The Independent (UK)'s Scores

  • Music
For 2,177 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 47% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 49% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 Deeper Well
Lowest review score: 0 Donda
Score distribution:
2177 music reviews
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The record’s sprawling R&B slow jams are more likely to inspire snoozing than shagging. Weighing in at a bloated 18 tracks, it’s got the soggy dead weight and wonky springs of a fly-tipped mattress.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Deeper Well is a revelation – as though Musgraves stumbled on an oasis after months in the desert.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    While there’s a moreish quality to the off-key guitar of “Imperfect for You” and an unexpectedly golden flush of brass on “Ordinary Things”, Grande’s delicately conversational tone is often left having to compensate for her lack of strong melodic snags.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bleachers occasionally lets Antonoff’s genius shine through, but more often it feels like an experiment gone awry.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    You’ll hear the recycled riff from the Beatles’ Paperback Writer (“Rain”’s original A side) on their new song “I’m So Bored”; the hook of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” smoking its way through “Love You Forever”; and the brooding melody from the Stones’ “Paint it Black” on “One Day at A Time”. The pair poke fun at their own slapdash songwriting process on “Make it Up as You Go Along”. But still, there’s fun to be had with the way Gallagher tows teenage ‘tude into middle age.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    She’s still in her prime, as you can tell when she delivers a knockout vocal on the guitar-backed ballad “Broken Like Me”. .... But for all her promises to show us the “real her”, it’s a struggle to see it in the slick and sexy production of tracks such as “Mad in Love” or “Rebound”.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    How you feel about that will depend on your threshold for Coming Home’s smooth-bossing seduction style. What Usher lacks by way of foreplay (“I wanna be inside ya/ I’ll be coming” is the album’s second line) he compensates for with stamina: smooching his way through 20 tracks of mostly silky-solid grooves. Coming Home is enlivened by a cool cast of collaborators sharing the mic.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Prelude to Ecstasy gleefully delivers.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    It’s wonderful to find so many moreish layers in music that was, apparently, composed so quickly. Grab yourself a bean bag and settle in for the long haul with this one.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Tight and heartfelt if ploddingly unoriginal.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pink Friday 2 shows flashes of the inventive brilliance that made Nicki such an undeniable superstar, but like so many legacy sequels, it mostly just makes you wish you were listening to the original.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    i/o
    The tracks on i/o grow both on and in a listener like seeds germinating. Those who like their song structures neat and tidy may struggle with the jazz odysseys, but Gabriel asks very little of his fans – just time. Give him that, and you will find this album gently becoming part of you on a cellular level.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    His grievances on For All the Dogs seemed exclusively directed at women, causing some to wonder whether we’d ever see a return to his puppyish, boy-next-door type. Scary Hours 3 isn’t that, but it does even the playing field somewhat, not least by praising the women in his life and castigating the men.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rockstar is so long that it can feel like a bit of a slog.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    So many ideas have gone into I<3UQTINVU that it’s almost a new album in its own right. So while it’s not quite as brilliant as I Love You Jennifer B, it does suggest the restless duo are moving into more thrilling terrain.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    McCartney gives Lennon’s vocals space and prominence, blending his own voice sensitively into that wondrous brotherly harmony we thought we’d never hear afresh again. The lyrics – while reading like a typical holding-pattern Lennon love song until greater inspiration stuck – resonate now after 40 years of loss. .... “Now and Then” is the musical event of the year and one of the greatest tear-jerkers in history.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This revamp does at least serve as a reminder of the album’s untouchable greatness.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The album could have been shorter and catchier but fans will feel their cockles warmed and their pulses raised.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Although she’s got the makings of a great songwriter, she needs to push the sounds into sharper corners to give her narratives more distinctive definition. Because this album delivers many shades of grey but never the promised punch of black.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A late-career Exile on Main Street? Their best since the Seventies? Arguably, but such hyperbole undeniably rests on the broad shoulders of the seven-minute “Sweet Sounds of Heaven”, the album’s spectacular spiritual crescendo.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It doesn’t pack quite the same melancholy, melodic punch as Carrie and Lowell. But it’s lovely to feel all the heavy stuff just breeze past you.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    On tracks such as “Daylight” and “Fear of Heights”, he strains to fit over the futuristic “rage” sound popularised by Playboi Carti. For better or worse, the album is at its best when Drake’s not there.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    There’s no standout tune on here to match Elgar’s “Nimrod”, of course, but there’s enough soupy seasonal sentimentality to fill the Royal Albert Hall.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    That’s what listening to Tension feels like: 100 per cent “Whheeeeeee!”
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    At various points across the album, Doja Cat channels her predecessors. There’s a gorgeous D’Angelo croon to “Often” and on the punchy “Demons”, she emulates Kendrick Lamar’s silky, dangerous tones. Notably, though, there are zero features on this record. Scarlet holds up all on its own.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It’s true that listening to The National often makes me feel I’m hearing ghosts of their previous songs. Old chords and thoughts stalk the halls of different songs. But it’s hard to resist their shimmering, shapeshifting companionship. And on Laugh Track the ghosts are floppier and friendlier than they’ve been in a while.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The subtle melodies on The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We can take their time to gleam through the murk. So give it time and space at night, when you’re alone, to allow its wild darkness to shine.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blake clearly revels in the invention and freedom of the exploit. “Fall Back” comes across as a very organic, found-sound kind of ambient concoction, as if someone has worked out how to recycle DJ software out of firewood and hemp.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    GUTS sees Rodrigo smash her way out of the confines of small screen life and arrive kicking and screaming into her real life. No more red lights or stop signs in her way.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    She can do all sorts with those pipes and Hit Parade finds Murphy celebrating her many textures.