The Guardian's Scores

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For 5,503 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: 2,965 out of 5503
  2. Mixed: 2,461 out of 5503
  3. Negative: 77 out of 5503
5503 music reviews
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    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    ...And Then We Saw Land
    Those who feel it all sounds uncomfortably commercial should rest assured: this is a step ­forward.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    No Shame
    It would be a hard listen were it not for the fact that the music is so great: tropical house shot in soft-focus and slow-motion, orchestrated 70s singer-songwriter ballads, every melody and chorus finished to a uniformly high standard.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    K.T.S.E.
    While the romantic lyrics can seem emptily sentimental, they are infinitely preferable to the misjudged sauciness of Hurry and 3Way. ... Generally, these missteps seem a relatively small price to pay for a record that melds new and old R&B with such flair.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kings & Queens
    Whether he's actually been "with Louie in the shooting gallery" or been stuck listening to "baby next door screaming all evening" doesn't matter--what does is his gripping way of telling a tale.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Prestige
    The sonic influences are worn a little too plainly for Prestige to feel like a landmark release, but by borrowing from musical history with such care and respect, Girl Ray have made an album that is very difficult not to raise a smile – or a frosty Midori sour cocktail – to.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pretty In Black
    Strange and provocative.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Good Thing
    Bridges doesn’t entirely leave behind his old-school roots, but, while Good Thing is hardly the next Blonde or, indeed, 24K Magic, it leaves you with a greater sense of who he is: loved-up, and striving for a level of ambition that feels within reach.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Heretic Pride
    Anyone who has surmounted that hurdle will be delighted to discover that the album represents business as usual: 13 absorbing songs, sparingly orchestrated to concentrate attention on the lyrics.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Oral Fixation Vol. 2
    Oral Fixation is the sound of an utterly unique voice in a uniform world.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Again into Eyes
    This is no underdone confection from fly-by-nights: it's as taut and accomplished as any British rock album this year.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Uncut Gems [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
    Lesser composers try to merely mirror the action on screen and intensify it, boringly magnifying your emotions – in his hopefully ongoing partnership with the Safdies, Lopatin is showing how contradictory, confusing and vital our dumb human impulses are.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This Is Tunng... Live From The BBC
    A lovely document.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon
    There's little here that doesn't make you wonder where Tunstall has been hiding all this beauty until now.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Long Distance Song Effects
    Whether they will stand out in a crowded market remains to be seen, but this is lovely.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mon Pays
    He celebrates Malian music first with a traditional song, and then revives his father's Safare, which sets the mood for his own elegant desert blues.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Aventine
    A wonderful autumn album.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jacob's Ladder
    Hardcore proggers may be a shade perplexed by Mehldau’s use of their heroes’ hits, and though preacherly Christianity is discreet, it’s certainly in earshot. But it’s possible just to relish a unique contemporary musician’s ingenious mingling of a traditional and contemporary sound palette, with plenty of characteristically freewheeling jazz detours on the way.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wild Young Hearts
    The perfect springtime record.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Inside the Rose
    There are moments when you think it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that it might reach a wider audience than These New Puritans have previously captured, but that seems beside the point: it feels less like a lunge for the charts than another stopping point on an increasingly fascinating musical journey.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Just Like The Fambly Cat
    A sad record, then, but an inspiring one too, offering the hope that the end of Grandaddy means a fresh start for Lytle.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Goddess
    The Tim Anderson-produced Someone New and Under the Table sink into nondescript ballad territory, but otherwise Goddess is an accomplished debut.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rendezvous
    Luna still sound as if they could go on forever, making the same limited but lovely palette seem fresh.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ten
    After a few listens Ten emerges as an extremely clever audio novel.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Stiff
    This is White Denim at their loosest and most joyful.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Always Strive and Prosper
    Eclectic, smart, skilful, occasionally experimental.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    For All My Sisters
    For All My Sisters finds the Wakefield indie trio pushing their gleefully ramshackle sound towards poppier parameters.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Who Needs Actions When You Got Words
    You would call Drew the most exciting rapper Britain has produced since Dizzee Rascal, if that didn't sound like such faint praise.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fake Sugar
    Brilliantly, some songs have the effect of Trentemøller’s electro-rockabilly with Ditto as Tarantino heroine, while elsewhere Stevie Nicks dominates, especially on the title track, which coolly updates Mac with a Balearic house beat.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Heart On
    This album knows how to party; it rocks like a beast.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    All You Need Is Now
    Déjà vu almost overwhelms The Man Who Stole a Leopard and Leave a Light On's echoes of The Chauffeur and Save a Prayer respectively, but this is Duran sounding as good as people remember.
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