The New York Times' Scores

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For 2,074 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: 1,596 out of 2074
  2. Mixed: 443 out of 2074
  3. Negative: 35 out of 2074
2074 music reviews
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    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    What You See Is What You Get
    “What You See Is What You Get” challenges him less than his debut album did. It is mundanely forceful, laden with chunky guitars and hard-snap drums, and just barely ambitious. Which is to say, in the current country ecosystem, reasonably effective. Where Combs shows the most promise is in his emergent desire to restore the genre to the high-octane pep of the 1990s.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Chromatica
    It has some sparkling vocal moments. It reminds us how easily Lady Gaga, 34, can coax the world onto the dance floor. But it feels overwhelmingly safe. ... “Chromatica” is also a mixed bag.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wonder
    His lyrics meander and stop short of true sentiment, and his rhythmic deliveries feel less cohesive. He still has a way with swell, understanding how to inflate his voice from whimper to peal. But on this inconsistent album, rarely does his singing convey depth of feeling.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Justice
    The disorganized, only sporadically strong “Justice,” though, feels like a slap on the wrist to “Changes,” or the version of Bieber it nurtured. Rather than settle for one groove, this album shuttles between several.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Donda
    As a Kanye West album, it feels more like a stabilization than an innovation. ... [The album] is sonically cohesive but also overlong and full of heavily assembled songs — multiple producers and writers, a bounty of male guests. West has long been shifting into conductor mode, and on several songs here, he is the ballast but not the focus.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    JOSE
    The album struggles to truly innovate: “Jose” is an itinerant, unfocused effort that offers an impressionistic inventory of the sounds that have established him as a force: pop-reggaeton, trap and EDM. ... “Jose” colors inside the lines, safeguarding Balvin’s reign by reveling in the familiar.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Equals
    Ultimately, “=” neither adds to nor subtracts from the trusty formula for success that he long ago worked out. It is the sleek sound of stasis.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    WE
    Despite its occasional moments of brilliance, “We” too often finds Arcade Fire stuck in a digital maze of its own design, ignoring the fact that it’s always sounded more at home off the grid.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Born Pink
    “Born Pink” is occasionally galvanic, and occasionally iterative. When the group does push into new territory — or more accurately, unshackles itself from familiar ground — it doesn’t leave much of an impact.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Midnights
    Overly familiar sounding and spotty. ... “Midnights” feels like a concession to an older, safer idea of Swift, full of songs that are capable and comfortable but often insufficient. ... Some of the lyrics can be lackluster and bluntly imagistic, with little of the detail that made Swift one of the signature pop songwriters of the 21st century. ... “Midnights” by and large feels like a fuzzy Xerox of old accomplishments.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    One Thing at a Time
    Its 36 songs — yes, 36 — show abundant craftsmanship and barely a hint of new ambition or risk. ... But over the lengthy course of the album, the songs tend to cycle through just a handful of approaches. Eventually, the nasal grain of Wallen’s singing starts to feel like Auto-Tune or another studio effect.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Songs of Surrender
    “Songs of Surrender” is the weightier project. Like all of U2’s albums, it’s anything but casual; the songs have been minutely reconsidered. ... But for most of “Songs of Surrender,” less is simply less. What comes across throughout the 40 songs is not intimacy, but distance: the inescapable fact that these songs are being rethought and revived years later, not created anew. Wild original impulses have been replaced by latter-day self-consciousness.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Chemistry
    The album is often a showcase for the elemental power of Clarkson’s voice and occasionally for her clever turns of phrase as a lyricist, but the arrangements too often rely on modern pop clichés rather than push for innovation or reach back to the soulful traditionalism of her 2017 LP, “Meaning of Life.”
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    For All The Dogs
    “For All the Dogs” includes some of his least ambitious rapping, and whereas on prior albums, he sometimes balances out his complexity with melody, that’s rarely the case here. .... And as is Drake’s wont, there are also a handful of deeply modern, innovative and unexpected production choices.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Little Rope
    The new LP has more oomph and darkness than the band’s self-produced 2021 LP “Path of Wellness” and more emotional resonance than its mechanical 2019 effort “The Center Won’t Hold.” But even in its wildest moments, when compared to the band’s mightiest work, “Little Rope” sounds unfortunately diminished and curiously restrained.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Vultures 1
    Ultimately, “Vultures 1” is a simulacrum of a strong Ye album — sometimes thinly constructed, but thickened with harsh sound and polished to a high shine. Some of West’s recent albums have been brittle inside and out, but this is music that, for better and worse, matches the moment, with songs that are pugnacious, brooding, lewd and a little exasperated.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Everything I Thought It Was
    Abandoning the folksy aesthetic of “Man of the Woods,” “Everything” returns to Timberlake’s comfort zone: Gleaming, lightly profane disco jams that imagine dance-floor seduction as a kind of interstellar odyssey. The results are mixed.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Musicology
    A casual exhibition of Princeliness, stocked with a handful of old tricks but no new ones.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Welcome Back
    A surprisingly tepid collection that might have benefited from a bit more preaching, or at least a bit more passion. [30 Aug 2004]
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    New Danger
    Although Mos Def sometimes finds the casual groove he's looking for, this disc is surprisingly dreary and oddly abstract. [1 Nov 2004]
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Live Like You Were Dying
    McGraw uses references to death and suffering to camouflage rather ordinary songs, and rather ordinary singing.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Concrete Rose
    So this album contains Ashanti's best and most adventurous selection of beats so far. Unfortunately, it also contains the sketchiest and most irritating batch of songs. [13 Dec 2004]
    • The New York Times
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Grown & Sexy
    Like a lot of current pop, he could use a middle ground between thuggishness and sentimentality. [15 Aug 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Back Home
    Yet heartfelt as his sentiments may be, the songs are a letdown: there's neither angst nor exaltation, just tidiness. [29 Aug 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    All That I Am
    Too many of the guest stars and committee-written songs on this album are strictly B-list. [31 Oct 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Standing In The Way Of Control
    This is a transitional album: many of the songs seem underwritten without all that noise on top; sometimes it sounds as if the band is still trying to figure out what to do with its tense, restrained new sound. [23 Jan 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Ringleader Of The Tormentors
    While the lyrics are uniformly excellent... the songs mainly range from not good to pretty good. [3 Apr 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    I'm Not Dead
    A wildly uneven mixture of pop treats and melodramatic misfires. [3 Apr 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Mobile
    A studious, slightly overcomposed record; we don't hear Mr. Kotche's own rich, natural drum-kit sound so much as the dried fruit of his research. [20 Mar 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Yell Fire!
    Originality seems less important to Mr. Franti than moral directness. [24 Jul 2006]
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