Supernature (Goldfrapp Album) - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Supernature received positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 79, based on 27 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". In a review for PopMatters, Adrien Begrand said that "lthough Supernature lacks the imagination of Felt Mountain and the saucy brilliance of Black Cherry, it doesn't pander to the pop crowd." Lauren Gitlin of Rolling Stone said the album was "oxic and delicious" and that "Supernature will make you do bad things—and like it." However, Pitchfork Media reviewer Nitsuh Abebe was less impressed, and wrote that the album's songs "keep feeling like exercises: too thick and melodic to work like dance music, but with melodies that refuse to stick as satisfyingly as pop." Michael Hubbard of musicOMH wrote a review for every song on Supernature, and although he felt that it was a "curious, rather than classic, record", he criticised it for "fading out early on, with poor, low quality songs at the end which leave the listener feeling cheated". Allmusic critic Heather Phares called Supernature "Goldfrapp's most accessible album" and named "Ooh La La" as its best song.

In a review for Canadian-based website Jam!, Andrew Carver praised the different sounds on Supernature, which range from "a blend of future noise" to "crushed velvet corruption"; he described the album as "one sharp recording". Jessica Suarez of Spin magazine compared "Ooh La La" to Black Cherry's "Strict Machine", saying that "Ooh La La" sounds "so simplistic that minimalist repetition occasionally teeters over into redundancy". She praised "Ride a White Horse" and "Fly Me Away" for featuring Alison Goldfrapp's "velvet-soft vocals, which stay that way even when heavily processed". A less favourable reception came from Stylus Magazine reviewer Edward Oculicz, who stated "Supernature is not a great album" and called several of its tracks too "dull".

Rolling Stone magazine ranked the album at number thirty-two on its list of The Top 50 Albums of 2006. In January 2008, the album was included on The Daily Telegraph's list of the 120 essential pop albums. At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Goldfrapp received two nominations for Best Electronic/Dance Album and Best Dance Recording for "Ooh La La".