bit moodier than the debut, it finds the two bringing out things in their sounds that hadn’t really been there before. ... Combined, the two EPs make a warm and well-rounded album with two distinct sides.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You
    Throughout this adventurous new double-album, Big Thief dives into both the natural and otherworldly, paving new sounds and textures while uncovering new mysteries.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    Good Morning Gorgeous
    Many of the low-key experiments in sound — an open airiness, often oddball instrumental quirks, bluesy vibes — remove Blige from the comfort zone of her Capitol label-era albums, and bring fresh life to her not-so-quiet storming soul.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Laurel Hell
    Watching the arc of Mitski’s career, you might expect bombast, but “Laurel Hell” instead highlights the singular insistence of self that made Mitski into the hero she became, even if it comes in the form of honest mid-tempo melancholy.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Covers
    The album closes with a hushed but comparatively straightforward version of Eddie Heywood’s “I’ll Be Seeing You,” which was immortalized in the 1940s by Billie Holiday — completing yet another stellar addition to the Cat Power canon, which is formidable no matter whose songs she’s singing.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Scenic Drive (The Tape)
    “Scenic Drive” is a pulsating, minor marvel of economical soul-hop that satisfies all that Khalid fanatics have come to crave — that high dozy warble, those out-of-the-blue hooks — while pushing his new-found exigency (and lower range) into the future.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 95 Critic Score
    Dawn FM
    “After Hours” has resonated for nearly two years after its release, and in the face of another phase of a daunting pandemic, it seems that “Dawn FM” — possibly the Weeknd’s best and most fully realized album to date — will help carry fans through this one as well.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Live Life Fast
    From “hibachi” with Kodak Black and 21 Savage to “no way” featuring a few motivational words from actor Jamie Foxx, the album rides a sonic wave of high-octane bangers and more subdued, reflective respites that provide fleeting glimpses into who Roddy Ricch is.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    Raise The Roof
    While a little less grace and a little more grit could have benefitted their second pairing, Robert Plant and Allison Krauss’ “Raise the Roof” is nice and rough in all the right places.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Fighting Demons
    As far as posthumously released albums go, though, the dreary-dreamy “Fighting Demons” aptly shows off Juice’s penchant for disconsolate lyrics and dimly lit but infectious hooks.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 92 Critic Score
    Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001) [Box Set]
    Although you won’t find an overlooked “Life on Mars?” or “The Man Who Sold the World” here, it’s still Bowie, challenging himself again after those years in the wilderness, with the familiar haunting refrains, the unusual chord changes, the verses in Cockney accent, the Syd Barrett and Ray Davies-esque melodies, and most of all his still-stunning voice. Nearly all of the albums here have at least glimpses of that greatness and a couple of killer songs or moments.
Page: