Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons

Blonde Redhead – Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons: B-Side Breakdown 74 (C) from 6 critic reviews.

Album cover for Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons by Blonde Redhead
Released June 6, 2000
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Blonde Redhead

Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons

74
B-Side BreakdownGrade C · 6 critics · 83% approval
B-Side Breakdown74Grade: C
Approval83%5 of 6 critics scored it 75 or higher
DivisivenessDividedHow close the scores are: most critics land within 30 points of each other

Early reviews. Critics give Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons an early B-Side Breakdown of 74 (C), from 6 reviews so far. It will settle as more outlets weigh in.

The verdict on Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons

Most critics liked it: 5 of 6 liked it.

020406080100Q: 40Pitchfork: 78Spin: 80NME: 80AllMusic: 80Under the Radar: 85 Breakdown 74
The gist
Under the Radar via Wikipediaby Ian King 8.5/10 85 2020 “Sometimes it’s the little adjustments that make the biggest differences. Twenty years on, it still isn’t easy to pin down a major change in Blonde Redhead on their fifth album,…”
Spin via Wikipediaby D. Strauss 8/10 80 2000
NME via Wikipediaby Kitty Empire 8/10 80 2000
AllMusic via Wikipediaby Yancey Strickler 4/5 80
Pitchfork via Wikipediaby Hefner Macauley 7.8/10 78 2000 “It would be easy to dismiss most of Blonde Redhead's output as a triumph of style over substance. Purveyors …”
Q via Wikipediaby Paul Davies 2/5 40 2000

Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons in Blonde Redhead's catalog

75Blonde Redhead (1995): 6767In an Expression of the Inexpressible (1998): 7373Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons (2000): 7474This oneMisery Is a Butterfly (2004): 777723 (2007): 7575Barragán (2014): 6868Sit Down for Dinner (2023): 777719952023
Blonde Redhead's albums by B-Side Breakdown, in release order. Above the dashed line, most critics liked it. Every Blonde Redhead album, ranked

How these critics usually treat Blonde Redhead

  • Q Harsher than usual41 points below the other critics here. Usually 8 points below on Blonde Redhead's other albums (3).
  • Pitchfork Kinder than usual5 points above the other critics here. Usually 11 points below on Blonde Redhead's other albums (5).
  • AllMusic About usual for them7 points above the other critics here. Usually 8 points above on Blonde Redhead's other albums (6).

More from Blonde Redhead

See all Blonde Redhead albums ranked

More Indie & Alternative from around 2000

Would you spin it again?

Be the first to answer. Results show once 3 listeners weigh in.

How the Breakdown works

Every outlet’s score is converted to 0–100 (2/5 is 40, 5.9/10 is 59, a B+ is 88) and averaged. Grades follow the B-Side scale: A is 90–100, B 80–89, C 70–79, D 60–69, F below 60. Approval is the share of critics who scored it 75 or higher; the Breakdown shows green at 75 and up, red below. Divisiveness asks a different question: not how many critics liked it, but how close their scores are to each other. Five critics who all give it 50 are Unanimous, even though none of them liked it. The labels run Unanimous, Broad agreement, Some debate, Divided, and Contentious. Replay rate comes from listeners, not critics: yes counts fully, a few tracks counts half, no counts zero. The gist quotes each outlet’s own summary of its review. Published is the date on the review itself, read from the outlet’s page, so you can see whether an album’s reputation came at release or years later. Scores marked est. come from reviews that publish no number. Scores marked via Wikipedia are archive ratings, mostly for older albums, taken from the “Professional ratings” box on the album’s Wikipedia page (published openly through Wikidata); each links to the original review when we can find it online, and to that Wikipedia entry when we can’t. When an outlet reviewed an album twice, years apart (often for a reissue), both scores count, each labeled with its year.

A-Side marks the critics’ top tier. An album earns it automatically, from its numbers alone: a Breakdown of 90 or higher, from at least 5 reviews, with at least 75% approval. Nobody hands it out and nobody can buy it; if new reviews pull an album below the line, it loses the badge.

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