The Guardian's Scores

  • Music
For 2,628 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 48% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 49% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4.4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 67
Highest review score:
Critic Score 100
Lowest review score:
Critic Score 10
Score distribution:
2,628 music reviews
    • Metascore: 74
    • Critic Score 80
    Smith's approach to the bellicosity post 9/11 contains - surprisingly for someone so full of piss and thunder - a fair amount of faith, hope and pleas for tolerance.
    • Metascore: 89
    • Critic Score 80
    In different hands, some of the songs might be butterscotch-smooth MOR but Jeremy Greenspan's voice never loses its neurotic edge.
    • Metascore: 72
    • Critic Score 80
    Like Coldplay on A Rush of Blood to the Head, Muse sound like a band who are at the top of their game. Their confidence carries you through the album's excesses.
    • Metascore: 72
    • Critic Score 80
    Each of the dozen tracks on Whiskey Tango Ghosts is an elegantly crafted miniature, using a bare minimum of almost entirely acoustic instruments as a framework for Donelly's intimate vocals.
    • Metascore: 72
    • Critic Score 80
    Musicology strongly suggests Prince has finally roused himself from a decade-long self-indulgent torpor.
    • Metascore: 77
    • Critic Score 80
    This is one of those hushed, moody, late-night records - though with much more going on than mere melancholia.
    • Metascore: 81
    • Critic Score 80
    This is a dramatic, ambitious album that dares you to rise to its challenge.
    • Metascore: 73
    • Critic Score 80
    Mixing maturity with a fixation with metal, there's an anthemic chorus to match every squiggly, air-guitar solo, and gentle harmonies play off grinding rhythms. It's the perfect combination for the ultimate pop-rock break-up album.
    • Metascore: 82
    • Critic Score 80
    An intense, brooding piece of work.
    • Metascore: 92
    • Critic Score 80
    The duo have refined their sound until it is shatteringly effective. Nevertheless, Elephant sounds suspiciously like the White Stripes' apotheosis.
    • Metascore: 70
    • Critic Score 80
    The first great album of the new prog revolution.
    • Metascore: 82
    • Critic Score 80
    If at first the songs feel ordinary, perseverance reveals the haunting quality of Arthur's imagery, and the rich patina of his careworn voice.
    • Metascore: 77
    • Critic Score 80
    Alongside gems from the back catalogue, four new songs suggest Merritt may not even have peaked.
    • Metascore: 78
    • Critic Score 80
    There are 13 aural riots here, and every one is as catchy as a horrid disease.
    • Metascore: 75
    • Critic Score 80
    But I Can't Stop has more to offer than a rush of nostalgia. The songwriting is largely superb, which keeps the album from sounding like a clever pastiche.
    • Metascore: 86
    • Critic Score 80
    British Sea Power's slightly camp, wholly menacing, startlingly audacious debut is unlike anything you'll hear this year.
    • Metascore: 71
    • Critic Score 80
    Perpetuum Mobile offers a more moving and engaging experience than you would expect from an album whose primary instrumentation involves an air compressor and a car tyre.
    • Metascore: 78
    • Critic Score 80
    This is probably destined for the darkest recesses of the John Peel programme, but it deserves the same attention afforded to similar one-offs such as British Sea Power.
    • Metascore: 73
    • Critic Score 80
    The hazy, semi-hallucinogenic beauty is boosted by the lo-fi, not-quite-focused home recording.
    • Metascore: 75
    • Critic Score 80
    The lush melodic sense that deserted Air on 10000Hz Legend has returned.
    • Metascore: 82
    • Critic Score 80
    In the tradition of all great girl-fronted punk bands, from Sleater-Kinney to Elastica, it's not what Kaito has to say, it's the way Colt sings it.
    • Metascore: 63
    • Critic Score 80
    A great record, guilelessly cheery and knowingly witty in equal measure.
    • Metascore: 78
    • Critic Score 80
    These are wonderful exercises in songcraft: full of metaphors, twists and punchlines, couched in sprightly string arrangements and sung with rare flamboyance.
    • Metascore: 69
    • Critic Score 80
    Shards of Joy Division guitar crisscross punk-funk basslines and mournful electro shivers.
    • Metascore: 83
    • Critic Score 80
    It's the voice that does it - all hazy smoke and dusty cotton, this time sounding like she's channelling Billie Holiday.
    • Metascore: 73
    • Critic Score 80
    It's all a welcome change from dance-scene earnestness, and worth 48 minutes of anyone's time.
    • Metascore: 78
    • Critic Score 80
    But while the scope of Immortal Memory is huge... the music is entirely accessible.
    • Metascore: 77
    • Critic Score 80
    A great lost Blur album.
    • Metascore: 68
    • Critic Score 80
    Even in the current climate, they sound unique.
    • Metascore: 70
    • Critic Score 80
    The first British guitar band in a decade to lay a serious claim to the melodic guitar pop throne invented by the Byrds and the Hollies, and last occupied by the Stone Roses and the La's.