The Guardian's Scores

Select another publication »
For 5,507 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 All Born Screaming
Lowest review score: 10 Unpredictable
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,966 out of 5507
  2. Mixed: 2,464 out of 5507
  3. Negative: 77 out of 5507
5507 music reviews
view
per page
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hip Hop Is Dead
    You don't have to agree with the prognosis (even Nas has a change of heart by the end) to relish the furious eloquence with which it's delivered.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wonderful Crazy Night
    It sounds like they’re having a blast. It was recorded in just 17 days, which has perhaps contributed to the urgency of tracks such as In the Name of You. But it has not come at the expense of John’s nose for a hit.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blood
    Blood is an enticingly restrained debut, showing a consistency of tone without compromising on Lu’s inventiveness.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wild Young Hearts
    The perfect springtime record.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cigarettes After Sex
    Addictive, memorable and with the potential to reach an audience far wider than the cult following that normally awaits this kind of stuff, they’re the reason why an album where every track’s sonic components are more or less the same never feels monotonous or boring.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Humbug
    You can either keep chasing an elusive past, relying on your fans' nostalgia, or you can press on, keeping your gaze fixed forward. The first option is easier, but Humbug admirably takes the second, with a confidence that suggests that if their days at the eye of the storm are behind them, Arctic Monkeys' best might be yet to come.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Drop
    The various sides of Thee Oh Sees--the world-beatingly loud'n'fast live garage band; the swirlier, prettier home-taped psych-pop solo project; the synth-kraut-spacerock explorers--are comprehensively represented on Drop.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Am Very Far
    Perhaps Okkervil River just think the most interesting music usually inhabits the grey areas, a theory I Am Very Far does a lot to support.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Transference
    It's another unfussy, unshowy winner.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Scaring the Hoes
    Smart but chaotic, funny but disturbing – Scaring the Hoes is a confounding victory.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    II
    It’s a mountainously huge album, and faintly exhausting for that, but those majestic peaks are well worth the trek.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    On An Island
    Tempos are slow; the mood is relaxed; all the sounds are spacious and beautifully recorded.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Ballad of Darren
    The tunes are uniformly gorgeous. No one expects career-best stuff from a reformation album, but the sighing melody of The Ballad is among the loveliest in Blur’s catalogue.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    National Treasures: The Complete Singles
    They're dangerously close to national-treasure status.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Undertow
    Finally, an album that will pull you under.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Manafon
    Sylvian's subjects are life's loners and losers, and he regards them with a wry detachment and acute sympathy that is echoed by his collaborators. The effect in the album's 11-minute centrepiece, The Greatest Living Englishman, is devastating.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Post Traumatic
    The moodier, electronic tracks work better than the angrier, rap ones, but while Post Traumatic understandably has flaws, its raw emotion is unusually touching and many will find it a source of tears, strength and comfort.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Feel It Break
    Nevertheless, one wouldn't call Feel It Break straightforward: Stelmanis is mannered enough to keep listeners on their toes, without tipping over into being irritating, adding a dash of spice to a record capable of intriguing both art and pop crowds.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Absent Friends
    It's quite something - all the more given that he's now a one-man operation - and merits attention as much for its ludicrousness as anything.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tempest
    The music is the same stew of beautifully played blues, rockabilly, folk and country as every Dylan album for the last 12 years.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cripple Crow
    Despite the piano, cellos and backing singers and the number of fleshed-out band songs, this sounds like nothing but a Devendra Banhart album.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sugaring Season
    The result is a fresh, autumnal album that's unashamedly mature yet impressively free.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dignity
    Her jump dancewards is curious commercially, but thoroughly worthwhile artistically.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    What We Drew [Mixtape]
    Mostly, though, Lee counterbalances her darker experiments with playfulness and hope. Her genre-fluidity creates moments of unexpected beauty.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Emerald Valley
    It’s comfortingly familiar, but played with conviction and expertise.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Rose of Roscrae
    There are a few over-elaborate patches, but there’s some great and varied music here.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pink Palms
    This is simple, well-written indie-rock.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Riot City Blues
    It's all done with such snarling, adrenalised gusto that it proves irresistible.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mind Hive
    It’s the strange, appealing sound of a band doggedly following their own path, eyes fixed forward.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Avonmore
    His own compositions show his romantic disconnection and crepuscular charm is undimmed.
Page: