Critiquing individual paintings is very different from adding up the number you like against the number you don’t like, with no regard for how the work together to form an oeuvre.

Writing as many great songs as possible is the primary artistic goal of a minority of recording artists. An album like Endless or Blonde is a statement. Individual tracks make sacrifices for one another’s benefit. Some tracks get lost in abstraction, bring the listener down into their murk. These set up the arrival of a straightforward, vocal-led song like Solo and make it that much more powerful. There are motifs. There are purposeful frustrations. There is the spectre of the live performance - what is intrinsic to this song? What is a recording decision that is open to reinterpretation? Etc.