Guero

Beck – Guero: B-Side Breakdown 78 (C+) from 11 critic reviews.

Album cover for Guero by Beck
Released March 16, 2005
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Beck

Guero

78
B-Side BreakdownGrade C+ · 11 critics · 64% approval
B-Side Breakdown78Grade: C+
Approval64%7 of 11 critics scored it 75 or higher
DivisivenessSome debateHow close the scores are: most critics land within 22 points of each other

Based on 11 reviews from outlets we track. Scores run 60 to 100.

By the numbers: Scores ran from 60 (Q) to 100 (The Independent). The third best-reviewed Rock album of 2005 we've tracked.

020406080100Q: 60Pitchfork: 66PopMatters: 70Slant: 70Rolling Stone: 80The Guardian: 80NME: 80AllMusic: 80Blender: 80Entertainment Weekly: 91The Independent: 100 Breakdown 78
The gist
The Independent via Wikipedia 5/5 100
Entertainment Weekly via Wikipedia A- 91
Rolling Stone via Wikipedia 4/5 80 “Check out our album review of Artist's Guero on Rolling Stone.com.”
The Guardian via Wikipedia 4/5 80
NME via Wikipedia 8/10 80 “There are some who believe that, in pop music, wilful eclecticism is a good thing. That hopping from style to style is the way to make great records. These people…”
AllMusic via Wikipedia 4/5 80
Blender via Wikipedia 4/5 80
PopMatters 7/10 70 2005 “Looking for my place on assembly lines… — Beck, "Hell Yes”
Slantby Sal Cinquemani 3.5/5 70 2005 “The album smells of the fear of death.”
Pitchfork via Wikipedia 6.6/10 66 “Contemporary rock's top chameleon gives the people what they want, drafting in the Dust Brothers to try to recapture his Odelay persona and sound.”
Q via Wikipedia 3/5 60

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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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