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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    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Love, Angel, Music, Baby
    A clever and sometimes enticing solo debut that doesn't quite add up. [22 Nov 2004]
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    With The Lights Out
    It's a collection of odds and ends, yet the music can be cathartic and it can be achingly intimate. [29 Nov 2004]
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Destiny Fulfilled
    A surprisingly perfunctory disc that never quite justifies its existence. [22 Nov 2004]
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece
    Isn't quite as infectious as the last one, "Paid tha Cost to Be tha Bo$$," because the hooks aren't as grabby and the jokes aren't as funny. But there's plenty to love. [22 Nov 2004]
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Encore
    "Encore" is almost willfully uneven: it includes some of the most exhilarating songs Eminem has ever recorded, alongside some of the most inert. [15 Nov 2004]
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Still Not Getting Any
    Individually, the songs are catchy, but as they pile up over the length of the album, it's impossible not to wonder whether the singer's endless complaints didn't drive everyone away. [8 Nov 2004]
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Futures
    Jimmy Eat World's ballads sink into sentimentality. [8 Nov 2004]
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    From A Basement On The Hill
    The low-fi yet meticulous arrangements only add to the sense of isolation and the poignancy of the songs. [18 Oct 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]
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Real Gone
    Like an altar built of barbed wire, scrap metal and broken glass, "Real Gone" hammers ungraceful materials into something like beauty.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Has Been
    Remarkably, the album coheres.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Chronicles Of Life And Death
    The disc is full of ham-fisted experiments. [11 Oct 2004]
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In Love And Death
    Weird and catchy and unexpectedly funny. [11 Oct 2004]
    • The New York Times
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Antics
    In the end, unfortunately, "Antics" is fairly uneven. [19 Sep 2004]
    • The New York Times
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Beautiful Struggle
    Between the hooks, he's as earnest as ever, but now he's dressed to party.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    American Idiot
    Green Day trumps any pretension with melody and sheer fervor.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sweat
    These are easily Nelly's best albums so far.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    In The World Of Him
    The music surrounds the sustained emotion of her voice with a pensive, hallucinatory overlay.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Suit
    In his world, being grown and sexy doesn't mean being complacent - it means being curious, maybe even brave.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Funeral
    One of the year's best indie-rock albums. [3 Oct 2004]
    • The New York Times
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Wet From Birth
    The Faint is never less than snappy.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    What I Do
    He often starts with a familiar scenario or sentiment, then finds a way to wriggle free of predictability without giving up on the initial idea.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Getting Away With Murder
    The new songs are thrashing hard rock that always pays attention to melody.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Medulla
    While the album might seem to be a conceptual stunt, it finds gorgeous and startling new ways to extend Bjork's longtime mission: merging the earthy and the ethereal. [29 Aug 2004]
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Straight Outta Ca$hville
    This album isn't revelatory, but it is convincing, and although Young Buck's subject matter never surprises, the tracks sometimes do. [30 Aug 2004]
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Happy People / U Saved Me
    There's something rather unambitious about this set.
