The Guardian's Scores

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For 5,509 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 49% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 48% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To
Lowest review score: 10 Unpredictable
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,968 out of 5509
  2. Mixed: 2,464 out of 5509
  3. Negative: 77 out of 5509
5509 music reviews
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    • 100 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Revolver Special Edition (Super Deluxe) [Box Set]
    Revolver’s new details tease out deeper meanings in the songs. Now more prominent, the low-lit backing harmonies on Here, There and Everywhere remake the tune as an old-fashioned rock’n’roll love song; the piano bending out of key on I Want to Tell You mirrors the narrator’s insecurity; and McCartney’s booming walking bass on Taxman illuminates the biting, cynical tone of Harrison’s lyrics. ... Revolver still sounds so vibrant.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Bandana
    The supporting cast also includes Anderson .Paak, Pusha T and Killer Mike, all of whom give impressive turns. But Gibbs is the star and, behind the boards, Madlib guides him like a skilled director. The result is an album of unvarnished realities transmuting into cinematic excellence.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Underneath
    In rock, technical brilliance can sometimes impede immediacy, but Code Orange use it to achieve total and thrilling omnipotence. They are a reminder that visionary music never wears a genre tag.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    M B V
    The songs on m b v, however, are more melodically complex, intriguing and often pleasing than anything he has written before.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Hunter
    Hunter is glorious and triumphant, a record that succeeds on any terms you try to force upon it.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Everything Harmony
    The songwriting never dips below classic.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Light Up Gold
    Parquet Courts have produced a debut that's both instantly addictive and lastingly rewarding: a smart, snappy concoction of worldly wisdom and garage-rock gratification.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Relayted
    The results pitch beautifully crafted, poignant songs and heartfelt vocals against foggy, ethereal production.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Noble Beast
    Bird and his 10 collaborators use sound the way the impressionists daubed paint, layering elegiac violin melodies with pattering plucked notes, fuzzy or jangly guitar, clip-clop percussion, clicks and drones to create music that might be straightforwardly folky, brightly poppy or more experimental, but is always vivid and engaging.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Suddenly
    As Suddenly underlines, [his career has] ended up somewhere exciting: in a niche of its own, where electronic auteur meets singer-songwriter, where an innate feel for pop music and the dancefloor co-exists with experimentation.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    In Rainbows
    The most heartening thing about In Rainbows, besides the fact that it may represent the strongest collection of songs Radiohead have assembled for a decade, is that it ventures into new emotional territories.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To
    An indulgently rich record that keeps revealing more on double-digit listens. And at various moments, just when you thought it couldn’t get any heavier, it does. .... Being crushed underneath this album is one of the great musical experiences of the year.
    • 100 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    London Calling [25th Anniversary Legacy Edition]
    London Calling itself stands tall as the band's masterpiece, the showcase for all their musical tastes and inclinations.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Locked Down
    No one makes music like this: the Night Tripper rampages inimitably through swamp blues, voodoo funk and Afrobeat, with his trademark piano.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Funeral
    One of the year's best already, by a mile.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    DAMN.
    Whether Damn will have the same epochal impact as To Pimp a Butterfly remains to be seen, but either way it sounds like the work of a supremely confident artist at the top of his game.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Five Roses
    It's gorgeous from start to finish.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    A Small Turn Of Human Kindness
    Utterly, beautifully majestic.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Franz Ferdinand
    Franz Ferdinand's album arrives packed not just with fizzing guitars, disco-influenced drums and intriguing shifts in tempo, but also memorable songs, laden with hooklines and startling riffs.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Air
    This is music for the rocky mountaintop that invites the listener to place themselves in the humbling context of a wider cosmos. Following a compass resolutely his own, Air sees Cover ascend to the realm of the similarly spiritual visionary Kamasi Washington.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Drill A Hole In That Substrate And Tell Me What You See
    Terms like "alt.country" are far too prosaic to contain music which might equally be called post-bebop, spook-folk or ghoulish horror soundtrack.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow
    This set’s beautiful opener Defiant, Tender Warrior builds a bewitching trance from soft piano wavelets, growling bass accents and snare-pattern whispers before Lloyd’s breathy tenor long-tones and enraptured top-end warbles even begin.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Dead Cross
    The result is an album that sounds as if it was a blast to make and one that’s immensely enjoyable to listen to.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    El Mal Querer
    This is music potent and adventurous enough to grip you without you understanding a word of what she’s actually singing.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Hopelessness
    When Anohni sings about mass graves and drone strikes, it doesn’t feel like a lecture. It can be strangely empowering. For all its bleakness, Hopelessness leaves you feeling anything but.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Angels & Queens, Pt. 1
    It’s intense listening. The seven songs here last barely 30 minutes, but a powerful, concentrated half hour dose is all you need. Certainly – it’s all you need to stake a strong claim to the title of album of the year.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
    Clarke, McCoy and co have made one of 2018’s most ambitious and urgent albums.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Boy In Da Corner
    The most original and exciting artist to emerge from dance music in a decade.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    May Your Kindness Remain
    May Your Kindness Remain confirms Andrews’ rise. It’s a brilliant record, proof that old forms can still be timeless.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Fade in Time
    The most emotional songs are bravely straightforward but quite unexpected.... Surely one of the albums of the year.
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