The Independent (UK)'s Scores
- Music
For 2,194 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: | Hit Me Hard and Soft | |
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Lowest review score: | Donda |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1,177 out of 2194
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Mixed: 988 out of 2194
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Negative: 29 out of 2194
2194
music
reviews
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- Critic Score
Not bad, and nice for Nick. But for every good 'un, there's a dull 'un too.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 18, 2012
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- Critic Score
Lyrics have never been the band’s strongest suit, and WALLS is no exception, with the blandest of emotional expressions occasionally punctuated by simple stupidity.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 12, 2016
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- Critic Score
Another dilettante excursion with little to recommend it. [The Independent scored this a 2/5 in the actual printed edition not 5/5 as seen on its online edition]- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 13, 2013
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- Critic Score
Despite the album’s slick production and radio-ready melodies, one wishes Pale Waves could find a more sophisticated language to express youthful enlightenment.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 12, 2021
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- Critic Score
Actor Maxine Peake delivers the combination of historical narrative and polemic in her blackest-pudding accent, over a gamelan tinkle of synth tones and string synths that evoke the blend of grit and gentrification now surrounding these events.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 24, 2012
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- Critic Score
His tendency to hurl the same emotional intensity into every syllable (loud, soft, high, low, new idea or repetition) gets wearing. It doesn’t help that the melodies are often simplistic to the point of forgettable and the production seldom leaves a space unfilled.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 6, 2021
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- 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.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 28, 2023
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- Critic Score
It's not a bad album as much, but to anyone familiar with Lynch's other work, it's entirely predictable in sound and style.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 4, 2011
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- Critic Score
In song after song, she offers variants on the same theme, in infatuated erotic reveries of submission to bad-boy or sugar-daddy lovers with fast cars and lots of money.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 27, 2012
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- Critic Score
Other highlights include Los Lobos’ typically confident swagger through “Bootleg”, and the unusual alliance of ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons with Colombian singer La Marisoul on a wonderfully gritty “Green River”.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 3, 2016
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- Critic Score
It comes across as unimaginative and rather needy when applied to the singer Johnny Lloyd;s wistful inbetweeen reminiscences of fumbled romance and aimlessly anthemic pleas for decisive direction.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 13, 2012
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- Critic Score
The first half of Speak Your Mind is undoubtedly the strongest; showing Anne-Marie no one-trick pony when it comes to infectious, dance-worthy bangers.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 25, 2018
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- Critic Score
Secure behind the protective pop wall erected by producers such as Max Martin and the ubiquitous Greg Kurstin, there’s little room for originality here. Which may be for the best, given the mid-album limpness imposed by the gratingly wistful, cello-draped childhood yearning of “Barbies”, which oozes insincerity. Pink’s on safer ground riding the pumping pop-funk of “Secrets” and the title-track.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 19, 2017
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- Critic Score
There's a pronounced shortfall of his usual joyous eclecticism here, with many pieces settling for basic repetitive sequences; some sound like little more than extended intros.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 26, 2011
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- Critic Score
The songs rely on cringeworthy conceits like “Red, White & You” or rote expressions like “Sweet Louisiana”, while the refurbishing of the domestic abuse anthem “Janie’s Got A Gun” just tips it further over into queasy melodrama.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 13, 2016
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- Critic Score
The music struggles to match the lyrical focus, sounding piecemeal and haphazard.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 31, 2014
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- Critic Score
Beneath the bluster it's pretty dull fare, the brittle rock-funk beats and brusque guitar riffs carrying songs that pay eager lip-service to energy and activity but actually offer a series of fairly empty experiences.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 15, 2011
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- Critic Score
There are occasional moments of unalloyed pleasure on this, but frankly not near enough to persuade one that The Fratellis reunion was worthwhile.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 17, 2015
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- Critic Score
The most surprising thing about Pixies’ first album in 23 years is that it holds so few surprises.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 28, 2014
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- Critic Score
Speech Debelle shows some welcome signs of maturity on this follow-up.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 13, 2012
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- Critic Score
Too many of these grooves are efficient but forgettable, and her vocal contributions likewise somewhat generic.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 24, 2015
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- Critic Score
I Am Not a Dog has its moments, but they are brief and virtually lost amid the more experimental forays.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 20, 2020
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- Critic Score
