The Observer (UK)'s Scores
- Movies
- Music
For 2,616 reviews, this publication has graded:
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37% higher than the average critic
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4% same as the average critic
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59% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4.9 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 68
Highest review score: | Gold-Diggers Sound | |
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Lowest review score: | Collections |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1,230 out of 2616
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Mixed: 1,368 out of 2616
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Negative: 18 out of 2616
2616
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
While Bleachers is far from being a bad album, it’s even further from being an exciting one.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Mar 11, 2024
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Letter to Yu finds this dancefloor native expanding his already imaginative sound design. It’s sad, but also full of diversions, with Pupul’s curiosity and squelchy sense of fun ever-present.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Mar 11, 2024
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Filthy Underneath feels like an intelligently calibrated vehicle in which musical and emotional progress is made, even as suffering laps at the running boards like flood water.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Mar 7, 2024
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Musically, meanwhile, Where’s My Utopia? marks a huge leap forward, with co-producer Remi Kabaka Jr of Gorillaz helping to realise soaring ambitions.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Mar 4, 2024
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You might file her body of work under 70s-tinged alt-country. But Webster’s subtle accessorising – her eclectic production choices, like Feeling Good Today’s Auto-Tuned multitracking – always render these miniatures next-level.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Mar 4, 2024
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As eloquent as Squire’s guitar is, his lyrics can often be trite. Sometimes, though, Gallagher sings something that makes you sit up.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Feb 27, 2024
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This is a well-crafted collection that could maybe do with a couple more heaters, but will keep the wider audience he picked up with Conflict of Interest happy.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Feb 26, 2024
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Bubblegum Dog is more engaging for its muscular delivery and surreal lyrics, and there’s a sense of space to the soaring Nothing Changes. Ultimately, though, for all its gloss, Loss of Life feels a little disappointing.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Feb 26, 2024
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There are words of love for suicidal addicts (Alibi) and a sense of the distance travelled, while remaining constant: an outlier whose solidarity with the runaways and the marginalised endures.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Feb 26, 2024
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- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Feb 22, 2024
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- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Feb 20, 2024
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- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Feb 20, 2024
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There are nice moments of nostalgia: banger Hearts and Flowers references Jenny from the Block, while the excellent Rebound is a throwback R&B jam accentuated by fluttering harp. But songs such as To Be Yours and Not.going.anywhere offer very little outside of simply soundtracking a cosy night in chez Bennifer.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Feb 20, 2024
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It’s when Larsson gets earnest that things start to falter. Nothing cribs too readily from Rihanna’s 2010-era balladry, while Larsson’s full-bodied delivery jars with Soundtrack’s soft strings. She’s better setting those emotions to big floor-fillers, as on End of Time, which peaks as a desperate Larsson belts “until the end of fucking time!” For that sense of pent-up release, Venus works perfectly.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Feb 12, 2024
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For those expecting Malone’s all-enveloping instrumental embrace, the churchiness of the voices can startle. But the younger artist came to music through choirs, and the sorrowful grace of the words makes plain emotions she previously only implied.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Feb 12, 2024
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At just 35 minutes, Phasor might not be as all-enveloping as his previous efforts, yet it offers enough scraps of melody and moments of wonder that you won’t feel cheated.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Feb 12, 2024
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It’s an aural through line as she dazzles us with her range: unexpected dancefloor bangers (Prove It to You), pellucid vintage soul and exultant funk.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Feb 5, 2024
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As usual, the words he drawls are blankly impenetrable – the gorgeous I Can’t Find You could be about friendships, a relationship or his car keys. Still, this is a wonderfully agreeable album and, if you miss the roar, there should be more Dinosaur Jr in a year or two.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Feb 5, 2024
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Peacemaker balances its polished Nashville musicianship with uncanny textures, resulting in a record so atmospheric you’d swear you could hear the rustle of her white prairie dress in the breeze.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Feb 5, 2024
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Here are grownup, weighty ruminations on devotion, sacrifice, separation and Covid, but The Tower and King of Sweden are also perfectly constructed pop.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jan 29, 2024
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Thought-provoking words, lush instrumentation – what’s not to like?- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jan 29, 2024
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Her second album, written in Nashville, continues to make up for lost time, moving on in both craft and playfulness.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jan 23, 2024
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If Insano is to be Mescudi’s musical curtain call, it showcases his capacity to attract big names, without delivering on distinctive songs.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jan 22, 2024
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Although the likes of the punchy 1981 and the poppier Suzie Chapstick roll back the years, too many of the songs here sound laboured and/or pedestrian, and there’s a real paucity of memorable material.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jan 22, 2024
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The subtle, unfurling I Quit, meanwhile, marries guitar, piano and percussion to create an arpeggiating Doppler effect strafed by electronics. “This is my stop, this is the end of the trip,” sings Yorke. In the same breath he’s ruminating on “conscience” and “brotherhood” and “a new path out of the madness, to wherever it goes”. That path may well be shaped like a smile.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jan 22, 2024
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There is no right way to grieve, but it feels as though shock and sorrow have only made Sleater-Kinney seize their day and prioritise.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jan 16, 2024
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But where its predecessor was louche and hook-driven, this fourth studio album skulks deeper into her psyche, its occasional moments of catharsis upended by sombre piano interludes and bleak lyricism.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jan 16, 2024
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Orquídeas’s variegation means it’s not quite the no-skip concept album that was Red Moon. But in a rapidly decompartmentalising pop landscape, where Spanglish is increasingly a lingua franca, Uchis’s flair and depth cuts across whatever notional cultural barriers might remain.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jan 16, 2024
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Sometimes it feels more like an oral history project, with first-hand spoken-word accounts by Liam Bailey (the title track), or Brown’s appreciation of her family on Just Be. Mostly, though, she succeeds in channelling her anger, sadness and defiance, all the while conveying gratitude for the richness of her Caribbean roots.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Dec 19, 2023
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At 14 songs, there are misfires that could have been pruned – Run for the Hills is generic, algorithmic trap-pop – but overall, Think Later feels like McRae’s ticket to the big leagues.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Dec 11, 2023
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