The New York Times' Scores

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For 2,073 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 55% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 41% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 71
Highest review score: 100 Live in Europe 1967: Best of the Bootleg, Vol. 1
Lowest review score: 0 Shatner Claus: The Christmas Album
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,595 out of 2073
  2. Mixed: 443 out of 2073
  3. Negative: 35 out of 2073
2073 music reviews
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    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Obadiah
    She phrases intuitively, waiting on a word and then drawing it out, and turns good lyrics to oatmeal, adding strange new colors to vowels, making whole syllables vanish.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    What Lasts
    The band--also with Justin Craig on guitars and keyboards, J. Tom Hnatow on pedal and lap steel, Colin Kellogg on bass and Robby Cosenza on drums--works on tour enough to have a sound of its own. And that sound, notably sweetened by Mr. Hnatow, levels the field for the songs. Which ends up being good news for Mr. Elliott.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dark Night Of The Soul
    Here were two artists, anxious and passionate, who knew how to talk to each other. That connection is missing from much of the rest of this collection, an exercise in Rolodex-flexing and loose oversight.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Korn III: Remember Who You Are
    On Korn III: Remember Who You Are, the band has jumped back to the sound and attitude that made it famous - if without particularly inspired tunes - and Mr. Davis, almost 40, seems to have regained some of his younger self as a lyricist.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    MAYA
    On Maya, M.I.A. also descends to more standard hip-hop concerns: stardom, romance, dropping brand names and getting drunk.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Pilot Talk
    He raps in tight clusters of syllables that sound smooth but say little. Mainly he's interested in getting high and, occasionally, getting high with other people. Still, many of his friends, under the influence or not, perform better.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I Heart California
    More often they reinforce each other's introspection, turning thoughts of mortality into power pop or facing down loneliness with tentative voices but utterly sure-footed buildups.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Aphrodite
    No one's asking for reality in this pop bubble--just a little bit more innovation.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Streets Of Gold
    It is a Frankenstein monster built wholly from borrowed pieces, taking the accumulated lessons of years of hip-hop assimilation, the sophomoric attitude of frat-rock and the dense, dance-friendly electro-pop of the moment and grinding them into an oppressive and convincing wall of sounds.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    How I Got Over
    Even in its boasts, How I Got Over is selfless: an album of doubts, parables and pep talks.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sex Dreams And Denim Jeans
    Applying Auto-Tune to her deadpan rapping, she anticipated the sound that helped make Kesha’s “Tik "Tok" an international hit in 2009. Now her debut album, Sex Dreams and Denim Jeans, has to play catch-up.
    • The New York Times
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Sellout
    Her scratchy charm gets her through some of the stompers, like "Kissed It" and "Still Hurts," and her old humor surfaces now and then. But the desperation rings all too true in "Help Me."
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Recovery
    What Eminem hasn't let go of is his taste for melancholic bombast in production.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Five Ghosts
    The music brims with optimism, full of major chords, sparkling synthetic sounds and tireless electronic beats.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Part II: The New December
    The album takes decoding, but it's got enough lilt, rhythm and sonic slapstick to make the job fun.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    We Walk This Road
    There's an unguarded directness to these translations, for better or worse.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Body Talk Pt 1
    The objective here is more ambiguous, and the tone less frisky and more guarded [than her self-titled release].
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mojo
    While there are still nods to the Heartbreakers’ 1980s bigness here, and to the bigness of others, they’re offered in an offhand style.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Laws of Illusion
    It's a collection of ballads, hymns and waltzes, sung in long arcs of melody with a voice that enfolds its strength in breathy intimacy.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Antifogmatic
    Punch Brothers tuck their instrumental prowess into songs, behind or between the arching melodies carried by Mr. Thile's high, aching voice. And he brings something unexpected to the pickin' party: angst, which in these songs often happens to revolve around the dangerous lure of available women.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Release Me
    With fuzzed guitar answered by jabs of organ, the songs go hurtling forward, racing through melodic ideas. The tough girl group is hardly a new concept--ask Blondie or the Donnas--but done right, like this, it's irresistible.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Bionic
    Now, on her new album, Bionic, how has she decided to present herself? Mostly as a sexbot: a one-dimensional hot chick chanting come-ons to club beats.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Crystal Castles [2010]
    Mr. Kath imbues the album with a touch of continuity--surely not the easiest task, given tracks like “Doe Deer,” a corrosive blast of mania, and “Fainting Spells,” which declares its own intended side effect.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Before Today
    There are still the bursts of ’60s and ’80s melodies, astral synths and slashing guitars, but this record, crisp and unhesitant, leaps beyond his previous inconsistency and preciousness.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Black Dirt Sessions
    These are bright, durable songs, and Mr. McCauley liberates them from any telltale hints of artifice, whether he's caressing them alone or roughing them up with his band mates, who manage a credible honky-tonk snarl.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pigeons
    The songs are absolutely confident that every repetition is worthwhile.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Becoming A Jackal
    Meticulous but only rarely precious, it's an album distantly haunted by Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, a luminous mesh of acoustic and electric guitars, bass, piano and organ, with airlessly thudding drums.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Goon Affiliated
    The brightest moments come from his exceedingly thin attempts at concept.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Treats
    Even after wide Internet exposure of their demos, and brief yet clamorous live sets, the album versions of the songs maintain or increase the impact. The tracks don't just rock--they detonate.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rokstarr
    There are vapid lyrics to navigate (“Hit the floor cause that’s my plans plans plans plans/I’m wearing all my favorite brands brands brands brands,” on “Dynamite” ), but they don’t disrupt the mood, which is emphatic and rarely sensual: turns out Mr. Cruz has no off switch.
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