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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    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    An Other Cup
    The old Cat Stevens, who pondered earthly loves and sorrows and spiritual yearning, has been replaced by a songwriter who finds all his answers in faith. [13 Nov 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    9
    "9"... has a confused feel: he simultaneously glosses up the production, tries too hard to seem edgy, then compares women to sandy shores and the morning sun like an adult-contemporary sap. [20 Nov 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Love, Pain & the whole crazy thing
    This is a well-made and slightly unpredictable album. [6 Nov 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Saturday Night Wrist
    After a long apprenticeship, Deftones have started to sound like their own band: one that seesaws between agonized crooning and hard-rock attack, within songs as well as through albums. [30 Oct 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Songbird
    In short, [it's] a very good recent Ryan Adams record, except for the absence of Mr. Adams’s voice. [30 Oct 2006]
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    In The Absence Of Truth
    It’s still unclear where this band is going. [23 Oct 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Black Parade
    Simultaneously brutal and hilarious, and bristling with wake-up-call urgency, “The Black Parade” may prove to be the best rock record of the year.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Press Play
    This is a garish, puzzling album, and it isn’t the sort of CD people pick up when they want to explain what’s great about hip-hop. [12 Oct 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Black Swan
    Here and there this record finds its comfortable center. [16 Oct 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    These Days
    The four CD’s not only testify to his depth and range as a musician, but do so, as Mr. Gill has often done, through collaborations that smack more of mutual inspiration than of back-scratching or expediency. [15 Oct 2006]
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Rotten Apple
    Where “The Hunger for More” was sly and (almost despite itself) infectious, this rather workmanlike CD isn’t so memorable. [9 Oct 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Long Island Shores
    Another warm, gentle album, one that should attract Norah Jones fans and Trisha Yearwood fans alike. [9 Oct 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Information
    [A] darkly intelligent album.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Sam's Town
    Of course it is good to be ambitious. Of course the Killers needed to update their sound, given that the 80’s revival is fading away. But their new bombast is a classic case of a young band overreaching to assert its Significance.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Crane Wife
    As a sustained effort, it represents the band’s sharpest and most satisfying work, and one of the most accomplished albums of its kind this year.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Open Door
    Many of these theatrical, midtempo songs run together.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    20 Y.O.
    Janet is as crafty and poised as ever. Her flirtations are still a pleasure, but an overly familiar one.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ta-Dah
    It’s neat but slight, and a good deal less freakish than its predecessor.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Release Therapy
    While the anatomical jokes are in somewhat shorter supply and the beats are a bit further stripped down, this is more or less a standard Ludacris album. That is, a pretty good one, especially once you edit out the misfires.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Outsider
    It’s hard to imagine anyone going for the whole album, because it doesn’t hold together. [18 Sep 2006]
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Dutchess
    It’s essentially a Black Eyed Peas album with two fewer rappers. That’s an improvement: two down, two to go. [18 Sep 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Food & Liquor
    There are few weak tracks on this beautifully quiet album, but there is no truly irresistible beat either. [18 Sep 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Return To Cookie Mountain
    It’s more experimental yet catchier, more introspective yet more assertive, by turns gloomier and funnier, and above all richer in both sound and implication. “Return to Cookie Mountain” is simply one of this year’s best albums.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Continuum
    Mr. Mayer has been writing songs again, good ones, with all the leanness and directness that distinguish his strongest work.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    FutureSex / LoveSounds
    How well do Mr. Timberlake and Timbaland work together? So well that they can make even the world’s most irritating percussion instrument, the human beatbox, sound pretty good.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blood Mountain
    "Blood Mountain" is a strong record by a powerful band nearing an ideal of cohesion.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Town And The City
    Los Lobos has swerved away from the upbeat music it plays on the jam-band circuit, harking back to its quietly startling 1992 album, “Kiko.” [25 Sep 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Revelations
    Despite Mr. Cornell’s budding outrage, and the band’s attempts to funk up its sound, “Revelations” has a tentative, unfinished air.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    B'Day
    “B’Day” isn’t an ingratiating or seductive album, but it is nervy and fascinating.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Game Theory
    Black Thought... sounds more focused than he did on the Roots’ last album, “The Tipping Point,” and more engaged than on the one before it, “Phrenology.” But because he’s not the kind of rapper to modulate his emotional pitch, his intensity can level off into monotony.
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