Point (album)

Drowned in Sound's Samuel Rosean described Point as a Shibuya-kei album, albeit "in only the most abstract and contextual manner", noting that its "spacey guitar and synth-heavy production" was more comparable to works by artists such as Stereolab and the Notwist.[8]

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	82/100[9]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[10]
Alternative Press	8/10[11]
Blender	[12]
Entertainment Weekly	A[13]
The Guardian	[14]
Muzik	4/5[15]
NME	8/10[16]
Pitchfork	7.8/10[17]
Q	[18]
Spin	7/10[19]

At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, Point received an average score of 82 based on 24 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[9] Ty Burr of Entertainment Weekly described Point as "11 irresistible sound collages that feature driving beats, amiable guitar acoustics, and a quadraphonic sense of aural play that encourages rampant headphone abuse."[13] LA Weekly's Dan Epstein found it to be a "consistently whimsical and inventive" record,[20] while The A.V. Club's Noel Murray called it "a magnificent piece of pop architecture."[21]

AllMusic editor Heather Phares found that while Point eschews the "stylistic about-faces" of its predecessor Fantasma, "the restraint and cohesion Oyamada brings to the album make its louder and crazier moments... that much more distinctive."[10] Blender's Alex Pappademas deemed it an improvement over Fantasma, with less "stylistic range" but a more refined pop sensibility.[12] Fiona Sturges of The Independent found that Cornelius had "honed his cut-and-paste sensibilities into something more coherent and utterly beautiful."[22] Nick Southall of Stylus Magazine said, "More rounded and less determinedly schizo than Fantasma, Point is a great album of delicious odd-pop made by a whimsically modest genius.[23] Guardian critic Garry Mulholland was more critical, panning the music as "noises in search of a song, a groove or, indeed, a point".[14]

For the album's tour, Cornelius and his band created music videos for each song, which played behind them. In The Daily Telegraph, Richard Wolfson said of the overall effect: "A Cornelius show is a blur of precision-perfect stops and starts, visual gags, unusual camera angles and sudden visceral leaps into new musical and visual styles."[24] On July 23, 2003, the Felicity and Polystar labels released a DVD titled Five Point One containing all the songs' music videos.[25]

All tracks are written by Keigo Oyamada, except "Brazil" by Ary Barroso and Bob Russell.

• Point at Discogs (list of releases)
• Point at MusicBrainz (list of releases)