I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead

El-P – I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead: B-Side Breakdown 78 (C+) from 10 critic reviews.

Album cover for I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead by El-P
Released March 20, 2007
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El-P

I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead

78
B-Side BreakdownGrade C+ · 10 critics · 60% approval
B-Side Breakdown78Grade: C+
Approval60%6 of 10 critics scored it 75 or higher
DivisivenessSome debateHow close the scores are: most critics land within 24 points of each other

Critics give I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead a B-Side Breakdown of 78 (C+), from 10 reviews at outlets we track. Scores run 60 to 100.

The verdict on I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead

6 of 10 critics liked it. A mixed reception.

020406080100Rolling Stone: 60The Guardian: 60Spin: 70NME: 70Uncut: 80Pitchfork: 80The A.V. Club: 85Entertainment Weekly: 88AllMusic: 90The Independent: 100 Breakdown 78
The gist
The Independent via Wikipediaby Andy Gill 5/5 100 2007
AllMusic via Wikipediaby John Bush 4.5/5 90
Entertainment Weekly via Wikipediaby Michaelangelo Matos B+ 88 2007
The A.V. Club via Wikipediaby Andy Battaglia B 85 2007 “El-P: I'll Sleep When You're Dead”
Uncut via Wikipedia 4/5 80 2006
Pitchfork via Wikipediaby Sam Chennault 8.0/10 80 2007 “The long-awaited follow-up to 2002's Fantastic Damage is more textured and melodic than its predecessor, but El-P's production is still amongst the most jarring in hip-hop and here the Def…”
Spin via Wikipediaby Chris Ryan 3.5/5 70 2007
NME via Wikipediaby Alex Miller 7/10 70 2007 “After the Pixies, the guy who trademarked soft-loud songwriting changed his name from Black Francis to Frank Black and began ploughing the lonely acoustic furrow of the soft-soft. Well, hold…”
Rolling Stone via Wikipediaby Christian Hoard 3/5 60 2007
The Guardian via Wikipediaby Angus Batey 3/5 60 2007

I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead in El-P's catalog

75Fantastic Damage (2002): 8989I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead (2007): 7878This oneCancer 4 Cure (2012): 838320022012
El-P's albums by B-Side Breakdown, in release order. Above the dashed line, most critics liked it. Every El-P album, ranked

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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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