The Independent (UK)'s Scores
- Music
For 2,193 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 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: | Radical Optimism | |
---|---|---|
Lowest review score: | Donda |
Score distribution:
-
Positive: 1,176 out of 2193
-
Mixed: 988 out of 2193
-
Negative: 29 out of 2193
2193
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
-
- Critic Score
Whatever style he uses on this first solo album in more than two decades, from country-blues to croon, rock’n’roll to reggae, he sustains that character as a unifying thread.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 18, 2015
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Their brusque punk-pop style and his louche intonation suggest a tidier version of the Libertines.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 24, 2014
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It's ironic that soul music dominates, given Collins' lack of its most crucial element: a commanding vocal presence.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 22, 2013
- Read full review
-
- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 8, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Six years on from the vivacious Bang Goes The Knighthood, Neil Hannon’s latest Divine Comedy outing seems to lack the bite which gives the best of his work its raffish frisson.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 1, 2016
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Ono’s continued Flower Power philosophy--“People of America, when will we see?” goes “Now or Never”--feels simplistic at a time when artists are so used to deconstructing the social and political systems that Ono rails against. And so Warzone falls into a strange dichotomy: as the album closes with a version of “Imagine” that is hymn-like enough to sound like the heralding of a new dawn, the relevance of Ono’s protests feels as if it’s faded.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 18, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
State sees Todd Rundgren deliver his customary laconic commentaries on a world gone mad from behind a wall of rock, techno and dubstep riffs.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 11, 2013
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Interspersed with vox-pop musings on matters like police shootings, The Last Days Of Oakland is a state-of-the-nation address akin to Sky Stone’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 23, 2016
- Read full review
-
- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 30, 2020
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
“Rituals” is Lipstate’s tribute to Steve Reich’s Music For 18 Musicians, its arpeggiating guitar lines intertwining hypnotically, while the opening “Deep Shelter” takes a different approach, its lowing drones sliding over each other in Terry Riley-esque manner, seeking rhythmic pulses behind sheets of high, keening tones.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 8, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s not always pretty--his blast of antipathy “Can’t Stand You” is just relentless disparagement, with none of the subtlety of “Positively 4th Street”; ultimately, it’s small wonder to find him, in “Poor Traits Of The Artist”, caught between loving and hating his need to create.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 13, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Musically it’s standard rockin’ country fare, save for the poignant tints of accordion applied to “Homecoming Queen”.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 24, 2014
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
They're virtually unrecognisable as the band that made their game-changing debut, save perhaps for "All the Time."- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 22, 2013
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Halfway through, as guest rappers stop littering the proceedings, the album does a 90-degree shift and becomes a banging club affair, stuffed with David Guetta-style synth-stompers.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 5, 2012
- Read full review
-
- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 24, 2014
- Read full review
-
- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 18, 2012
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Melancholy of tone, it occasionally attains the antique industry of Michael Nyman's early Peter Greenaway scores, but the overall effect is more akin to the musical equivalent of a mock-tudorbethan semi.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 4, 2012
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Originally planned as the second half of a double-album, Lupercalia is his most approachable effort.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 16, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s been 20 years since David Crosby’s last solo offering, but Croz finds his fire undimmed, and his freak flag still proudly flying, if slightly tattered.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 24, 2014
- Read full review
-
- 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.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 8, 2023
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
He avoids turning the songs on this album into as much of a box-ticking exercise as they felt on earlier records, managing to weave influences in with a little more flair.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 28, 2021
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
What's impressive is the consistency of approach and execution.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 12, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
An album of fresh pleasures is the pay-off, but don’t come looking to it for substance.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 12, 2015
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
On this album, you find yourself drifting in and out. She tackles trolls, racism, overpopulation and the internet age. You crave solutions as each track closes, or perhaps more of those sublime, witty character studies she offered on Let Them Eat Chaos.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 13, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s musically ambitious, if over-stuffed at times, but unashamedly impenetrable lyrically, even with the “help” of the accompanying gobbledegook short-story and supposed Map of Eyeland.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 15, 2016
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Forever Neverland is chock-full of safely idiosyncratic bangers, and never misses a beat. But maybe it could have done with missing a few.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 18, 2018
- Read full review
-
- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 27, 2013
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The 16th GBV album is business as usual: plangent garage rock.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 17, 2012
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Emotional echoes of this complicated public history reverberate through Jude’s solid collection of mature mid-tempo rockers and ballads. ... Lennon’s production is clean, steely and a little claustrophobic.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 8, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Wareham’s languid, imperturbable voice and steady-paced music have a familiarly narcotic effect.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 7, 2014
- Read full review