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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    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Illinois
    Even the most elaborate constructions come across as homemade, touched with an optimism that is by no means naïve. [10 Jul 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Carrie & Lowell
    A hushed, intent Sufjan Stevens contemplates death, grief, family and memory on his quietly moving new album.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Punisher
    Strange and exquisitely moving. ... Bridgers’s lyrical talent was evident on her 2017 debut, “Stranger in the Alps,” which had a few perfect songs but as a whole sometimes felt muted, languid and downcast. “Punisher,” though, moves along fluidly with its eyes to the vast sky. Bridgers’s arpeggiated guitar work remains quietly deft.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Socks
    JD McPherson is a vivid reinterpreter of the strutting rock ’n’ roll of the 1950s. His holiday album, Socks, is a collection of original songs with startlingly original conceits.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings [Box Set]
    Both the boxed set and the film sprawl proudly and unpredictably, just as the Revue itself did. And both projects traffic in revelation and put-on, sometimes simultaneously. ... Dylan completists will likely cherish newly unveiled rehearsal tapes . ... For those willing to dig in, the new box also makes clear how consistently impassioned Dylan’s Rolling Thunder performances were.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    What Were You Hoping For?
    This is a messy album, sometimes thrillingly so, a mélange of psychedelic rock, punk energy and R&B desperation.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Funeral
    One of the year's best indie-rock albums. [3 Oct 2004]
    • The New York Times
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jama Ko
    Ngoni Ba was already remarkable for its plucked, pointillist modal grooves, and on Jama Ko, its passionate defense of Malian culture makes the music even sharper.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    the record
    The years between boygenius recordings have made all three songwriters more confident and more levelheaded.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    græ
    It’s hard to imagine many of its songs being performed onstage, even before the pandemic — even as it encompasses more sonic possibilities, from the orchestral to the surreal. ... Sumney doesn’t have to explain himself in prose. His songs do it even better.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    St. Vincent
    With the producer John Congleton, Ms. Clark creates an unpretty backdrop for some of her most alluring melodies.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Like a Rose
    There’s not likely to be a more earthy feeling and backward-sounding country album released on a major label this year.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    RTJ2
    These are pummeling cyber-howls, these songs.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    LEGACY! LEGACY!
    Legacy! Legacy! is a fully realized follow-up, sure-footed in its blend of what was, what is and what might be.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Coloring Book [Mixtape]
    On the jubilant, nourishing Coloring Book, his third solo release, has blossomed into a crusader and a pop savant, coming as close as anyone has to eradicating the walls between the sacred and the secular.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    When I Get Home
    Although the album is punctuated by spoken-word interludes--bits of poetry, self-help, comedy and tribute--it is designed to flow as a whole, gradually infusing a room like incense or the smells of home cooking. ... And Solange’s voice is sure-footed and playful, confident that the music will follow her every whim. ... Outside a few prominent guest raps, Solange and her musicians slip the collaborators into the background. This is her space, her sanctuary.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Wearemonster
    Gorgeous... One of the year's best electronic albums. [29 May 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Hell Hath No Fury
    These clattering and clear-eyed tracks add up to something singular. [27 Nov 2006]
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Women in Music, Pt. III
    This newfound looseness and fluidity suits them. Best believe that Haim still has chops and a bar band’s encyclopedic knowledge of rock riffs, but on its third album it’s finally learned how to carry those things lightly enough to move with its own particular stride.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Same Trailer Different Park
    Ms. Musgraves has a sweet character to her sound, which allows her to deliver a cynic’s wisdom in the voice of an inquisitive child.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    To Be Kind
    To Be Kind continues a run of evermore committed, detailed and powerful work since the band formed again with a new lineup four years ago.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Valentine
    “Valentine,” her remarkable second album as Snail Mail, is alive with such crackling and revelatory emotion.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt. II
    It doesn’t reflect a lack of evolution, or even a regression, but rather the completion of a circle--and probably a landing pad, even as the world continues to whiz by.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964
    There are minor variations, like key changes and picking patterns, but nothing as radical as the ways he would transform the songs in later years.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Divers
    [A] rather brilliant record.... You almost want to hold the whole thing still, flatten it out and study it.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    30
    Even as she sings about desperation and uncertainty, on “30” Adele’s voice is more supple and purposeful than ever, articulating every consonant and constantly ornamenting her melodies without distracting from them. Details are fastidious.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Moon Shaped Pool
    Grim tidings arrive amid gorgeous backdrops ... The results often hark back to the late 1960s; in a way, "A Moon Shaped Pool" is Radiohead’s psych-folk album.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Masseduction
    Masseduction stays poised between passion and artifice, trusting listeners to decrypt its paradoxes.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Saint Cloud
    Confident and accomplished fifth album.
    • 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.
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