    • 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]
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Revolution Starts Now
    Merges twang, orneriness and compassion. [6 Sep 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    More Adventurous
    Each song on "More Adventurous" sounds rich and well plotted. [16 Aug 2004]
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    All City
    It can be rough going, especially when the three rappers fall back on stilted clichés. [30 Aug 2004]
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Homesongs
    He uses a roomful of instruments and toys to turn the album into a homemade pop symphony.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    One Plus One Is One
    Typically hit or miss.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Autobiography
    The album is a thoroughly calculated package, aiming for the same audience that embraces Avril Lavigne and Pink. [26 Jul 2004]
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Blueberry Boat
    It's deeply ambitious, but to listen to it you'd think making music like this was as easy for them as falling off a log. [18 Jul 2004]
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Back To Basics
    Like many dancehall reggae albums, this one often cries out to be sampled more than listened to. [19 Jul 2004]
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Stone Love
    Stone Love... spreads it thick with bells, harps, string sections and expert evocations of grooviness. These affectations are starting to swallow up her talent.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    To The 5 Boroughs
    The tracks crackle and swing with a wit that the lyrics rarely match.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Uh Huh Her
    It is a short disc (41 minutes), and not an entirely satisfying one: instead of stories and characters, we get a series of gestures, a few false starts, pockets full of poses. This is an album of shards, then. But they're sharp. [7 June 2004]
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    I Com
    The embarrassingly specific lyrics about her personal life… give the album the feel of a nocturnal diary with the immediacy of a Web log.[16 May 2004]
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Under My Skin
    There's little subtlety on "Under My Skin," and... absolutely no fear of clichés. But on the emotionally fraught battleground that is high-school romance, perhaps those would be frills. [16 May 2004]
    • 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.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    So-Called Chaos
    The music rings proudly, but the narcissism is suffocating.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Faded Seaside Glamour
    You can't tell a word Greg Gilbert is saying... and you won't care; his soaring falsetto is that beautiful.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Now Here Is Nowhere
    There are moments when the Secret Machines imitate their influences a little too closely, and at times the brothers' voices aren't as imposing as the arrangements. But for most of "Now Here Is Nowhere," the Secret Machines make music that matches the scale of their ambitions.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Split The Difference
    If only all stupid rock music could be this intelligent.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Grand Don't Come For Free
    The problem with "A Grand Don't Come for Free" is that the pieces often work better as stories than as songs.... But it is still a thrill to hear Mr. Skinner toy with the form that he invented.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    You Are The Quarry
    At this level of lyric artistry, these warmed-over arena rock backdrops are a waste.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    ONoffON
    Tense, febrile and messy, but tuneful and cohesive at the same time. [2 May 2004]
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Heroes To Zeros
    "Heroes to Zeros" is clearly the product of long hours of multitracking, with just enough song in each track to hang all the instrumental ideas on.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    trampin'
    At 57 Ms. Smith has made the most diverse music of her career.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Boot And A Shoe
    There are hints of blues and gospel, but most of the songs could come from a rustic cabaret that is worried about waking the neighbors.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Musicology
    A casual exhibition of Princeliness, stocked with a handful of old tricks but no new ones.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Pretty Toney Album
    "Pretty Toney" doesn't match the high standard of Ghostface's first two, "Ironman" and "Supreme Clientele," but it's a strong album nonetheless, packed with dense narratives and weird conceits.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Good News For People Who Love Bad News
    The best Modest Mouse album yet.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Retriever
    Chiming 1960's folk-rock and Beatles-tinged melodies can't quite pull Ron Sexsmith out of the moderate despair that suffuses his songs.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Honkin' On Bobo
    Not every song here benefits from the Aerosmith treatment. [29 Mar 2004]
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Damita Jo
    The album is even sleeker and sexier than its predecessor, "All for You," and in saner times, that would be enough to ensure its success. [28 Mar 2004]
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Confessions
    Like lots of recent R & B albums, this one is heavily front-loaded. Usher's voice never fails him (there are a few falsetto runs that seem intended to put Mr. Timberlake in his place), but near the end, the songwriting does. [28 Mar 2004]
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fly Or Die
    While Mr. Williams isn't much of a singer, "Fly or Die" has goofy charms to spare.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
    The first time through, the album is as much an endurance test as an entertainment, reaching back to New York rock's most raucous no-wave experiments of the late 1970's and also echoing vanguardists like Merzbow and This Heat.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    College Dropout
    2004's first great hip-hop album. [9 Feb 2004]
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Me First
    "Me First" may not be greater than the sum of its parts, but it certainly is equal to them, which is a lot. [1 Mar 2004]
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Talkie Walkie
    The arrangements are light and immaculate, the vocals coo and cajole, and the melodies are addictive.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Educated Guess
    It's worth putting up with a few overbearing moments to hear someone so willing to take chances.
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