New Musical Express (NME)'s Scores

  • Music
For 6,013 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 55% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 41% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 71
Highest review score: 100 to hell with it [Mixtape]
Lowest review score: 0 Maroon
Score distribution:
6013 music reviews
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Yes, ‘Vince Staples’ was a beautifully personal reflection from start to finish, but ‘Ramona Park…’ enriches the listener’s relationship with the rapper.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It’s an album of unabashed growth, as the artist gets in his feelings but never veers into self-pity. The masked cowboy is – paradoxically – baring his soul, unbridled and all the better for it.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    By digging deeper into her heritage and her own psyche, Cabello has created her richest and most compelling album yet.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tracks on here like ‘Fine’ and the aforementioned ‘Racist, Sexist Boy’ are vital, powerful bursts of punk fury. Yet when they let their pop music imaginations run free it’s equally impressive, with tracks like ‘Growing Up’, ‘Talking To Myself’ and ‘Magic’ showcasing a gift for catchy, singalong choruses.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The process of letting go has resulted in a record on which an acclaimed voice can explore human emotion with more breadth and depth than ever before.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Besides its flirtations with big band-style instrumentals, ‘Chloë and the Next 20th Century’ serves as a gorgeously crafted highlight reel of the singer’s many previous styles and guises, rather than a complete reinvention.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    It rushes with liberating, infectious joy that makes you want to grab your own partner-in-crime and speed off on an adventure to find somewhere that’s, as ‘Angelica’s mantra suggests, is “good times all the time”. With Wet Leg as your soundtrack, it seems inevitable you’ll find that place.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Doherty’s folky 2019 album with The Puta Madres was the sound of the former kid in the riot staring out to sea and looking for a little peace. Here with Lo, it feels like he’s truly found it. Now more than ever, this record is truly Arcadian.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    When the album proper kicks in with ‘Totally Fine’, it’s clear that PUP are still trading in the same brutally pissed off but unassailably catchy blasts of self-loathing. And, yes, it’s still as much fun as ever.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    On their 12th album, Red Hot Chili Peppers not only get comfortable with their own impressive legacy, but prove there’s plenty more to come.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The freewheeling spirit does occasionally give way to a less exciting middle ground: ‘Eight Minute Machines’ comes as a blast of scuzzy guitar-driven punk we’ve heard a lot of in recent years, where the six-minute closer ‘Greasin’ Up Jesus’ is built around a drum machine doesn’t go anywhere in particular. For the most part, though, this is clearly the sound of a band ready to party once more, making for another carnival of different sounds and offbeat ideas.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    ‘TILT’ is a record that proves that campness and ridiculousness doesn’t have to come at the expense of real depth.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    ‘Zombie’ has all the swagger and pep of his previous collaborator The Weeknd, while the tempered nature of ‘Cameo’ and ‘Renegade’ allow traditional pop songwriting to coexist with bolshy, bone-crunching settings. These fleeting moments are by far ‘Reborn’s most satisfying, and offer proof that there’s plenty more creative road for Kavinsky to bomb it down in years to come.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Curry flexes his ability to flow and rhyme meticulously lines that explode your mind, his gruff delivery similar to that of RZA or even Busta Rhymes.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Given its creator’s effortless vocals, smart lyricism and obvious ability to craft new bangers, ‘Gifted’ will only add to the clamour surrounding Koffee’s name: time will tell how far she will continue to rise from this point.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Musically, ‘Mainstream Sellout’ doesn’t stray too far from [Tickets To My Downfall's] blueprint laid out, but lyrically sees Baker get more honest, more revealing and more comfortable in being uncomfortable.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    ‘Never Let Me Go’ is a true renaissance record. It’s no ‘Metal Machine Music’ or ‘Yeezus’, but a record that finds Placebo inspired and ready for a new era, reinventing the rock veterans for the modern age.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Propelled by a glossy indie sound hell-bent on dragging the band up festival bills, opener ‘Hometown’ expresses this best. ... The problem is, such weighty ambition is left off this album, which too often finds them content on taking the easy road.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Once given the time and attention it demands, ‘Warm Chris’ is the kind of album that will eventually take root somewhere deep. Its complexities mean that each listen holds new revelations, the record growing richer and richer over time.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Rosalía isn’t so much carving out her own lane as building her own ultra-modern, super-bendy sonic motorway. It’s one you’ll want to hurtle down again and again.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    At times, ‘Crash’ eases off the throttle slightly – the interpolation of ‘Show Me Love’ on ‘Used to Know Me’ is infectious, if slightly too straightforward, while smouldering ballads ‘Move Me’ and ‘Every Rule’ could do with more of the skewed hints of unfamiliarity found in spades elsewhere. These are minor gripes, though, and by the time those synthesised strings whirr into life on the jagged pop-funk track ‘Baby’ they’re easy enough to overlook.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kojey Radical sells us the image of refined Renaissance man he has become, rather than merely resting on his potential.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Opening up the definition of rap-rock, TheOGM and Eaddy prove that you can hold yourself to the same intricate lyrical standards of rap, while sounding closer to the rockstars they grew up falling in love with.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The music that Ghost make over twelve tracks, more than ever before, is a truly delicious pop-rock proposition.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    ‘Who Cares?’, O’Connor’s fourth album, is a gorgeously measured step forward.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    ‘Reeling’ is gripping throughout, and the band always seem ready to ascend to another level.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    BODEGA’s most vital moments come when they lower their guard down and just let it all out.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The vocals are as limber as the glitching, swaying soundscapes and the whole album is a mesmerising listen that constantly surprises.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    With ‘Topical Dancer’, they have created an album that works just as well as the soundtrack to a killer house party as it does a necessary act of rebellion against the negative forces in our society.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It’s clear that the members of MICHELLE are moving forwards together in search of something new, but are grateful to be in no rush to find it.