In his review for The Guardian, Alexis Petridis was ambivalent towards the album's 1980s influence and argued that, despite well written songs, it is not very consequential. Time magazine's Claire Suddath said the songs lack lyrical substance, even though they are performed well. Greg Kot, writing in the Chicago Tribune, called 4 inconsistent, short, and unfinished. NME magazine's Hamish MacBain felt Beyoncé did not progress from her past work and that "even the OK bits here" sounded "uninspired". Tom Hull was more critical and gave the album a "C", lamenting the second half of songs' "overkill production" and believing the first half's ballads show that, while "every soul diva of her generation has dreamed of singing like Aretha Franklin ... only Beyoncé has had the ego to think she's done it." Accolades 4 was included on various publication's year-end lists. It was ranked as the best album of the year by The New Yorker, and came in the runner-up spot on lists produced by Spin and Amazon. The album was ranked within the top 10 by MSN, where it came in at number three, The Guardian and MTV, which placed it at number four, and the Chicago Sun-Times, which placed it at number six. The BBC ranked it at number seven, while The New York Times listed it as the 10th best album of the year. The album had strong showings on other lists, where it was placed number 13 by Consequence of Sound, number 18 by Stereogum, number 25 by Rolling Stone, number 39 by Spin, number 10 by Club Fonograma, number 34 by Pretty Much Amazing and number 27 by Pitchfork. 4 was included in NPR's Top 50 Favorite Albums of 2011, and was ranked at number 26 in the Pazz & Jops critics poll. It was listed at 37 on Rolling Stones Women Who Rock: 50 Greatest Albums of All Time. Pitchfork ranked the album at 39 on their list of the Top 100 Best Albums of the decade thus far, with Kyle Kramer writing that 4 "avoided the trappings of safe, later-career bids, instead setting up the perfect platform for Beyoncé as the pop star, a queen for all the people." The album was included on Consequence of Sound's list of The 10 Best Summer Albums of All Time with Kenneth Partridge writing that "whether she's hopelessly heartbroken or crazy in love, Queen Bey works damn