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
    Joni Mitchell at Newport [Live]
    Her voice is slightly deeper than it was, with a rich timbre indefatigability earned through lived experience. George Gershwin’s Summertime offers a rueful backwards glance. The years melt away for The Circle Game. Both Sides Now has the poignancy of a 79-year-old singing words she wrote aged 23
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Feminine Divine
    Diehard Dexys fans doubtless would not expect anything less, but even if you don’t count yourself among their number, The Feminine Divine might leave you glad he chose to continue doing what he alone does: after all, genuinely unique figures are thin on the ground in pop these days.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love Hallucination
    Love Hallucination isn’t cosplay but an affirmation of Lanza’s unique ear. Her tactile heavy bass, cirrus-wisp synths and spun-sugar falsetto have deepened: the low end is diamond-hard, her playful freestyle-inspired melodies and moods glimmer like the light refracted through the gem.
    • 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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Beautiful & Brutal Yard
    Drake’s presence might have broken Who Told You in territories hitherto resistant to J Hus’s charms, but the album has the ability to follow through.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Greater Wings
    Sufjan Stevens’ Carrie & Lowell is perhaps the closest comparison in terms of musical and emotional tenor, but Byrne’s album is ultimately as singular as the woman singing it, and as unforgettable as a departed friend.
    • 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.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Inside the Old Year Dying
    Like the Dorset woods they describe, I Inside the Old Year Dying is eerily forbidding, but intoxicating, and easy to lose yourself in.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Beggar
    The Velvet Underground-worthy Los Angeles: City of Death is the closest this Swans incarnation comes to rock and unusually for a band of this vintage, they’re still springing surprises, such as the way Michael Is Done suddenly erupts into beatific rapture reminiscent of early Brian Eno.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Work of Art
    Like all second albums that offer only minor adjustments to a debut, Work of Art leaves you wondering a little about what the future holds. But such thoughts are easy to dispel during the half-hour it plays for: you’re too busy enjoying yourself to worry.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    LaVette!
    LaVette is the true focus, leading the fiery JB’s-esque funk of Mess About, and declaring “champagne and a joint would do me just fine” on Plan B. She’s glorious company, and when she croons sadly “I keep on rolling, but the thrill is gone” on See Through Me, the electric charge of her voice makes a liar of her.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jarak Qaribak
    Sitting somewhere between remixes and reimaginings, the songs on Jarak Qaribak illustrate the elasticity of this songbook, highlighting how its longing melodies can be reapplied into new voices, transmitting similar emotions through unusual settings.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Paranoïa, Angels, True Love
    Hypnotically melodic, clever, stylish, serious, fun, addictively unexpected and euphorically danceable, it’s the kind of pop they don’t make any more.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!?
    Dixon’s fourth album tightens its lens: skipping by in 30 minutes, its songs possess a renewed urgency and velocity. But his writing is more literary and exploratory still. Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? (named after three of Toni Morrison’s most celebrated works) provides an embarrassment of imagistic riches.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Expired Candy
    This is a strong second showing from a group that’s relaxing into itself while not compromising its razor-sharp worldview.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    But Here We Are
    The tunes are noticeably more polished, the dynamic shifts punchier: it’s as if the desire to express something about Hawkins, or to make an album that stands as a worthy memorial has given them a fresh sense of purpose and momentum.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everyone's Crushed
    It has taken Water From Your Eyes six years to reach a point where their music feels genuinely original, a journey that feels worth it. There’s a lesson in there.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Live at Bush Hall
    Releasing this material as a live album is a virtue – the audience’s roar after the absurdly pretty Turbines/Pigs has a thrilling note of disbelief.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Good Lies
    A consistent album rather than a collection of tracks – or worse, a handful of big tunes padded out to album length with filler – Good Lies is filled with moments like that: you can spot the influences, but they’re always passed though a filter, presented in an original way.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Everything Harmony
    The songwriting never dips below classic.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    - (Subtract)
    Subtract is easily his best album. But it’s also the first Ed Sheeran album since his debut for which you can’t confidently predict eye-watering commercial success.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blómi
    The songwriting here is often very good, even timelessly classic.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ceremony
    This is her fullest and most colourful release to date, but it’s still a dense work that takes time to reveal itself. Casual listeners are unlikely to be rewarded.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    That! Feels Good!
    By and large, this is pop music made by people who really know what they’re doing. The songs have bulletproof melodies and killer choruses, while snappy lyrics abound.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Variables
    It all hits just the right note between accessible and experimental: idiosyncratic and intricate yet straightforwardly enjoyable, Variables is unwavering in its brilliance.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Fuse
    It’s an album that manages to be different from anything they’ve recorded before yet perfectly in keeping with their past: a comeback worth waiting for.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Came from Love
    Always soulful and forever in the groove, Okumu’s seamless genre switch-ups ensure I Came from Love finds strength in its multiplicity.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    No Highs
    Hecker seems to want you on guard, braced for cataclysm. Nerves fray, discords linger, that sense of panic accumulates and draws you helplessly in. And this allusive, wordless album starts to feel eerily modern and big.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blondshell
    Blondshell, rich with bitter experience and untrammelled honesty, offers a robust shelter where listeners might start to find it.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Sundown
    Soothing, moving, occasionally disquieting and utterly immersive, Sundown suggests its predecessor was something else entirely: merely the first step of an entirely unlikely and entirely delightful career renaissance.
Page: