Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Leaps And Bounds

Lily Album - Its definitely her — Lily Album - It's definitely her

We are a blog after all. So lets make some lists.

Top 10 albums of the year so far

1. Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You
2. God Help the Girl – s/t
3. Jarvis Cocker – Further Complications
4. Bell X1 – Blue Lights On the Runway
5. Rhett Miller – s/t
6. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz
7. Wilco – Wilco (the Album)
8. The Mummers – Tale To Tell
9. Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
10. Bob Evans – Goodnight, Bull Creek!

We’ll leave the full babble for the end of the year. But Lily Allen‘s new, confident, mature, nasty, fun record has topped our list so far, with Stuart Murdoch’s new project God Help the Girl coming in a very close second. Jarvis Cocker starts all over as a British Nick Cave figure. So far a wonderful year for music and so much more to come.

So many albums only just missed out. Here’s our top 10 songs not on our top 10 albums list.

1. Phoenix – Lisztomania
2. Yves Klein Blue – Getting Wise
3. Regina Spektor – Dance Anthem Of the 80s
4. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – A Teenager In Love
5. Casiotone For the Painfully Alone – Natural Light
6. Franz Ferdinand – Katherine Kiss Me
7. Doves – 10:03
8. Camera Obscura – You Told A Lie
9. Gomez – Airstream Driver
10. Jason Lytle – Yours Truly, The Commuter

For those unfamiliar, Metcritic brings together reviews from around the web of the same records, movies, games and more. Unlike elbo.ws or wearerhunted.com, Metacritic focuses in on respected publications, not fan opinions.

Amongst the reviews collected by Metacritic are Rolling Stone, Q, Mojo, NME, Paste, many internationally renown newspapers and even websites like Pitchfork and Allmusic. Those reviews are given a score out of 100, and the collected scores are given an overall score out of 100.

The point? It’s fantastic place to see what the critics are saying. You don’t have to surf around a dozen websites. And lets face it, the overall opinion of the world’s biggest music press still matters.

We love checking this site. Not only does it reminds us what is out this week, it helps us choose what we listen to every week. The fantastic reviews the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have gotten for their new record made us give that record more of a chance. It’s now one of our faves so far this year. Every time someone like Dylan puts out a new record, you think you might skip it. With a score of ’82’ (universal acclaim), maybe now is not the time.

On the other hand, any nostalgic loyalty to Chris Cornell has been shattered. It has the worse reviews on the site of any album this year. However, when a record is as bad as Cornell’s, the reviews are hilarious. Having one site that collects hilariously damning review after damning review can definitely take a up a few hours of schedenfraude.

There’s also a score for reader reviews, giving you an insight into what regular folks think. Amazing, the user score is even higher for Dylan, who is known for being a critic’s darling! And there is more than just music. Games, movies, DVDs and TV are all covered by the same system.

So next time you’re wondering if something is any good, Metacritic should be your first stop. It takes away the single biased review and gives you a sense of people are saying, without having to ever talk about it. You can just quietly delete that Chris Cornell album off your shopping list.

Check it out here – http://www.metacritic.com/

Tag: Yeah Yeah Yeahs

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