The Guardian's Scores

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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
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    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shields
    It sounds as if Grizzly Bear have spent their time away digging out the emotions that sometimes get buried beneath the technical fireworks. Speak in Rounds builds to a climax that – to use a phrase not much associated with Grizzly Bear – rocks, and furthermore rocks in a viscerally thrilling manner.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Joy of Living: A Tribute to Ewan Maccoll
    On this remarkable double album, 21 artists rework his songs, ranging from poignant studies of working lives to political comment and love ballads.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    U Kin B The Sun
    An album that doesn’t grab your attention with pyrotechnic displays, opting instead for a slow-burning, unassuming kind of power: a low-key delight, but a delight all the same.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    LP1
    It has its flaws--as you might have intuited from the videos and press shots, they largely stem from trying a bit too hard--but you leave it convinced that FKA Twigs is an artist possessed of a genuinely strong and unique vision, one that doesn't need bolstering with an aura of mystique.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Sound Ancestors
    Madlib channels a deep, intertwining lineage of Black music through Sound Ancestors like folklore oration, storytelling with the sorcery of a beatmaker who knows how to make an instrumental really sing.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Light for Attracting Attention
    Were A Light for Attracting Attention actually that day job’s long-awaited follow-up to A Moon Shaped Pool, you wouldn’t be crushed with disappointment, which is far from faint praise. Whatever the future holds for the Smile, their debut album feels like more than an indulgent diversion.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Belladonna
    These are new landmarks in Halvorson’s already inimitable discography.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Locked Down
    No one makes music like this: the Night Tripper rampages inimitably through swamp blues, voodoo funk and Afrobeat, with his trademark piano.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place
    These are tunes that twinkle and thunder like exploding stars, and show that there are still infinite possibilities in two guitars, bass and drums.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Chavez Ravine
    It's a very clever album, and at times easier to admire than to simply enjoy because there is so much going on.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Harps And Angels
    Anyone who doesn't actually live for updates from Iowan caucuses can safely skip the whole ragtime politicking middle section and, instead, enjoy the work of a true master of popular song.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Present Tense
    Present Tense shows that their confidence has grown to match their ambition, and it is plainly their best album yet.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    All Rise: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller
    Some Waller devotees will recoil, but this is a respectful tribute from a remarkable modern-music mind.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    DAYTONA
    Aside from the crisply brilliant drug poetry, the production, entirely by Kanye West, is another big draw. This is the roughshod style of cut-and-shut soul samples that characterised Bound 2 and much of Life of Pablo.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Data Lords
    The inner tensions behind this compelling session promise a revealing new phase in Schneider’s remarkable work.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    acts of rebellion
    The record shares messages of self-love and resistance which, integrated in its DIY approach, punch through with real resonance.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles
    This will be too much of a standards-like set for some, maybe – but even if Mehldau the solo pianist has had to trade rock’s muscularity for a chamber-musical delicacy, his power isn’t far beneath the surface.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Boxer
    In the absence of specific moments of revelation, the general melancholy becomes wearing.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Some Rap Songs
    One of the best rap albums of the year, a smoky iceberg of great emotional depth.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Scaring the Hoes
    Smart but chaotic, funny but disturbing – Scaring the Hoes is a confounding victory.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Candle and the Flame
    Flamboyant on stage, behind the scenes he sought out, and achieved, a quiet, stable life. If that sounds boring, you should hear him sing about it. It’s not very rock’n’roll. It’s a lot more interesting and enduring than that.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Popular Problems
    Nothing here feels laboured: he can deliver songs as beautifully wrought as Samson in New Orleans--a depiction of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina--with a gorgeous understatement that only magnifies its impact.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    American Dream
    Tonite and Call the Police are as good as anything they’ve done, while Oh, Baby miraculously manages to outshine their dazzling previous work--even if not every track keeps up with this exhilarating pace. The only thing able to overshadow American Dream is LCD’s own formidable past, suggesting that, yes, in fact they are.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cee-Lo Green Is The Soul Machine
    A gleefully non-conformist delight.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Punk
    A joyful revolution.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Far In
    The culmination is a collection of quietly shimmering songs that demand to be played loud.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    David Comes To Life
    The lyric sheet is essential to get any measure of the undoubtedly high-concept narrative, but the music is some of their most approachable and enjoyable yet, with extra depths to be plumbed if you so desire.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Surf
    His lyrics are consistently the most interesting, his flow the most original and here he sounds content, as if in the group setting he is completely comfortable with being (in his mind at least) just one of the guys. Clearly though, he’s much more than that.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8
    The eighth treasure trove in Dylan's Bootleg Series of unreleased material and alternate takes further illustrates that there is no such thing as a definitive recording of a Dylan song, just a snapshot of the great man's prevailing mood.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lost In the Dream
    Acoustic guitar, harmonica and saxophone provide pools of warmth in the dusky depths.
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