The Independent (UK)'s Scores
- Music
For 2,192 reviews, this publication has graded:
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47% higher than the average critic
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4% same as the average critic
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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 | |
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Lowest review score: | Donda |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1,175 out of 2192
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Mixed: 988 out of 2192
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Negative: 29 out of 2192
2192
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
The older he gets, the better the conversational-confessional flow of his rapping, which allows him to stroll through a 10-minute bragathon like “Mel Made Me Do It” without breaking a sweat or losing the listener’s attention. He raps about trips to Dubai and giving up weed like he’s sitting beside you at a London bus stop.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 28, 2022
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- Critic Score
The sheer grace and ambition of Ants… will prove tough for 2022 to top. A huge leap forward, headfirst into the unknown.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 3, 2022
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- Critic Score
Chaos is incoming. Yet the Welsh artist’s sixth album never fully unleashes that chaos; she restrains it, wrestles with it, and in doing so exacerbates its sense of unease. Written in complete isolation in Cardiff, Pompeii demonstrates Le Bon’s flair for the surreal, while exploring themes close to home: religious guilt, family, death.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 3, 2022
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 25, 2013
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 18, 2022
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- Critic Score
Lemonade is fiery, insurgent, fiercely proud, sprawling and sharply focused in its dissatisfaction.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 26, 2016
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- Critic Score
Though spoilt in places by distortion and too-prominent electric piano, the hitherto unheard material is notable for the innovative exploration of yet another roots blend, through the impassioned country-soul of songs such as “That’s the Breaks”. Clearly, in this most congenial of creative cauldrons, virtually anything was possible.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 31, 2014
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There’s a new sense of groundedness, as though, faced with certain inevitabilities, they feel more connected than ever to the world around them.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 3, 2022
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[Lucinda Williams is] producing enough quality material to follow last year’s double-album Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone with another double-album of equivalent potency. The songs on The Ghosts of Highway 20 have the unerring ring of truth about them, shining glimmers of light into dark and unpalatable corners of life.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 22, 2016
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- Critic Score
There’s an ever-expanding diversity of appeal to Turn Blue that should win new fans and please the faithful.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 28, 2014
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- Critic Score
Overall, the album offers a surprisingly successful transformation that somehow enables one to hear this most familiar of material as if through new ears, a remarkable achievement in itself.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 1, 2017
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If it's not quite the jump from Bob Dylan to The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, it's the closest recent equivalent, a prodigious rate of development for such a tyro talent, all the more remarkable for not being reliant on significant musical progression, so much as raw songwriting ability.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 15, 2013
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It’s an album that cools and shimmers its way through a delicious range of nuanced moods and subtly layered musical ideas. Delightful.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 30, 2023
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- Critic Score
Merritt’s refracted reminiscences frequently offer thoughtful and incisive insights into bigger issues, and with deceptive sleight of story.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 8, 2017
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Part of its success is due to Stevens' uniquely ambivalent position, at once ingenious and ingenuous.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 21, 2012
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The singer has matched Bernie Taupin's best crop of lyrics for years with his own most emotively apt melodies to produce a collection that both harks back to the intrigues and interests of his earliest recordings, yet manages to break new ground, quite an achievement for an artist in his sixth decade.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 13, 2013
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- Critic Score
When pondering gets this skilled, and this fruitful, the dividends far outweigh the misgivings.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 1, 2017
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- Critic Score
Kiss Each Other Clean is much more focused and homogenous, but there's still a lingering sense of abundant inspiration, eager to carry the songs off to different lairs.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 26, 2011
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- Critic Score
Crash is a terrifically structured album, designed to get you up and shimmying off the lockdown pounds as tracks slot sleekly together. ... Crash is a top-down, foot-down trip.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 17, 2022
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- Critic Score
The production here is superb. Tyler has never been one for traditional song structure, but on IGOR he’s like the Minotaur luring you through a maze that twists and turns around seemingly impossible corners, drawing you into the thrilling unknown. ... This is Tyler’s best work to date.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 17, 2019
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- Critic Score
He's keen to please, but what's remarkable about The Lady Killer is that he manages to avoid all the bubblebath boudoir-soul cliches that litter most R&B albums.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 29, 2011
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- Critic Score
It is an incredibly cohesive album though--it operates in its own defined space and has an intense frostiness to, which, for The National, is saying something.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 29, 2017
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- Critic Score
It reveals a broader musical and emotional palette than they've exposed before.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 13, 2013
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- Critic Score
Despite its 16 tracks, not once does Long Lost feel crowded. The pace is unhurried, the phrasing exquisite.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 24, 2021
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- Critic Score
Reflective, immersive and, in a more subtle way, euphoric, this is the record to put the art into The Avalanches’ party.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 10, 2020
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- Critic Score
Happy hour at the all-you-can-eat alt-rock buffet is clearly open. ... It’s all delivered rambunctiously enough that it’s easy to simply enjoy Gulp! as the alt-pop pick’n’mix it is. Go gorge.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 23, 2022
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 28, 2019
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- Critic Score
Her follow-up to 2013’s sublime Pushin’ Against A Stone finds Valerie June expanding her unique blend of blues, soul and mountain music to create a distinctive hybrid in which past and future coalesce with gentle power.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 8, 2017
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- Critic Score
With Rifles & Rosary Beads, she’s created her most impressive and affecting work yet.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 29, 2018
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- Critic Score
Staples called this his most personal record yet. Perhaps it’s this new vulnerability that makes the album so great. Or maybe it’s the whip-smart one-liners. Or the vivid storytelling. Staples will say this latest triumph is just a dude doing some different things.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 8, 2021
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