Love is a pleasant although occasionally overly earnest capsule collection of pop sounds where Diamantis proves herself to be the master of the “brief pause... and gentle drop” technique. ... Her voice skitters across songs with a frostiness reminiscent of Madonna’s Ray of Light era, and sometimes it feels like a lecture being delivered into the mirror: everyone’s just like you, no one’s happy, enjoy your life.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 29, 2019
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- Critic Score
The results evoke the fellowship of the emotionally bruised in a variety of ways.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 30, 2012
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 30, 2020
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- Critic Score
John Martyn's valedictory recordings have a suitably weary presence that makes even such legendary laidback soporificos as J J Cale and Leonard Cohen seem positively sprightly by comparison.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 19, 2011
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- Critic Score
As usual with Sawhney, it's typically eclectic, and surprisingly effective.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 12, 2011
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 18, 2012
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 19, 2013
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- Critic Score
These tracks offer a similar union of the imaginative and the inspirational, with Lee Perry and The Orb's Alex Paterson and Thomas Fehlmann making musical magic from the most minimal of resources.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 11, 2013
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- Critic Score
Pleasant and pleasingly melodic, but lacking the risky edge that makes a band truly great, The Silver Seas are like the living equivalent of a guilty pleasure.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 30, 2013
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- Critic Score
The found-sounds quickly become irritating--as too, unfortunately, does Wastberg’s wan falsetto, which imposes a mood of victimhood where uplift might be more appropriate. It’s rather sad, because there’s genuine invention in some of his J Dilla-style arrangement assemblages.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 8, 2017
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The limp, autotuned love song “Happy” and drearily positivist “Good Morning” are lazy nods to the mainstream, but elsewhere Wretch is better served by the dark sparkle of arrangements featuring grimy sub-bass synths and itchy electro beats tinted with eerie vocal samples, thumb-piano and synthetic pan-pipes.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 24, 2017
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No one will be celebrating Duck for breaking new ground, but long-term fans won’t much be complaining either.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 26, 2019
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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
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- Critic Score
Mostly, though, this is music that keeps its head down. Martin accepts his loss too meekly to approach the anguish of a great break-up album.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 15, 2014
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- Critic Score
Black Panties finds him getting back to his core business with rather less artistic ambition.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 6, 2013
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The cult-like enthusiasm of The Magnetic Zeros is best experienced live, where their massed forces translate into a somewhat muddy morass.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 23, 2013
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- Critic Score
It's a soothing, chillsome experience, though some tracks do strangle themselves in repetitive accretions.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 16, 2011
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 14, 2013
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- Critic Score
This album is more Pringles than caviar. But it’s comfortingly moreish. When it comes to the Jonas boys, it seems that once you pop, you can’t stop.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 12, 2021
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- Critic Score
It doesn’t take many tracks to blunt the impact of Moby’s relentless goosestepping drum programmes and shouty slogans.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 2, 2016
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- Critic Score
No Doubt makes only the most tentative divergences from previously tried and tested strategies, which gives Push and Shove a character that could be described as either dated or timeless.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 21, 2012
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- 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”.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 15, 2024
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- Critic Score
This alliance with The Orb is positive for both parties, Perry providing a tighter rein on their tendency to meander, while they furnish him with a different terrain to his usual dub skanks.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 31, 2012
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- Critic Score
With the slight caveat that Laurie's vocals never quite cast off their Englishness (and why should they?), this is a commendable effort which at its best furnishes considerable enjoyment.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 12, 2011
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- Critic Score
Musically, it's pretty much the standard modern electro fare familiar from dozens of contemporaries, from Kylie to Britney. The dubstep riffs are more tortured in places, but when David Guetta and will.i.am are involved in a track's production--as with the bullishly shallow "Fashion!"--you're not straying from the mainstream.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 7, 2013
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- Critic Score
Connick displays his versatility with the bossa nova sway of “I Love Her”, the New Orleans R&B of “S'pposed To Be” and “You've Got It”, and the sentimental country stylings of “Greatest Love Story”.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 28, 2013
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- Critic Score
It’s fine to be influenced by one particular band, but they need to find their own voice or risk being known as little more than The 1975’s pale imitators.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 13, 2018
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- Critic Score
His is the sort of personable charm that even the slickest PR machine can’t drum up. It is also, unfortunately, something that’s too often missing from this album. That and variety.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 18, 2023
