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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    • 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.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Praise a Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)
    Whether they’re running away from or towards something is anybody’s guess, but crucially, Tumor remains one step ahead of the rest.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Minimum-Maximum [Live]
    Sound-wise, the music is reminiscent of the sleek electronic architecture of 1986's Electric Café, while the tracks differ from their previously known versions mainly in featuring cleaner, punchier digital sounds.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kaleidoscope Dream
    Miguel has pushed himself hard on his second album, and pulled it off.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Once I Was an Eagle
    There are a couple of moments where she still feels like the sum total of a very tasteful record collection, where she struggles to make herself heard over the echoes of Joni Mitchell and Dylan's thin wild mercury sound. More often, though, she cuts through her influences, and rings out loud and clear; when she does, it's a very diverting sound indeed.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Heart's Ease
    Collins’ past, present and future come together to form a fascinating picture of her full, complex character.
    • 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.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    50 Song Memoir
    It’s an album worthy of Merritt’s grand half-century.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Heaven & Earth
    Washington continues to explore a sweet spot between artistry and approachability. Whether his success will lead audiences to further explore music that usually exists on the fringes is an interesting question. What is more certain is the quality and accessibility of his own music.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Halcyon Digest
    Deerhunter aren't just revivalists, though: in the main this is timeless music, seemingly made with the conviction that loveliness will always be lovely.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dark Energy
    As Burial is to dubstep, Jlin is an artist who belongs to her genre, but has an eye on where it could go next.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Floreat
    While musically it can get a bit precious, Carlyle gleefully delivers lyrics that jar wonderfully with their polite musical frames.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Other Side of Desire
    The real fruits of that 10-year break are reserved for songs in which the city’s bohemianism and spirituality mesh with hers--and there are some real delights among them.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Beautifully Human: Words And Sounds Vol. 2
    Though it sags a bit over the course of 72 minutes, the effect is that of being sung to privately by a vocalist who has mastered the art of intimacy.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    'Sno Angel Like You
    The soulful harmonies complement Gelb's dry one-liners and restless guitar surprisingly well.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Midwest Farmer's Daughter
    It’s an album for whom “authenticity” is crucial, but it’s all the better for it.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Space Is Only Noise
    An album to escape in.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    45:33
    You can hear an early, instrumental version of 'Someone Great' here, and it's pretty melody, twinkling xylophones and pulsing synths are mesmerising enough to take your mind off the pain of physical exertion.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Platinum
    Platinum, her fifth solo album, finds Lambert swaggering righteously like the Partonesque country superstar she is.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Dogrel
    This is the kind of songwriting quality that bands can take years to reach, or never reach at all: brilliant, top to bottom.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    LCD Soundsystem
    Murphy lets the pace slacken - and as soon as it does, interest fades.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Kind Revolution
    It’s all robustly written and emotionally satisfying, particularly The Cranes Are Back, a jazz-gospel plea for global understanding that ranks as one of the most beautiful things Weller has ever done.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Double Negative
    This ranks alongside the likes of Anselm Kiefer and Cormac McCarthy as a document of contemporary social collapse, and as such is the most important, devastating album of the year.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This Is Where I Live
    Bell’s voice and the warm Stax sound are intact. But--as is clear from the first lines of opening track The Three of Me, in which the narrator looks at past, present and future versions of himself--his mastery of the craft of songwriting is also undimmed.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    First Farewell
    Her spry, lively vocals and her writing burrow into many territories: digital communication, environmental collapse, feminism, love and time, the latter nestling closest to the folksongs for which she became known.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black Sheep Boy
    It could be a recipe for pretentious folly, but Sheff harnesses his intricate arrangements and barbed, literate lyrics to cracking tunes.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Every Bad
    Their skill lies in rearranging familiar elements into something that sounds fresh, largely down to their curious take on songwriting. Porridge Radio are melodically strongest when they seem to be trying the least hard.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Satin Doll
    His most fully formed yet and pushes this experimentation to its furthest extreme, his sax sounding like melting wax on his 13 cover versions of jazz standards.
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