7. Bush, Black and White Rainbows

BMG Rights Management

Metascore: 49

Keeping this one short and sweet, the return of Bush following a three-year hiatus wasn’t well received by four professional critics. There’s little uplifting about a Metascore of 49.  AllMusic took the “high road” with a 3-star review, good for a Metascore of 60.  Classic Rock Magazine and The Guardian were more mixed, offering up scores of only 50 and 40 respectively.  Drowned in Sound, who makes its first appearance on this list, WAS NOT FEELING IT, assigning a score of 3 out of 10 (30). Reviewer Aidan Reynolds asserts at the close of his review:

“Should we see the resurgence of Bush, I wouldn’t begrudge it at all. Ultimately, though, this isn’t a terrible album…it’s something much worse: a pointless one.”

Our Take:

None – we didn’t review this “bad boy.”

8. Cold War Kids, L.A. Divine

Capitol

Metascore: 49

Ah, another rock band getting some bad vibes from the critics.  Cold War Kids only mustered up a 49 as well from Metacritic when 5 professional reviews came in.  Here, there’s a huge discrepancy between the top-rating review and second-highest rated review.  AllMusic is the outlier, assigning L.A. Divine a generous 3 ½ stars or a Metascore of 70.  Interestingly, the review excerpt from Metacritic feels more skeptical than laudatory, particularly with such a solid score:

“On the whole, L.A. Divine is a little less consistent than Hold My Home; the band’s relentless intensity can get a bit exhausting, while the interludes sprinkled throughout the album feel more distracting than transporting.”

Everybody else was less enthused: Paste Magazine (46), DIY Magazine, Q Magazine, and Uncut (40). According to Scott Heisel of Paste, “For a 14-track album that feels interminably long at only 44 minutes, three songs is not enough to save L.A. Divine from sustained mediocrity.”

Our Take:

None, because we didn’t partake to begin with.

9. Katy Perry, Witness

Capitol

Metascore: 52 

Lots of things didn’t seem to go well for Katy Perry in 2017.  Witness ultimately turned out to be a commercial flop by her standards.  Making things worse, the album only scored a tepid 52 overall.  Given its status as a pop album, 19 professional reviewers tackled it.  4 liked it, 13 were mixed, and 2 panned it.

NME, The Guardian, Entertainment Weekly, and Prefix Magazine were the outliers, likely propelling the aggregate for Witness into the 50s (80 and 75 respectively).  Kevin O’Donnell (EW) assigns the album a B, but also criticizes its execution:

“Hearing these tracks [“Bon Appétit” and “Swish Swish”] alongside the more serious fare on Witness ultimately creates the feeling of a record that’s all over the place. If there were a few more pure pop moments like those songs, Perry would’ve made something truly worth witnessing.”

Others were firmly mixed, with a camp assigning 60 (The Observer, Rolling Stone, and Slant) and 50 (Drowned in Sound, Pretty Much Amazing, and Consequence of Sound). There were 7 professional critics who assigned scores that converted into 40s, making up nearly 37% of the assigned scores. PopMatters and Spin weren’t onboard, each assigning an abysmal score of 30. Evan Sawdey (PopMatters) writes:

“So who’s going to bear Witness? The listeners, of course, ‘cos this album, unfortunately, proves to be one hell of a burden.”

Our Take:

All we could muster up was 2 out of 5 stars for Witness.

“All said and done, Witness is by far the most flawed effort Katy Perry has offered.  Despite the robust amount of filler, the biggest issue with Witness is its lack of hits.  Despite the criticism that the three singles received ahead of the album, they stand out contextually.  Non-singles that rank a ‘notch above the rest’ don’t feel like hit-singles. This leaves Perry in a position of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” The direction of Witness also opens the door to skepticism. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”