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Ys
by Joanna Newsom
ALBUM RANKINGS:
Ratings and rankings are based on all available critic reviews and awards.
Overall Rating:
3.5554
Avg. Critic Score:
3.3876
Ys Rank 4 Reviews
Critic Review Summary
Click on the numbers to the right of the graph to see reviews of that rating. 
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Slant MagazineThe album is a precious--in every sense of the word--masterpiece. ...more
PopMattersFor my money, Newsom has demonstrated more nuance, depth of feeling, and originality than a hundred bedazzling pop divas. ...more
UncutFor the 56 minutes that "Ys" lasts, all the doubts evaporate. Every elaboration has a purpose, every labyrinthine melodic detour feels necessary rather than contrived. Tempting as it is to fixate on the gilded reputations of her associates, this is ...more
The GuardianIt may well be the most off-putting album released this year. After playing it, there seems every chance it is the also the most astonishing. ...more
Drowned In SoundIt’s a vivid and beautiful painting that you can walk into; a magic window into another world that I'd be happy to get lost in, and never come back. ...more
Critic Reviews continued...
Dusted MagazineYs is one of those rare sophomore albums that shatters exceedingly high expectations. ...more
Observer Music MonthlyYs is an exceptional piece of art in the broadest sense - give it the chance to grow on you. ...more
musicOMH.comBorn in a small town in Nevada, Joanna Newsom began to play the harp when she was 7 years old. She has described herself as always having an affinity with the harp and has considered it her mission to establish that particular instrument as a fully ...more
Drowned In SoundItâs only very occasionally that Iâve come across an album that sounds so out of step with the times in which itâs created that it sounds startling, even shocking, like a smouldering asteroid that crashes through the ceiling of your house. ...more
GuardianThere is no getting around the fact that Joanna Newsom is an enormously hard sell. Even in a climate in which a major label has given a contract to the Horrors - a band, lest we forget, who appear to have based their sound and their image ...more
PitchforkThe people who hear this record will split into two crowds: The ones who think it's silly and precious, and the ones who, once they hear it, won't be able to live without it. ...more
Stylus MagazineWhile Ys is ridiculously overwritten, over-performed and self-contained, her fables always sublimate into the hot fog of real emotions just before they calcify. ...more
The Onion (A.V. Club)For those willing to let go a little and drift, Ys can be an amazing journey, especially when Parks' strings and Newsom's harp lock into a seductive dance, or when her voice catches one of the fleeting snatches of melody and rides it until it escapes. ...more
StylusMagazineYs is an immersive album of classical pop with proggy, cyclic structures, more long-winded than its hippie forbearers and twice as tiring because it bothers trying to sustain precision. ...more
PrefixMagFrom the lavish orchestration courtesy of Van Dyke Parks to the richness and sheer abundance of language at Newsom's disposal, Ys is a supreme achievement. ...more
Lost At SeaListening to Ys is like dreaming with eyes open, a detached lucidity in which clarity inevitably follows. ...more
Almost CoolA knockout of an album. ...more
Drowned In SoundJoanna Newsom burst onto the music scene with her debut album The Milk-Eyed Mender a couple years back and seemed to be one of those artists who was about as divisive as they come. Musically, her harp-accompanied work was a breath of fresh air, ...more
SpinJoanna Newsom is the musical equivalent of a Disneyland employee or a server at a goofy theme restaurant. Her out-there shtick -- plucking delicate arpeggios on a full-size harp while warbling naturalist verse in a precocious-toddler voice -- is ...more
LeedsMusicSceneIts an exceptionally clever album. ...more
All Music GuideYes, Ys is a demanding listen, but it's also a rewarding and inspiring one. ...more
ShakingThrough.netThe narrative plot of each song retains the best features of Newsom's previous work, and is gloriously wordy. Here might be the album's one weakness, since it's simply hard to understand a line like "Scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?" when it's set to ...more
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