• Record Label: K7
  • Release Date: Nov 25, 2008
Metascore
73

Generally favorable reviews - based on 14 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 14
  2. Negative: 0 out of 14
  1. These guys have excellent taste, and they construct an entertaining mélange on Tapes.
  2. Q Magazine
    80
    This mixtape is broad in scope and delirious in flavour. [Jan 2009, p.1222]
  3. On first listen, it seems like they picked some pretty obvious anthems, but the standards are bookended by enough discoveries to make the overall package strong.
  4. Uncut
    80
    It's an impeccably tatsteful tribute to their record collections, though mystifying they can find no room for anything by The Cure. [Jan 2009, p.114]
  5. It’s great fun, but it’s all boundless energy without centre.
  6. 70
    What Tapes lacks in classic names, it makes up for in flow.
  7. We’ll forgive these occasional dips, though, because overall Tapes is so good-natured and inclusive.
  8. If their hipster stock has dipped since, this mix suggests they can always fall back on their side career as DJs.
  9. Even if the Rapture really hasn't made much music that sounds like this (their rockist tendencies generally get the better of them), it's nice to know that they're in touch with this fact.
  10. Though the band are by no means no superstar DJs, the enthusiasm for the music they love is all too apparent. If anything, Tapes will send you digging for the full versions of some fine, forgotten tunes--and that’s no bad thing.
  11. This mix might not help the Rapture pass every test of the best club DJs, but when it comes to maybe the most important one--the ability to make clubbers push their way to the booth and breathlessly ask for the title of that amazing cut they just dropped--they've done their studying.
  12. Enjoyment of the Rapture's Tapes necessitates unfamiliarity with the majority of its contents, indifference to acute sequencing and, naturally, deep interest in what the band views as classic and fresh.
  13. Tapes goes through the motions of dance music without ever delivering anything remotely danceable.
  14. Under The Radar
    40
    Though peppered with worthwhile rarities, Tapes is too lopsidedly paced to work as a party mix. [Winter 2008]

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