The Independent (UK)'s Scores

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For 2,194 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: 100 Hit Me Hard and Soft
Lowest review score: 0 Donda
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,177 out of 2194
  2. Mixed: 988 out of 2194
  3. Negative: 29 out of 2194
2194 music reviews
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    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wild Ones
    "Whistle", takes a sidestep with its acoustic guitar and tedious single-entendre hook, but there are plenty more brutal stompers to spare on Wild Ones.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Overexposed
    Maroon 5's sudden decline with the Mutt Lange-produced Hands All Over seems unlikely to be significantly overturned by the lacklustre Overexposed.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wilder Mind
    The new instrumentation affords a more nuanced approach, from the thrumming bass, piano, tom-toms and subtly tingling guitar evoking the resolute support of “Broad-Shouldered Beasts”, and the keening, spacious synth textures of “Tompkins Square Park”, to the unison guitar thrash that opens “The Wolf.”
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    At Your Inconvenience
    Green's delivery is too Estuary-Eminem, scattershot hip-hop asperity snarled out with a mockney menace that is too secondhand to be effective.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Evolution
    They've certainly lost much of their vocal character to the dreaded auto-tune, without gaining much by recompense.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Junk of the Heart
    The result is a series of half-formed, indifferently performed tracks on which even gifted guitarist Hugh Harris struggles to locate the inspired touches that made Konk so impressive.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Music From Another Dimension!
    It's all sounding terribly tired now.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Jesus Is King
    It’s no surprise, but still no less disappointing, that with all of West’s last-minute meddling of the album’s mixes the record lacks cohesion. Jesus is King feels more like a collection of well-produced skits than a full studio album, and fans will no doubt be wondering whether all the hype and stress that preceded its unveiling was worth it.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Witness
    Her dance-pop here is identical to everyone else’s, which leaves Perry clutching at the single-entendre raciness of “Bon Appetit” (“Got me spread like a buffet / Bon appetit, boy”) and curdled imagery like “my love’s the bullet with your name on it” to secure a soupcon of bogus outrage.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Reincarnated
    This debut offering as Snoop Lion has much to recommend it, not least the infectious grooves devised by Diplo's Major Lazer production team.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Balance
    It’s stuffed with generic accounts of relationships, life on the road, times with the band.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    State
    State sees Todd Rundgren deliver his customary laconic commentaries on a world gone mad from behind a wall of rock, techno and dubstep riffs.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Zoom In [EP]
    An overstuffed pillow of an EP that seeks to calm all of the world's aches but just ends up sounding schmaltzy and smothering.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 0 Critic Score
    Donda
    Resplendent moments – like a second’s burst of sunshine through dark storm clouds – are so rare that by the time you emerge on the other side, they’re all but forgotten. ... But by involving Manson, West has made this impossible. Donda leaves a sour taste that no number of good beats, gospel choirs or church organs will cleanse. Zero stars.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    For All The Dogs
    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.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Walls
    The problem is, the album – so full of drawling balladry and anodyne lyrics – is deeply unremarkable. Listening to it is like wading through a quagmire of banality.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Disaster Tourist
    The fascination with sonic texture over tune tends to make everything sound like everything else, as if the tracks were leaking into one another.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Cry When I Laugh
    It’s a record of heartbreak cauterised by hope, so alongside the routine tears and recrimination is a recurrent element of recovery and optimism that sets it apart from most other soul-diva offerings.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The Awakening
    The songs are mostly just nondescript airwave fodder, clogging up the aether for months to come.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Sounds from Nowheresville
    These 10 tracks are a masterclass in modern pop creation, pinballing from style to style without endangering their essential "TingTingness".
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    SuperHeavy
    The sad fact about supergroups is that they are rarely the result of any musical imperative. This is painfully confirmed on the debut offering from the alliance of Mick Jagger, Dave Stewart, Joss Stone, Damian Marley and A R Rahman, on which the assembled talents cast around for a style of their own without ever unearthing the natural chemistry on which great bands rely.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Latest Record Project, Vol. 1
    Latest Record Project Volume 1 might be a grievance-heavy sprawl, but if you’re a Morrison die-hard it’ll be a worthy, timely addition to his catalogue.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Christmas Present
    Williams veers all too often from the kind of whimsy and cheese that’s acceptable at Christmastime, to a level of saccharine that actually makes your teeth hurt.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    F.A.M.E.
    F.A.M.E. is equal parts bubblebath boudoir soul and more bullish beat-driven floor-fillers, tricked out with familiar guests like Timbaland and Justin Bieber, the most lively of which is Busta Rhymes's babble-rap over the Clangers-style bleeps of "Look at Me Now".
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Everything I Thought It Was
    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.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Fifth
    The fairly routine nature of the backing tracks means that The Fifth lacks some of the distinctive berserker spirit that characterised its predecessors.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Sticks + Stones
    the only real flashes of character come from the reworked riffs of Old Neneh Cherry and Ann Peebles hits used on a couple of tracks.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Who You Are
    She harmonises piquantly with herself over the languid guitar groove, and B.o.B's rap is pleasingly modest enough, too. The same can't really be said of such tracks as "Casualty Of Love" and "Rainbow", however, both singularly unimpressive songs tricked out with the showy vocal bling favoured by R&B divas as a substitute for genuine soul.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    These People
    Richard Ashcroft’s first album in six years is a dismal affair.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Revival
    “Believe”, finds Eminem’s faith in his talent creeping back in. The ticking beat and sinister, John Carpenter-esque piano figure are harbingers of resurgent menace, while the hazy, treated chorus hook sounds like medication flooding his spirit with the confidence that carries the rest of the album. There are plenty of typical Eminem tropes scattered throughout Revival: he picks constantly at the scabs of marital failure. ... But ultimately, it’s all about Eminem himself.
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