Variety's Scores

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For 422 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 12.4 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: 409 out of 422
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 422
  3. Negative: 0 out of 422
422 music reviews
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    • 76 Metascore
    • 94 Critic Score
    THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT
    “The Tortured Poets Department” feels like it comes the closest of any of her 11 original albums to just drilling a tube directly into her brain and letting listeners mainline what comes out. If you value this confessional quality most of all, she’s still peaking: As a culmination of her particular genius for marrying cleverness with catharsis, “Tortured” kind of feels like the Taylor Swift-est Taylor Swift record ever.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Off-Season
    On “The Off-Season,” he is burnishing a reputation as a lingering titan. If “The Off-Season” is Cole’s first record of The Fall Off Era, he appears far from ready to bow out, nor should he be.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shake the Spirit
    King has gotten a pretty good album out of a pretty bad spell, and we can use her candor and her voice--not just figuratively but literally, since those bluesy, gutsy tones rarely make it into any kind of rock and roll these days, much less the alternative kind.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino
    While a change of pace, none of these songs will sound unfamiliar to fans, or really could have been created by anyone else except a very talented parodist. Ultimately, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino is just a snappy new outfit for a group that knows experimentation and diversity are keys to longevity.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Fine Line
    If he’s not necessarily ready to play the hero in a relationship yet, he’s certainly coming off as one of the good guys in how he’s defying blockbuster expectations by following his muse back into the classic rock era and casually claiming it as his own.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 93 Critic Score
    Local Valley
    It’s also arguably his most energetic solo album. ... It works equally well as lean-forward or lean-back music — the listener can focus on it or simply have it on as atmosphere that enhancing the environment without distracting from it.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Legends Never Die
    Sonically, compared with Juice WRLD’s early SoundCloud material, “Legends Never Die,” is positively lush — not over-produced, but comparatively elaborately arranged.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ginger
    Their tightest and potentially most memorable album yet. ... The undercurrent of anxiety — a hallmark of the group’s identity — is still present but holds new weight here, more mature and weary, and less a mark of their youth.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 93 Critic Score
    Late Night Feelings
    As is most of this album. With “Late Night Feelings,” Ronson has served up a perfect post-night-out soundtrack, romantic and intimate — and a real album, with nary a weak track to disrupt the late-night feels (sorry).
    • 75 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    The New Abnormal
    The band’s bluntest and most contagious — yet experimental — work.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    OK Human
    Luckily, the added instrumentation is rarely overpowering and the Rob Mathes-penned arrangements are consistently interesting. ... Indeed, if there’s one thing we’ve learned since “The Blue Album” dropped back in ’94, it will take more than ruthless dictators — or even an orchestra — to extinguish Weezer’s way with a hook.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Will This Make Me Good
    Although his 2016 debut, “Green Twins,” was a stoner-soul classic, his latest, “Will This Make Me Good,” is actually even trippier.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Plastic Hearts
    “Plastic Hearts” just makes sense of the hard and the soft, the pop and the country, the gruff and the sweet in a way that no other Cyrus album has before in its entirety.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    Medicine at Midnight
    Grohl promised a record you can groove to, and he delivered, while still maintaining a quintessential crunch that’s fitting for a Foo.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    East Atlanta Love Letter
    For every three sweet nothings like “Time will never wait on us but it never can age our love” (from “Stan”), there remains a “Life without my love is a slant rhyme / That mean it works out but it ain’t quite,” dulling the moment.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    What You See Is What You Get
    Did the album, as good as it is, need to be 17 songs long? No; it feels less like taking listeners on an old-school album journey than just flooding the streaming zone with potential hits.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    No Shame
    It’s as raw a record as you’ll hear this year, even if the British singer’s calm tone and heavily programmed production are the picture of pop refinement. Her sweet voice has always been Allen’s not-too-secret ammo, weaponized to take down the fools she didn’t suffer gladly. Hearing her now turn that tart, dulcet dagger of a tongue around on herself makes for a bracing listen.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Good Thing
    The new album is not that drastically less of a classicist affair than Coming Home, when all is said and done, but this time it’s a whole variety pack of retro.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Only the Strong Survive
    Ultimately, Springsteen’s new soul covers album goes at least a little way toward being a handsome declaration of a life’s inspiration and intention. But it should have been so much more than merely “covering” — and beyond mere survival.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Rarities
    Even though this is a collection of tracks that, for whatever reason, didn’t make the final cut of her studio albums, she never lets us see her sweat and she’s not about to start now, so don’t expect to find any stains here.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    Different Kinds of Light
    “Different Kinds of Light,” is the proverbial big step forward, the one that conjures words like “maturity” and finds her becoming a seasoned performer, songwriter and especially singer.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran
    Her mastery in hitmaking is on full display. .... “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran” is the updated testament to her successful track record. She rejoices in the experimentation and liberation of the new school she helped build.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Map of the Soul: Persona
    The 7-song album is taut musically and thematically (the group is a septet consisting of RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V, Jungkook), although things get into murkier territory lyrically. Fans of the group dig deep into the meanings behind the songs.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Boarding House Reach
    On Boarding House Reach, he goes well out of his way to re-scatter the puzzle, but it’s a divine enough mess.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 92 Critic Score
    Home
    “Home” is bookended with a musical tactic that is both perfect and obvious: cantos sung by the Danish National Girls’ Choir. ... But as with everything Rhye, it’s all in service of Milosh’s crystalline voice.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Let It Roll
    Just about everything about “Let It Roll” is better than that first album, which wasn’t bad, but which maybe was as interesting for what it represented as the songs. ... And there are some great ones on “Let It Roll,” whether they’re ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s pastiches or not.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Brightest Blue
    “Brightest Blue” is the Ellie Goulding album that, from start to double-album finish, shows she’s as soulful, tight and mighty a brand as any.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Got to Be Tough
    The old saying that the more things change the more they stay the same could be the throughline to “Got to Be Tough,” which, nearly two dozen albums in, is full of messages that will resonate with today’s listeners.
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