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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    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In Love And Death
    Weird and catchy and unexpectedly funny. [11 Oct 2004]
    • The New York Times
    • 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.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Spirit Of Apollo
    All those guests have a lot on their minds--the economy, the history of hip-hop, their own skills--and the N.A.S.A. team makes sure no one wears out a welcome.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Changed
    Even though there are hints here of the ambitious melancholy that's become this group's trademark (for instance "Hurry Baby,") what stands out are the new moods, on songs like the jumpy "She's Leaving," which cloaks hurt in a sparkly package.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pacific Daydream
    Pacific Daydream is both exuberant and plaintive; it’s full of songs about past joys and present loneliness, recalling friends and lovers who are no longer part of the singer’s life. ... But there’s a whole pop apparatus around him--a tambourine shaking, a firm beat, happy backup voices--to insist that Weezer’s kind of music is far from extinct.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Talk That Talk
    Rihanna's version of this sound [dance music] dates to the club music of the early 1990s, an era in which she would have shined. The best songs on this lively and often great album sound synth-perfect for that time.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lost Highway
    [It] yield[s] unsurprising but reasonably strong results. [18 Jun 2007]
    • The New York Times
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    We Started Nothing
    The Ting Tings are crafty, not naive, but they can fabricate elation.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    True Romance
    More than on her previous albums, there is a sense of play here, and a feeling that no one was holding a leash tight. That can be a liability, of course--the vocals feel slightly underproduced, and she slips off the occasional note here and there.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Careless World: Rise of the Last King
    Even though he remains a cipher, his surroundings are lush.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Emancipation Of Mimi
    On "The Emancipation of Mimi," she disciplines herself into coherence, using fewer tricks and sounding more believable. She also finds what lesser singers can take for granted: a certain lightness that eases her constant sense of control. [11 Apr 2005]
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    SongVersation
    She keeps her sentiments tuneful and directs most of the self-help advice at herself, staying sisterly rather than preachy.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Til The Casket Drops
    This is an album animated by letdown, though less effectively than in the past. More than ever Malice is the moral anchor.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ye
    While Mr. West’s previous releases have made musical leaps, Ye often comes across as a recap.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Songs of Experience
    It’s not an album that courts new fans by radically changing U2’s style; instead, it reaffirms the sound that has been filling arenas and stadiums for decades.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Colossus
    The beat is generally the best part of any track produced by RJD2, but The Colossus--the first album on his new label, RJ’s Electrical Connections--finds him juggling vintage samples, string and horn parts, vocals both outsourced and original.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Farmer's Daughter
    She has a keen, finely honed pop instinct all her own.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    American Central Dust
    It’s all a clear throwback, but the starkly countrified vibe underscores the plaintive cast of Mr. Farrar’s lyrics.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bright Lights Of America
    Their sound--enhanced by the energies of a second guitarist, Chris Head, and a bassist, Chris #2--literally urges participation. Every song’s chorus helpfully comes prearranged as a sing-along: no room for sullenness here.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Wildflower
    Along with glimmering guitars, she brings on the strings. She risks turning doubly pompous when she combines cosmic thoughts and big baroque production. Most of the time, Ms. Crow gets away with it. [26 Sep 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I'm with You
    Mr. Klinghoffer leaves only a few faint marks, most notably on the contemplative "Brendan's Death Song," which ends with two moving minutes of chaos with Mr. Kiedis wailing and the drummer Chad Smith bashing away. More of this would be welcome on this overly polite album: this band once thrived on such abandon.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Double Up
    This is a nutty album, but a pretty single-minded one.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Be As You Are (Songs From An Old Blue Chair)
    The new album, "Be as You Are", is the most laid-back of Mr. Chesney's career, and one of the most appealing. [24 Jan 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Laws of Illusion
    It's a collection of ballads, hymns and waltzes, sung in long arcs of melody with a voice that enfolds its strength in breathy intimacy.
    • 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]
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Very She & Him Christmas
    She & Him, the duo of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward, maintains its early-1960s retro cool on its Christmas album.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Time
    The Time album always sounds neater and cozier than the songs it echoes. Yet behind the album’s considerable calculation, there’s a glimpse of a kindly heart.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I Changed a Lot
    Most of this album is an extension of DJ Khaled’s tenets of more and louder and still more. That extends to his guest list, as packed as ever.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Ark Work
    Mr. Hunt-Hendrix is a feckless, floppy-voiced singer, and either for reasons of safety or rigor he often sticks to a single tone organized into rhythmic phrasing. The monotony can become crazy-making. And sometimes these songs become facile and grandiose.... But the band knows its virtues and works them hard: density, repetition, development, perversity, integration, catharsis.
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