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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    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    House of Gold & Bones, Pt. 2
    While there is no denying that it's their charismatic frontman that sets them apart from most of their mainstream rock peers, Stone Sour are on blistering form here.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blinking Lights And Other Revelations
    The first disc of this double CD jangles nerves with pop songs which dissect personal issues through wider problems facing America, but the stunning second finds meaning to it all in a series of supernaturally beautiful ballads.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Here
    Despite an undertow of glum earnestness, Keys has never sounded so committed.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Consolers Of The Lonely
    The Raconteurs establish a firm, emotionally charged identity of their own when White finally takes a back seat to Brendan Benson.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Un Autre Blanc
    What makes Un Autre Blanc distinctive and special is Keita’s vocal work. He is on compelling form throughout.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Toward the Low Sun
    A few ponderous moments aside, Toward the Low Sun is a thing of many sophisticated, evocative pleasures, and, six years after their last album, a very welcome return.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wavvves
    The incredibly lo-fi production is sweetened by Williams's knack for knocking out gloriously dumb 60s pop melodies.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Big Day
    For fans though, The Big Day will endure well past any seven-year itches.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Happiness In Magazines
    A great lost Blur album.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hyperdub 10.2
    This follow-up is an attempt to remind fans that Hyperdub is no stranger to the pop song--even if the pop songs on offer here are suitably warped to fit the label's general aesthetic.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross
    My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross feels like a particularly powerful entry in her discography: surrounded by music that’s beautiful but relatively straightforward, that voice seems more extraordinary still.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    B'Day
    Apart from a few pop-R&B space-fillers, there's not much to dislike about B'Day.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Proof of Youth
    Proof of Youth is exhausting; otherwise its sweetness is irresistible.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Preservation
    With little more than her voice and guitars, and Hanson St. Pt 2, I Come Home to You and Ain’t Got You are quietly, perfectly crafted statements from a blossoming talent.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Frankie Rose and the Outs
    It's hard to deny the simple, joyful throb of this half-hour treat, and Rose has an unusual weapon she's willing to use early and often – harmonies of massed voices, whose affectless trilling lends the buzzing and twanging guitars an oddly liturgical taste.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Barton Hollow
    It's a deliciously understated album, acoustic and largely percussionless.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    11:11
    The best tracks include Hunaman, Buster Voodoo and Chac Mool, but all feature the remarkable interplay between the two guitarists.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You
    And what the songwriter (he's recently written for Solange Knowles and X Factor's Diana Vickers) does – simple country-twinged, piano/guitar music – he does very well.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cinder
    Chan Marshall adds an autumnal tint to Great Waves, but it's far from the high point. The frantic, abrasive Flutter, or heart-melting closer In Fall don't need vocals: their wild poetry is beyond words.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love Songs, Pt. 2
    Although Who Loves You sounds as if it could be a lost 70s underground disco cut, overall this collection provides more of a window on to Fairhurst’s own motivations, as he experiments around themes of love--from innocence to filth.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Soul 2
    His voice and interpretive skills are such, though, that most tracks fit him like a glove.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    {Awayland}
    The dazzling imagery comes with a rollercoasting voyage through acoustic soul, brass and--a new development--electronica.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Made in California [Box Set]
    Twenty years after the Beach Boys' exhaustive five-CD Good Vibrations box set comes this even more stunningly packaged collection.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Furr
    Their determination to leave no musical stone unturned means Furr is substantially more fun than is normally expected from Dylan-loving Americans with an affection for facial hair.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    We Slept At Last
    A subtle, understated debut that takes its time, but lands its blows.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Crybaby
    Intimate but grand, Crybaby is a triumph.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    SMOD
    It's an intriguing, varied and highly original fusion set, matching Sam's confident acoustic guitar work against slinky harmony vocals and bursts of rap.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Saltash Bells
    It's less introspective than Surman's past solo work has sometimes been, and it's full of buoyant, engaging lyricism.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    eMOTIVe
    Some of these treatments verge on the visionary.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Moms
    Tales of inner demons and illusory loves firm up dark but euphoric sonic adventures, and it's hard not to share in the band's audible sense of exhilaration and excitement as each odyssey unfolds.
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