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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    • 49 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Dark Horse
    The hilarious, parodic single 'Rockstar' excepted, Nickelback's music reaffirms every sex-and-stupidity cliche hard rock can offer.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Expectations
    It’s baffling trying to work out why her vocals are often lagged in Auto-Tune: she sounds like she’s drowning on Self Control and malfunctioning on the horrid Mine. The songwriting--about bad girls and good boys in miserable, moneyed relationships--is precisely as deep as you’d expect.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Happy Xmas
    Clapton sounds barely recognisable on these ghosts of Christmas songs past. His diminished voice heaves out Away in a Manger as if between sobs. On a collection profoundly lacking in seasonal trimmings, he occasionally buries some cursory sleigh bells deep in the mix.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The Bedlam In Goliath
    The "songs" (a relative concept on planet Mars Volta) sound as though they are competing to unleash as many prog-rock cliches as possible: portentous guitar riffs and twiddly bits are interspersed with all manner of atonal wind instruments and sonic pomposities.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    R.Y.C.
    This is one of the most profoundly, wondrously mediocre albums of our time, which is to say that it’s not even entertainingly bad.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    If On A Winter's Night...
    Using top folk musicians means everything is expertly crafted, but Sting's Christmas pudding is over-egged.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Body Faucet
    It's not so much that the songs lack shape, it's that this suggests Reptar lack conviction – every song borrows from something else, something vaguely similar but different enough to make this an incoherent mess, albeit one with oddball pretensions.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin
    Gershwin and Wilson are among the 20th century's greatest writers of popular music; no one wishing to learn more about either should start here.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Which Bitch?
    Some half-decent anthems and a sweet little love song are shifted further towards the bin by Kyle Falconer's singing, which sounds as though he has forgotten to put his teeth in. By the end of it, you may need a long bath.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Electric Arguments
    Their website trumpets the "pure musical possibilities" of Electric Arguments, but this is heavily laboured hackwork.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Forget the World
    The best efforts are Dynamite, featuring Snoop Dogg, with its low-slung Cali feel, and Three Strikes, which bangs--and features the vocals of Martine McCutcheon's husband, Jack McManus ("one, two, three, get the fuck up"). The worst is everything else.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The Weirdness
    Pop's lyrics about his penis and ATMs are beyond self-parody.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Underclass Hero
    Sentiments are rendered as blandly as lazy graffiti tags, with the music accompanying them as bold and portentous as a light shower.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The High End Of Low
    The Marilyn Manson blueprint holds fast, and all the familiar elements are here. The difference is that even Manson sounds unconvinced by his "antichrist superstar" persona; maybe because his target demographic have grown up and moved on.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Unpredictable
    Unpredictable resembles another legendary thespian's venture into pop, William Shatner's 1968 opus The Transformed Man, in that you start to wonder whether Foxx is actually serious or not.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Life In Cartoon Motion
    At their most laudable, Queen eschewed good taste in order to make unique records: Bohemian Rhapsody or the baffling Bicycle Race. Here, you get all the kitsch and none of the ambition.... With little behind it except a desire to be loved, the showboating becomes wearyingly relentless.
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