The New York Times' Scores

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For 2,072 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: 1,594 out of 2072
  2. Mixed: 443 out of 2072
  3. Negative: 35 out of 2072
2072 music reviews
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    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Get Behind Me Satan
    It's an album so strong and so unexpected that it may change the way people hear all its predecessors. And that's just a start. Listen long enough, and this album might change the way you hear lots of other bands, too.
    • The New York Times
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Runners Four
    It is something most indie-rock bands take a long time to achieve, if ever: a heavy footfall, a no-half-stepping opus, a defining statement. [9 Oct 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
    You probably won't hear a better CD all year long. [30 Jan 2006]
    • 99 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Live in Europe 1967: Best of the Bootleg, Vol. 1
    It captures Davis's finest working band at its apogee, straining at the limits of post-bop refinement.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Clarity
    The outstanding “Clarity” is her first full-length album, full of songs that are stitched so tightly and varnished so brightly that they cease to be mere pastiche and transcend into something utterly new.
    • 100 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    1999 [Super Deluxe Edition]
    The music still sounds contemporary and alive. ... Every song exults in the architectural savvy of a musician who, from the drumbeat up, seemed to know exactly how he’d be jamming with himself as he built the song. ... A handful [of the previously unreleased material] — including the absolute standout, “Purple Music” — are gems; none is a dud.
    • 98 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Fetch the Bolt Cutters
    “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” is daring in a new way, scrambling and shattering the pop-song structures that once grounded her. ... I am floored by this record. I hear freedom, too. These songs make some breathtaking hairpin turns. ... It’s not just the wild craftsmanship of each song. It’s also that she’s fearless about what she’s doing: with sounds, with structures, with people’s expectations.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Wildflowers & All The Rest
    One of the geeky joys of “Wildflowers and All the Rest” is observing Petty at the absolute peak of his songwriting powers, making small, intelligent tweaks to these songs in progress. Sometimes it’s a single world, a few letters. ... The deep despair is there, too, in the rich soil of these songs. But what makes it bearable, and makes the record so timelessly listenable, is everything else that’s mixed in: humor, wisdom, a little randiness and a palpable sense of hope.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Hellfire
    Humanity isn’t exactly humane in the songs on “Hellfire,” the caustic, exhilarating third album — a masterpiece — by the English band black midi. Each song on “Hellfire” is a whirlwind of virtuosity and structure, an idiom-hopping decathlon of meter shifts, barbed harmonies and arrangements that can veer anywhere at any moment.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Renaissance
    Beyoncé’s singing here transcends any price tag. The range of her voice nears the galactic; the imagination powering it qualifies as cinema. ... Its sense of adventure is off the genre’s map, yet very much aware of every coordinate. It’s an achievement of synthesis that never sounds slavish or synthetic. These songs are testing this music, celebrating how capacious it is, how pliable.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Good News For People Who Love Bad News
    The best Modest Mouse album yet.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    College Dropout
    2004's first great hip-hop album. [9 Feb 2004]
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Sunset Tree
    It may be Mr. Darnielle's best album so far (which is saying a lot) and his most straightforwardly autobiographical (which isn't saying much). [25 Apr 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Black Sheep Boy
    What's most exciting about ''Black Sheep Boy'' is that Okkervil River sounds more than ever like a band. [9 Apr 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Extraordinary Machine
    There's a new layer of perspective on her magnificent third album. [3 Oct 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    You Could Have It So Much Better
    Far more than a sequel. [3 Oct 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 69 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Throw Down Your Arms
    An imposing act of pop interpretation. [3 Oct 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Wearemonster
    Gorgeous... One of the year's best electronic albums. [29 May 2005]
    • The New York Times
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Rather Ripped
    It is a fully legitimate, clear and strong rock 'n' roll record in the band's own style. And it may really be the best one.
    • 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.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    White Bread Black Beer
    [His] best work in 20 years. [25 Jul 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Crane Wife
    As a sustained effort, it represents the band’s sharpest and most satisfying work, and one of the most accomplished albums of its kind this year.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Black Parade
    Simultaneously brutal and hilarious, and bristling with wake-up-call urgency, “The Black Parade” may prove to be the best rock record of the year.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Doctor's Advocate
    Barring some last-minute surprise, he has made the best hip-hop album of the year. [9 Nov 2006]
    • 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]
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Neon Bible
    Arcade Fire mines classic U2 and Bruce Springsteen far better than the Killers recently did. And Arcade Fire didn’t lose its own voice in an attempt to sound bigger and grander. [5 Mar 2007]
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Sound Of Silver
    The strongest stuff of Mr. Murphy’s career.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    In Advance Of The Broken Arm
    The year’s most exciting rock ’n’ roll album. [26 Feb 2007]
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Reminder
    “The Reminder” is a modestly scaled but quietly profound pop gem: sometimes intimate, sometimes exuberant, filled with love songs and hints of mystery. [15 Apr 2007]
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Con
    Somehow The Con is even more obsessive sounding than Tegan and Sara’s earlier work, and it’s probably even better; it could well be one of the year’s best albums.
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