Worth your time, but not a Keeper. It scores 76 and a Keeper needs 85. What holds it back is the listeners: a user score of 83 on Album of the Year is tied for 2nd of the 38 albums we scored and still earns only 12 of the 20 points. We'll score it again as the numbers settle.
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Where the 76 comes from
Critics26/40
Critic score 88. A 70 earns nothing and a 98 earns all 40 points.
Audience12/20
Audience score 83. A 60 earns nothing and a 98 earns all 20 points.
Track record14/15
Third album. SOUR and GUTS both won or were nominated for Grammys.
Staying power24/25
Debuted #1 on the Billboard 200 with about 470K units and held #1 for more than two weeks.
Scores used: Metacritic 90 and Album of the Year critic score 85, averaged to 88. User score 83 (19,435 ratings). Numbers checked September 16, 2026. See the main source.
One short email when something new makes the list: an album to play, a game to buy, a film to watch, a book to read, tech worth buying, a thing that lasts. Nothing else.
How the score works
Albums, games, films, shows and books
Critics, 40. The published aggregate from Metacritic, OpenCritic, Album of the Year or Rotten Tomatoes. For books, Book Marks grades every major review rave, positive, mixed or pan; we read those as 100, 75, 50 and 25 and take the average. Almost everything reviewed lands between 70 and 98, so a 70 earns nothing and a 98 earns all 40.
Audience, 20. What people who paid for it say, from user scores, Steam reviews and, for books, the Goodreads average times 20. A 60 earns nothing and a 98 earns all 20.
Track record, 15. Whether the people who made it have made things that lasted before. Debuts start lower on purpose.
Staying power, 25. What happens after launch week: chart runs, players who stick around, renewals, sales that keep going, prize shortlists.
A Keeper is our bet on what lasts. Some releases show it right away: the reviews, the players and the people behind them all point the same way, the way they did for Elden Ring. For albums, games, films, shows and books, 85 or above is a Keeper and 75 to 84 is worth your time. Things and tech need 80. We score everything again as time goes by, and a Keeper that fades loses the label. Nobody pays to be here or pays for a score. Every score links to where its numbers came from. Each one has a link to find it on Amazon, and as an Amazon Associate, Keepers earns from qualifying purchases.
