The Guardian's Scores

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For 5,501 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 If I don't make it, I love u
Lowest review score: 10 Unpredictable
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,964 out of 5501
  2. Mixed: 2,460 out of 5501
  3. Negative: 77 out of 5501
5501 music reviews
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    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Remind Me Tomorrow
    This ambitious, arresting album feels like the work of an artist wielding her considerable talents with newfound confidence and conviction.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    thank u, next
    As with Rihanna’s Anti, this feels like the work of a pop star previously happy to act as conduit for other people, finally working out who they are and what they want to say. Here, Grande finds her voice.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Complete Matrix Tapes [Box Set]
    It’s fascinating stuff, even for those for whom a 37-minute version of Sister Ray is pushing it a bit. It’s actually where the band stretch out that it becomes most fascinating.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Far from Over
    As a contemporary jazz set, Far from Over has just about everything.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Welcome To Mali
    This is Amadou and Mariam's album, and their Africa-pop crossover success continues.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Natalie Prass
    The touchstones here, such as Dusty in Memphis, are all records that revel in a particular kind of musicality, yet this is a record that never feels retro, just timeless.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Sailor's Guide to Earth
    It’s hardly a revolutionary album, but its melding of styles--pedal steel is draped across the songs like Spanish moss, and Estonian guitarist Laur Joamets takes solos off in deliciously unexpected directions, sometimes veering towards space--gives it a fresh, unsullied feeling. Simpson’s writing, too, is fantastic.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Mirrored
    The way repeated listens allow its unobvious rhythmic and melodic logic to take root is fantastically rewarding.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Are We There
    Van Etten's melodies often feel as if they're not quite taking flight, and rarely cause you to catch your breath the way her lyrics do.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Compassion
    Stevie Wonder’s Overjoyed (a fittingly ecstatic Iyer homage to Chick Corea’s interpretation) is unfolded over a rocking left hand and Tyshawn Sorey’s crackling polyrhythms, sparking one of several breathtakingly headlong Iyer solos on the set, coolly placing fragments and twists of the original theme into the onrush despite its scorching pace.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Bon Iver
    Bon Iver remains rooted in the emotional sincerity that made Vernon's debut so mesmerising.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    How I Got Over
    Their ninth album finds the Philadelphia veterans a unique voice in hip-hop.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love & Hate
    A beautiful melody, wrapped in gauzy textures, [Falling is] a fantastic song, exquisitely arranged, something Love & Hate is packed with: the work of an artist coming into his own.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Blackest Beautiful
    Throughout, bursts of radio interference, gentle guitars and even classical music make effective and sometimes welcome moments of calm before the storm.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mogoya
    The result is an impressive, attacking set, but then Sangaré has always been adventurous.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Singles 1978-2016 [Box Set]
    There’s a dip in overall quality in the last decade or so, but 2010’s Bury! is among their best.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fenfo
    Her voice is more soulful and expressive than on her debut, and the songs range from cool, melodic Afro-pop to the gently bluesy Mama, the stomping funk of Negue Negue, and the charming acoustic guitar and cello duet that ends the set. It may be aimed at the international crossover market, but even at its most commercial this is an album that succeeds.
    • 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.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hercules And Love Affair
    While it lasts, Hercules and Love Affair sound as original and exotic as their backgrounds.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Syro
    By sounding simply like a series of Aphex Twin tracks, Syro is still utterly engrossing and remains, somewhat unbelievably, on a completely different planet to almost anything else that’s been released over the last decade and a half.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    blackSUMMERS'night (2016)
    The Grammy-winning soul man is a subeditor’s nightmare, but confusion seems a small price to pay for such a classy comeback collection of anguished R&B.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Young Man In America
    Mitchell has done herself proud.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Life Is People
    It's not without a few syrupy moments, and it would be a push to recommend it over the old records, but there are some fine songs here.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Without a Net
    Without a Net is free to bursting point, but it's a triumph.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Separation Sunday
    It's a triumph of non-judgmental storytelling, delivered within purgative rock'n'roll.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Process
    While clearly not constructed with commercial ambition at the forefront of its mind, it’s certainly good enough to make an unlikely star of the man behind it.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Decline Of British Sea Power
    British Sea Power's slightly camp, wholly menacing, startlingly audacious debut is unlike anything you'll hear this year.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Night Chancers
    Dury carries it off. His phrasemaking and delivery is immaculate: he plays with accents, albeit within a limited palette, and you listen to The Night Chancers believing it to be a real world.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Big Conspiracy
    Big Conspiracy leaves you wanting to hear even more.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Run the Jewels
    Run the Jewels is remarkably fun.
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