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- Critic Score
It's the same throughout, London relying on charm over content. But, in fairness, he makes it more fun than most.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 30, 2011
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As with Young’s electric-car album Fork In The Road, his single-issue tendencies can grow wearisome after a few songs.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 15, 2015
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- Critic Score
Although it is largely the entirely predictable modern dance-pop creation you might expect from production-line hit maestros Max Martin and Dr Luke, Katy Perry deserves some credit for injecting a modicum of originality into Prism.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 18, 2013
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- Critic Score
The ponderous rocker "How Long Can These Streets Be Empty?" shows up the limitations of a voice better suited to pop and soul.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 23, 2011
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- Critic Score
Comprising as it does outtakes from the sessions for The 20/20 Experience, it's hardly surprising there should be a drop-off in quality for this follow-up; but it's a pretty steep fall.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 27, 2013
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- Critic Score
Certified Lover Boy’s greatest crime is just how bland and boring it is. There’s very little here that Drake has not done better or more emphatically elsewhere; his album is deprived of any kind of experimentation or insight. He rose to the top baring his soul. Now it feels like there’s no soul to bare.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 4, 2021
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- Critic Score
Compared to Chase and Status's fizzing 2011 debut, No More Idols, this sounds creatively knackered.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 7, 2013
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- 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
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- Critic Score
Some of the better songs lack that adhesive zeitgeist quality that used to be the group's stock-in-trade. But at its best, there's enough variety and invention to recall The Beatles, sometimes directly. [Review of UK release The Future Is Medieval]- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 6, 2012
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- Critic Score
A few decent songs may be lurking behind all the sonic detritus; but perhaps they ought to ditch the multitracks and get themselves a ukulele.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 13, 2012
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- Critic Score
Competently organised and confidently delivered, it’s an engaging set, but ultimately, like all live albums, essentially a souvenir.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 21, 2014
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MS MR deal in a similar kind of blandly alienated, metrosexual pop to Hurts, with Lizzy Plapinger's sultry-soulful vocals allied to Max Hershenow's electronic pop arrangements.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 13, 2013
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Strangeland marks a sad reversion to Coldplay territory after Keane's tentative experimentation on recent releases.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 4, 2012
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It's 16 years since Mariah Carey's first Christmas album, and there's nothing here to suggest she's developed significantly since then.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 14, 2011
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The Zolas are a Canadian indie band whose outsider-pop songs evoke a keen sense of disjunction with the modern world.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 3, 2012
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Tangerine Reef gives a musical voice to these alien coral creatures and their aquatic world. If only it were a more mellifluous voice.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 16, 2018
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It's hardly groundbreaking stuff, but McCartney undeniably has an ear for melody.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 6, 2011
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 10, 2012
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Jay-Z, being Jay-Z, spends most of the time banging on about how rich he is, how brilliant it is being married to Beyoncé, and how irritating it is that some people don't find him quite as wonderful as he does.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 5, 2013
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- Critic Score
Alongside some so-so newer material, this latest set revisits earlier triumphs in JD's new style, which owes more to MOR jazz than rock or country. It's not as successful as his 2009 comeback If The World Was You, being something of a halfway house.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 4, 2011
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- Critic Score
It’s an OK effort overall, but far from Kelly’s best work; and it really goes to pieces in the five bonus tracks of the deluxe edition, which spin off in all directions- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 11, 2015
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- Critic Score
The absence of those usual big arena hooks proves critical through the rest of the album, when the songs don’t quite hit home.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 4, 2015
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For while there’s no denying that Low In High School is more musically exploratory than usual, drawing from glam rock, electropop, tango and Tropicalismo, the singer himself has rarely exhibited such a grating combination of spite and self-pity. ... The album’s lengthy centrepiece “I Bury The Living”, an odious slab of trundling guitar bombast, lambasts as “just honour-mad cannon-fodder” the work of soldiers whom he presumes are too stupid to understand the wars they’re involved in.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 16, 2017
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- Critic Score
Listening to The Heavy Entertainment Show is a bit like watching EastEnders--a constant barrage of snarling, strutting chippiness passed off as authentic British geezerism.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 3, 2016
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- Critic Score
Though not entirely “unplugged”--there’s a wealth of keyboard drones and subtle electronic detail lurking behind the foreground mandolins and acoustic guitars--applying this stripped-down format to some of their most memorable moments does help dilute the excessive stadium bombast which became a cornerstone of Simple Minds’ style.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 9, 2016
