New York Daily News (Jim Faber)'s Scores

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For 136 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 46% higher than the average critic
  • 0% same as the average critic
  • 54% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 6.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Miles Davis at Newport: 1955-1975 The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4
Lowest review score: 0 Grand Romantic
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 61 out of 136
  2. Mixed: 73 out of 136
  3. Negative: 2 out of 136
136 music reviews
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    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Introducing Darlene Love
    It’s the balance of the production that makes it all click.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Crosseyed Heart
    In the end, most of the songs feel like demos--but that stripped result honors the joy of raw feeling.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rattle That Lock
    The pace remains measured, the production pristine and the tone a tad too tame.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Story of Sonny Boy Slim
    It’s great that Clark’s new songs separate themselves from genre restrictions. But, in the end, it’s the way he feels his strings that ends up touching us so deeply.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    HitNRun: Phase One
    True to its goal, there's lots of fun to be had here, even if the music does lack depth and innovation.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Muddy Waters 100
    It offers a crisp and worthy glimpse of a giant.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz
    The album could use a hefty dose of editing, annoying to any listener--unless, of course, they’re too stoned to care.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Beauty Behind the Madness
    The sound is more dense and self-conscious than ever, the twin Achilles’ heels of this star. At times, the mix blurs Tesfay’s vocals, preventing them from taking a deserved center stage.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Great Unknown
    The songs offer few individualized lyrical details, and no consistent themes, to pin on a particular person. The arrangements, likewise, have a slick adaptability that makes these songs serviceable cover material for any pop star of the hour.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Right Here Right Now
    That hybrid [hip-hop and pop], and Sparks’ new maturity, allows her to find her voice, as well as a potential new role.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Eyes Wide, Tongue Tied
    Jon Fratelli proves a cleverly withering lyricist. Nearly all the songs treat lovers as thieves, imposters or liars.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    E-MO-TION
    Due to the era the album fetishes, the music sounds inescapably chintzy.... Jepsen’s improbably young voice helps distract from that.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Kill the Lights
    He serves up several ballads, which salute hunting, fishing, and scarecrows. None are particularly convincing, given the anchor-man blandness of Bryan’s vocals.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Compton
    Dre might have sounded fat and smug at this point. The good news is that, instead, he sounds hungry.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Miles Davis at Newport: 1955-1975 The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4
    Miles never performed songs the same way twice, so these still carry surprises.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nina Revisited: A Tribute to Nina Simone
    Though Hill shares the honoree’s alto pitch and stern vibrato, she’s transformed the arrangements of these classic songs to nearly the same degree that Simone did on her own versions.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Mobile Orchestra
    The artist widened his palette this time, bringing in the country singer Jake Owen on one track, and soul star Aloe Blacc on a song that aims to repeat the magic Blacc struck on Aviici’s “Wake Me Up.” Unfortunately, Young’s nerdy sensibility kills that.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The Monsanto Years
    The new [album] sinks decent riffs and an earnest message in unlistenably didactic lyrics.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 0 Critic Score
    Grand Romantic
    Ruess’ voice has great volume, but no body. There’s no roundness, or richness, to his tone. It’s all hard angles, offering no cushion for the screech. Worse, he often pushes his voice beyond its bounds, in the process making him sound as pinched as Alvin or one of the Chipmunks.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Original High
    If the end result isn’t as big a blast as the star’s previous records, it still has his likable tone and witty character to count on.
    • 100 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sticky Fingers [Deluxe Edition]
    The alternate studio takes shoot us into a parallel universe well worth entering.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Déjà-Vu
    Like all the tracks here, the sound clearly channels the past, but only to buff it with a current sheen.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
    Even as the band’s music keeps expanding, Welch’s lyrics have narrowed in focus. They’re less abstract this time, more attuned to the vagaries of love.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    All Your Favorite Bands
    The power of Goldsmith’s words elevates it all to the next level.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Can't Forget: A Souvenir of the Grand Tour [Live]
    Cohen vocals frequently sound more robust than they do in the studio, which is a surprise.... Still, it’s the band that gives the tracks the most animation.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Wilder Mind
    Switching this band’s sound to international rock just amounts to trading one bland canvas for another.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Carrie & Lowell
    The impeccable music Stevens has created gives shape to the chaos of his emotions.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Magic Whip
    The reconstituted Blur confines its wilder moments to the margins, using them to add creativity to the arrangements, or hint at the askew worldview expressed in the lyrics. The core of the songs recall the melodic sharpness, and rhythmic force, of the 1990s.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sound & Color
    The new mix, as well as the broader melodies, lets the group escape the dreaded “retro” tag. But it’s the stun-gun effect of Howard’s vocals that puts the Shakes in a class of their own. She’s today’s most volatile singer, the one most prone to erupt when you least expect it.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Handwritten
    The studio sound erased many of those aural pimples, acting like dermabrasion for the ears. The appeal of the songs also helps smooth things over. Adults may notice that this “singer-songwriter” rarely writes without armies of collaborators. But the material he’s been handed has hooks.
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