The New York Times' Scores

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For 2,075 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: 1,597 out of 2075
  2. Mixed: 443 out of 2075
  3. Negative: 35 out of 2075
2075 music reviews
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    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    F.A.M.E.
    Mr. Brown sings, with a modicum of angst [on "Up To You"]. But for much of this album--almost the whole second half, actually--Mr. Brown is chasing Usher with a ferocity out onto the dance floor, where no one will pay much mind to his words.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Femme Fatale
    More than any of her previous releases Femme Fatale is blank. Ms. Spears isn't much more than a celebrity spokeswoman for the work of the producers Max Martin, Dr. Luke and others, who need artists like Ms. Spears as calling cards.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    SuperHeavy
    An almost total lack of good songs constitutes the album's basic problem. Once that's understood, the record becomes sort of entertaining: gaudy, vacuous, densely mannered.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Ersatz G.B.
    The mess can be tense and charmed, or just dull. Ersatz G. B. is too often dull.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    rEvolver
    He mainly revisits old tropes without a wink.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    God Forgives, I Don't
    Even though Mr. Ross's rapping is prime, it isn't enough to carry this album. Just at the moment that he's finally not underrated, he has underdelivered.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Centipede Hz
    "Merriweather Post Pavilion," had comparatively more open space, medium tempos, and a lot more Panda Bear, who restricts himself emotionally as he tries to make his limited voice beautiful. This record is dominated, even saturated, by Avey Tare, who does not.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Cruel Summer
    Mr. West is often nowhere to be found, and more crucially, nowhere to be felt. Parts of this album - "Sin City," "The One," "Creepers" - feature what's easily the laziest music on any Kanye-related project, with no trace of his trademark meticulousness.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Lotus
    The anonymity of much of Lotus is its biggest crime, more than its musical unadventurousness or its emphasis on bland self-help lyrics or its reluctance to lean on Ms. Aguilera's voice.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Britney Jean
    Ms. Spears and Will.i.am have turned to European disc jockeys who have found dance music’s lowest, least funky common denominator: the steady thump of four-on-the-floor. And they’ve settled for too many tepid tracks.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    What The...
    It’s often only functional, crucially low on thrills; the riffs, over barely changing, stock-punk rhythm patterns, have no breathing space.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Life Love & Hope
    The songs come with soaring sentimental choruses, but brittle rhythmic foundations--you will miss Sib Hashian, Boston’s old drummer--as well as deeply grandiose or cornball keyboard parts.... Where Mr. Delp is absent, the singers Tommy DeCarlo or David Victor commit passable imitations, or Kimberley Dahme provides bland contrast.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    X
    X is one of his least ambitious releases.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Partners
    The choppy calls and responses between Ms. Streisand and her partners, however, lack conversational or narrative flow, and you have an uncomfortable sense that the parts were spliced together after the fact.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz
    Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz is long and slack, stretching many of its 23 songs out of meager ideas, and puts raw faith in the weird or the nonvarnished, as if she had just recently discovered those concepts.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Made in the A.M.
    Made in the A.M. is much the same, rootless and vague even when it lands on a clear style, like the Coldplay-esque “Infinity,” or “Never Enough,” a wacky number with intense a cappella gimmickry and exuberant mid-1980s drums and horns that recall, of all things, Huey Lewis and the News.... The music is too banal to support exceptional singing.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Joanne
    While Joanne is elemental, nothing about it is bare. Instead, it’s confused, full of songs that feel like concepts in search of a home, small theater pieces extruded from other imaginary productions and collected in one miscellany bin.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Memories: Do Not Open
    Mr. Taggart is a capable but unexciting singer. And he has shockingly few lyrical ideas, less of a concern for performers more adept with melody. ... Two back-to-back songs, the impressive “Honest” and “Wake Up Alone,” parse the weight that fame exacts on emotional relationships--they’re among the most credible on the album.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Sob Rock
    In places, like “Carry Me Away,” the triumph of the arrangement is potent enough to cloak the brittle lyrical bones it sits upon. But in general, Mayer’s songwriting is resistant to even the most thorough gussying up. And even at its most robust, “Sob Rock” is placid, never doing more than winking.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Baptism
    There are some sturdy tunes and hooks, but not much more: the songwriting is often bland, the singing generally charmless.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Chronicles Of Life And Death
    The disc is full of ham-fisted experiments. [11 Oct 2004]
    • 66 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Bravery
    [A] rather dreary pastiche.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Make Believe
    Infuriatingly plain. [16 May 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 66 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Naked Truth
    A surprisingly dull album. [26 Sep 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    I Am Me
    "I Am Me" has an awful lot of brooding teen-rock songs, none of which flatter Ms. Simpson's rather breathy, mannered voice. [24 Oct 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 55 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Amarantine
    The overall effect of "Amarantine" is like drowning in whipped cream. [28 Nov 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 60 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Timeless
    The shiny new beats in "Timeless" weaken the groove that existed in songs like "Mas Que Nada," "Berimbau" and "Surfboard" even before Mr. Mendes got to them 40 years ago. [13 Feb 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 57 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    If Only You Were Lonely
    Too many of the songs feel flat, despite the stormy guitars and stormier lyrics. [27 Feb 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 54 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Daniel Powter
    The album's consistency is its downfall; Mr. Powter's chosen sound may stand out on a radio playlist, but over 10 songs it yields diminishing returns. [10 Apr 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 55 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Blood Money
    Most of this album is startlingly uninspired; no-frills rhymes were once this duo's main weapon; now they are its main liability. [1 May 2006]
    • The New York Times
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