The Guardian's Scores

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For 2,631 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:
Golden Xplosion
Critic Score 100
Lowest review score:
Life In Cartoon Motion
Critic Score 10
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,300 out of 2631
  2. Mixed: 1,268 out of 2631
  3. Negative: 63 out of 2631
2,631 music reviews
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    • Metascore: 93
    • Critic Score 100
    Life's Rich Pageant
    There's a theory that REM were never the same after their lyrics became audible, but Lifes Rich Pageant is packed with songs on which the new clarity of Stipe's vocals bears dividends.
    • Metascore: 94
    • Critic Score 100
    Icky Mettle [Deluxe Edition]
    Brimming with character and endlessly relistenable, Icky Mettle is something of a touchstone for one of US indie's purplest patches.
    • Metascore: 92
    • Critic Score 100
    Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down
    Magnificent.
    • Metascore: 74
    • Critic Score 100
    Beyond the Sun
    A 19-track behemoth of (mainly) Sun Records covers, executed so faithfully that they could have been mouldering in a Memphis vault for 50 years.
    • Metascore: 96
    • Critic Score 100
    The SMiLE Sessions
    What's beyond doubt is the quality of the music he made.
    • Metascore: 85
    • Critic Score 100
    50 Words for Snow
    50 Words for Snow is extraordinary business as usual for Bush, meaning it's packed with the kind of ideas you can't imagine anyone else in rock having.
    • Metascore: 91
    • Critic Score 100
    Unto the Locust
    This is a gloriously brave and vibrant piece of work and the most significant metal album of 2011 by some distance.
    • Metascore: 84
    • Critic Score 100
    El Camino
    They sound like a band who think they've made the year's best rock'n'roll album, probably because that's exactly what they've done.
    • Metascore: 90
    • Critic Score 100
    Rio [Live]
    For old Jarrett fans and prospective new ones, it's a must.
    • Metascore: 80
    • Critic Score 100
    Django Django
    The songwriting here is routinely top-notch, the album gaining impact as it plays and the moods shift imperceptibly.
    • Metascore: 80
    • Critic Score 100
    Fin
    Talabot has a knack for capturing the very specific kind of bliss associated with dancing on Mediterranean beaches at the height of summer.
    • Metascore: 83
    • Critic Score 100
    Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light, Vol. 2
    This is easily the equal of, if not superior to, its illustrious companion.
    • Metascore: 80
    • Critic Score 100
    Break It Yourself
    It's the perfect album: tender without being sentimental, experimental yet accessible, utterly unique to its maker.
    • Metascore: 86
    • Critic Score 100
    Locked Down
    No one makes music like this: the Night Tripper rampages inimitably through swamp blues, voodoo funk and Afrobeat, with his trademark piano.
    • Metascore: 83
    • Critic Score 100
    Blunderbuss
    Blunderbuss is White at his most strange, contradictory and unfathomable, and therefore at his best.
    • Metascore: 77
    • Critic Score 100
    Standing at the Sky's Edge
    Despite the guitars crashing and howling around him, and the presence of a rather West End-sounding chorus of backing vocalists, he sounds exactly like Richard Hawley. The same, but different: a tough trick, pulled off in style.
    • Metascore: 77
    • Critic Score 100
    Live in Detroit 1986
    This was Fela on classic form.
    • Metascore: 86
    • Critic Score 100
    L'Enfant Sauvage
    This is metal taken to a higher plane of brilliance.
    • Metascore: 75
    • Critic Score 100
    MTMTMK
    As with Graceland, it's not scared to be too pop... plus the lyrics are of a sounder political hue than anything Simon essayed.
    • Metascore: 92
    • Critic Score 100
    Channel Orange
    For now, the best tribute you can pay Channel Orange is that, while it plays, you forget about the chatter and just luxuriate in a wildly original talent.
    • Metascore: 85
    • Critic Score 100
    Big Inner
    For all the 40-year-old reference points, Big Inner never feels like a pastiche; it's audibly more than the sum of its influences, in the same manner as Lambchop's Nixon.
    • Metascore: 87
    • Critic Score 100
    World Music
    Beautifully realised, immaculately recorded, and one of the year's loveliest vinyl artefacts to boot.
    • Metascore: 88
    • Critic Score 100
    Lonerism
    It feels digital, alien, the sound of modern machines going wrong. All this is underpinned by genuinely great songwriting
    • Metascore: 81
    • Critic Score 100
    'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!
    The Godspeed ethos of wordlessly eliciting universal truths is remains as devastatingly effective as ever.
    • Metascore: 98
    • Critic Score 100
    Blue Lines: 2012 Mix/Master
    Now, 21 years on, beautifully remastered, Blue Lines still sounds unique.
    • Metascore: 81
    • Critic Score 100
    Desertshore/The Final Report
    Desertshore/The Final Report ends up a perfect epitaph, not merely for Peter Christopherson, but for the band whose name isn't on the cover.
    • Metascore: 84
    • Critic Score 100
    Light Up Gold
    Parquet Courts have produced a debut that's both instantly addictive and lastingly rewarding: a smart, snappy concoction of worldly wisdom and garage-rock gratification.
    • Metascore: 81
    • Critic Score 100
    Goldenheart
    Goldenheart is dazzling and imperious.
    • Metascore: 71
    • Critic Score 100
    Waiting for Something to Happen
    What an unexpected and wonderful treat this album is.
    • Metascore: 87
    • Critic Score 100
    M B V
    The songs on m b v, however, are more melodically complex, intriguing and often pleasing than anything he has written before.
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