The Independent (UK)'s Scores

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For 2,189 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 THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT
Lowest review score: 0 Donda
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,172 out of 2189
  2. Mixed: 988 out of 2189
  3. Negative: 29 out of 2189
2189 music reviews
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    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    American Radical Patriot [Box Set]
    It's an extraordinary collection, which demonstrates exactly why Guthrie was perhaps the only performer who could square the circle pointedly implied by the title American Radical Patriot.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Sun Zoom Spark: 1970 to 1972 [Box Set]
    This is music of stellar quality, from the smirking masturbation anthem “Low Yo Yo Stuff” to the berserk wizardry of “Big Eyed Beans from Venus.”
    • 70 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    This Is Really Going To Hurt
    It’s hard to think of many other contemporary albums that are quite so beautifully arranged as this. ... This is a very special album indeed.
    • 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".
    • 70 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Snoop Dogg Presents: The Algorithm
    It all fits seamlessly together, a rich tapestry of weed-toked slow jams, woozy psychedelic infusions and pimped-out west coast joyrides. ... This record never takes a wrong turn.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    A Bath Full of Ecstasy
    For all its glimmering synths and the robotic pathos of Taylor’s idiosyncratic vocals, this is a record with both heart and soul.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Guts
    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.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Carrie & Lowell Live
    Ingenious arrangements illuminate the songs, notably the blissful synth solo reaffirming life and love in “All Of Me Wants All Of You”, and the 12 minutes of keening sounds, like the moaning of whales, appended to “Blue Bucket Of Gold”.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Golden Hour
    Musgraves has always been a brilliant songwriter but she’s never sounded as confident as this; it’s as though a wall has been knocked down and a little of that bolshy attitude has been paired back to make for some of her most personal lyrics.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Running the Voodoo Down: Explorations in Psychrockfunksouljazz 1967-1980
    Despite a few obvious omissions (Sun Ra, Marvin, Curtis and others), it’s an endless source of sonically challenging, mind-freeing ambition.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Life's Rich Pageant
    Twenty-five years ago, Lifes Rich Pageant found R.E.M. metamorphosing from what was effectively a turbo-charged folk-rock cult indie outfit into a proper rock band capable of filling stadia.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Phantom Radio
    Unlike most gothic pop, Lanegan’s art is not a matter of fashion or mascara: it’s a genuine cri du coeur, as rare and beautiful as anything in music.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Set My Heart on Fire Immediately
    Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, lands with devastating precision. These 13 tracks are finely wrought works of art that draw as much influence from Purcell and Mozart as they do scuzzy Nineties post-punk.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Next Day
    It’s certainly rare to hear a comeback effort that not only reflects an artist’s own best work, but stands alongside it in terms of quality, as The Next Day does.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    She Walks in Beauty
    Faithfull lifts them from the page with a compelling combination of crispness and tenderness. She doesn’t use that soporific “poetry voice”. Instead, she can make 200-year-old visions of beauty, love and death feel as urgent as the latest true-crime podcast.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Centralia
    Centralia is by far the most satisfying release to date by the Brooklyn-based minimalist post-rock duo Mountains.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Trouble Will Find Me
    The warm but haunting Trouble Will Find Me will surely cement their accession to the rock mainstream.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Bloom
    Making perfect pop isn’t easy, but Troye Sivan is a star who’s done his homework. With one foot in pop’s past and another in its present, Bloom is a record that could turn its considerate maker into one of mainstream music’s most revered and fascinating talents.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Astroworld
    Ultimately, it’s his own, most career-defining work to date. ... The record progresses--in every sense of the word---he allows himself to become more vulnerable, more considerate.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Women in Music, Pt. III
    Haim take us through a dark place and they do it frankly. But they never let the momentum dip. And they never lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Wall of Eyes
    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.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    M3LL155X [EP]
    Notionally a five-track EP, M3LL155X is in its fullest realisation an art film/performance (co-directed and co-choreographed by her), freely available on YouTube.... Musically, it’s a more focused, coherent application of the same kinds of sounds and vocals used on LP1.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    FLOTUS
    A remarkable case of sonic reinvention.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Bedouine
    An album heralding a talent as intriguingly fully-formed and distinctive, in its own way, as Marling, Mitchell and Bush.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Nothing Is Wrong
    ["A Little Bit Of Everything"] is a thoughtful, mature conclusion to an album that seems to summarise one of the more welcoming trends in American rock
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Life Is People
    Truly, the album of a lifetime.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You
    I’m pretty sure that Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You is going to be one of my albums of the year. Because few records managed to be this soothing, and interesting too.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Two Hands
    Two Hands is Big Thief’s best to date, and undoubtedly one of the best of the year.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    the record
    Most of them slot together with an appealing combination of simplicity and enigma – like those little puzzle cubes made of three types of wood. All the while, you can hear the careful questioning with which the songwriters have honed one another’s thoughts until they slot smoothly together to become satisfying tactile emotional experiences.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers
    A surprising meditation on fatherhood, family and friendship. Kendrick Lamar’s work has always been introspective, but Mr Morale and the Big Steppers – with guest spots from artists including Florence Welch, Beth Gibbons, Summer Walker and Sampha – has a delicacy and tenderness to it that is unprecedented for the father of two from Compton, California. Because of this, Mr Morale and The Big Steppers is most redolent of Lamar’s second album good kid, m.A.A.d city.
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