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- Critic Score
There’s a mismatch overall between the angry observations and the pell-mell pop-rock riffing of tracks such as “Cannons” and “One More Last Song”, so eager to curry favour and cajole us into singalong hooks.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 28, 2014
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[Shows a] lack of development involved in either the music or the creators' worldview.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 17, 2012
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Arriving several months after the tragic documentary, this soundtrack has a waif-like quality that’s touchingly appropriate, with Amy Winehouse’s demos and live tracks interspersed with brief snippets of Antonio Pinto’s incidental music.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 6, 2015
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 14, 2018
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- Critic Score
Tracks like the delinquent reminiscence "How Life Changed" and the mea culpa duet with Chris Brown, "Get Back Up", teeter queasily on the cusp of boast and apology. But you have to admire the gall of a repeat offender brazen enough to feature a quote from Helen Keller in his lyric booklet.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 26, 2011
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- Critic Score
It ticks along unremarkably on smudges of synthesiser and shuffling drum programmes, augmented by acoustic guitar or synthetic brass stabs.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 1, 2013
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Though not quite as potent as Shangri La, but it constitutes a confident negotiation of the “difficult third album” hurdle.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 15, 2016
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It’s amusing to hear Method Man claiming “Wu-Tang is for the children, go get your child support on” in “Two Minutes Of Your Time”.... It’s an ironic counterbalance to the sinister lope and slow-rolling menace of the typically inventive drug and gun metaphors of tracks like “50 Shots”, “Bang Zoom” and “The Meth Lab” itself.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 20, 2015
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Recorded over six days in Nashville with Dave Stewart, the debut release on Joss Stone's own label is, she claims, the first on which she has exerted total creative freedom.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 26, 2011
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 22, 2011
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- Critic Score
Musically it’s pleasant enough, with string and wind flourishes either emboldening or offering solace from the folk-rock arrangements; but it’s all a bit samey, and after a while, rather dull.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 25, 2017
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Midnight Memories finds One Direction fumbling the transition with clumsy attempts to adopt ill-fitting rock livery.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 27, 2013
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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
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- Critic Score
Though marginally better than its predecessor, BE can in no sense be considered a progression.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 29, 2013
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 10, 2014
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- Critic Score
Track after track follows the same formula, with Newman’s subdued introductory verse swallowed by a huge, anthemic refrain that never lets up, his voice drowned in a tide of orchestra and chorus, all dialled up to 11. It’s quite frustrating.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 19, 2015
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- Critic Score
The comforting simplicities peddled in tracks like “Reunion” and “Knockout” offer the rock equivalent of Donald Trump, currying favour without getting too specific.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 2, 2016
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- Critic Score
The bawled slur that passes for Doherty's vocals is less agreeable the older he gets, while the flaccid grunge plaints and raggedy punk thrashes have diminishing appeal.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 30, 2013
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- Critic Score
Natural Rebel, sadly, is paint-by-numbers singer-songwriting. For a 10-track album, it feels hideously overindulgent--only two songs fall under the four-minute mark, and those still feel drawn out by plodding, bog-standard riffs.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 18, 2018
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- Critic Score
Thicke's wheedling tone and sylvan falsetto are engaging enough on this sixth album, though his clumsily backhanded way with a compliment deteriorates as the album proceeds.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 22, 2013
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- Critic Score
Moments after hearing “Best 4 You”, with its slimline groove and sleek falsetto chorus, I can’t remember a trace of its melody or theme: it was just there, and then not there. It’s an experience repeated throughout Red Pill Blues.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 2, 2017
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- Critic Score
Their problem is a lack of originality: they never suggest they'll find a new angle on well-worn roots-rock modes.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 5, 2011
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There's something about the combination of their shoegazey, distorted drones and James Allan's cracked, sulky Scots brogue that leaves these tales of emotional turmoil oddly ineffectual: even at its most fancifully Spectorian, it sounds strangely insubstantial. And as with bad acting, it's not persuasive enough to make one care.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 7, 2011
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In truth, the move towards country music made on Younger Now is fraught with potholes that she and producer Oren Yoel rarely manage to avoid. The main problem is the half-heartedness of the move.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 27, 2017
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Long Way Down is stuffed with bogus sensitivity, crystallisations of emotional disquiet couched in chant choruses, and polite piano arrangements reliant on a few chord-changes.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 21, 2013
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