New Musical Express (NME)'s Scores

  • Music
For 5,999 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:
5999 music reviews
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The immediate reference point would be a Swedish Coral to the power of ten--but it's more mental, more hippy and psychedelic. [14 May 2005, p.67]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    This is wild music, a celestial cabaret that absorbs and unsettles.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    An album of eerie, elusive beauty.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In Masseduction we already have both Dorian and his portrait: the fox on the album’s cover, all rampant neons, stockinged legs, and taut flesh, and the inner ravaging--material just too good to keep in the attic.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    When positioned against their previous releases, ‘Formula Of Love: O+T=˂3’ paints a picture of a masterful act, one who has learned to wield their talent and concept into one cohesive banger after another.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dear Science cuts through genres like a laser through a music encyclopaedia, making strange connections, but always with pop clarity as the ultimate aim. As ever, Sitek’s production shines.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The production throughout is nothing short of exceptional. With the full backing of an orchestra, there is a richness to the sound overseen by seminal producer Inflo. Their chemistry is apparent throughout as the vocals and production coil around one another egging the other on to new heights. ... It’s not hyperbole to suggest that this canonises her work forever, elating her to be one of the greats.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lyrically, then, it’s a record characterised by its pessimism, yet musically it’s among their most joyful.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Odd, addictive, unsettling and beautiful. [8 Jul 2006, p.41]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The record stands as an all-encompassing culmination of Tyler’s ever-varying sound, showing that growth isn’t always linear and that artists can be a multitude of things. On ‘Call Me…’, Tyler cements his place as a generational talent, one in fine form and continuing to push the boundaries of his vision and kaleidoscopic sound.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    She might not want a pedestal, but there aren’t many songwriters who’d make better use of it.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    There’s tonnes of fun to be had from absorbing the duo’s fury, and El-P’s sci-fi beats are as thrillingly big ‘n’ bad as ever.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    PJ Harvey's best album since 1991's 'Dry', a return to the feral intensity of that remarkable debut.... The clarity of the electric guitars played by Harvey, Rob Ellis and Mick Harvey is enough to make you fall in love with elemental rock all over again.... You could quibble Harvey has absolved her responsibilities by making an album earthed in the New York sound of 20 or 30 years ago. But when rock is so invigorating, so joyous about love, sex and living, all arguments are null and void.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bits of it rule.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Just as on her recent EP of ’80s cover songs, ‘Aisles’, Olsen approached the decade’s tropes with care, and at no point does ‘Big Time’ descend into parody. Though it uses them in the same way those aforementioned greats did, to access the deep and real emotion at a song’s core and open it up to her listener as something irresistible.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    This is a smooth, sleek band with their eyes on a bigger prize and they undeniably lose something in the process.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Prince: Originals is at its best when Prince lets loose and embraces his cheekier side. ... Although the camp synths and indulgent guitar solos present on a lot of these tracks are clear by-products of the decade that gave us cone bras, Super Mario and The Goonies, this music also sounds prescient.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everything from psych-jazz, electro-funk, soulful house and the occasional rocker gets a look in here. In lesser hands it’s a right old mess, but not in Howard’s.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Elegant and elemental, quietly confident and masterfully understated, Designer feels like a breath of fresh air in a time dense with noise and algorithmic hiss.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    By its close, FKA twigs is an unstoppable force of nature.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    A powerful synthesis of past and present, ‘Letter To You’ shows us the strength that can be found in sorrow. The result is Springsteen’s finest album since 2002’s ‘The Rising’.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    While this is clearly not the record Smith intended to make, it's still an immensely gripping and cohesive piece of work. [23 Oct 2004, p.47]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    By its close, 'The Blueprint' has eloquently mapped out life's foundations: laughter, tears, joy and pain, and has marked the Jigga as the complete rapper.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Even when things get musically darker on the shimmering alt-pop of ‘Posing In Bondage’, there remains a prioritisation of pop melody; the fat is trimmed from all 10 songs on the record, leaving perfectly formed three-and-a-half-minute pop songs that want – and deserve – to be blasting out of your radio.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Once again, SAULT demonstrate the power of words and just how impactful music can be. It’s impossible not to feel affected by the stories being told. But, despite ‘Nine’s sadness, SAULT channel optimism and hope for a brighter future into their songs.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    It may be titled From Kinshasa, but this record could easily be from the future.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Sonically, it was staggering.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Undoubtedly the one Sleater-Kinney album that everyone should have. [21 May 2005, p.66]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    [A] brilliant album.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    With ‘King’s Disease III’, the New York rapper has put the seal on a strong album trilogy that proves that, three decades in, he’s still a force to be reckoned with.