The Observer (UK)'s Scores
- Movies
- Music
For 2,622 reviews, this publication has graded:
-
37% higher than the average critic
-
4% same as the average critic
-
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 | |
---|---|---|
Lowest review score: | Collections |
Score distribution:
-
Positive: 1,234 out of 2622
-
Mixed: 1,370 out of 2622
-
Negative: 18 out of 2622
2622
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
-
- Critic Score
Though Burna has always subtly weaved elements of pop into his music, it feels too omnipresent in the second half of the album.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jul 11, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
You could, just about, call these psalms remixes, in that the thematic stems hold true. But there is respite, too, in the gentler notes and oscillations of Splendour, Glorious Splendour.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jul 5, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
An ambitious album (it comes with an 8mm film and several quirky videos) from a unique artist.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jul 5, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
As an album, it never comes close to Guided By Voices at their mid-90s peak; it isn’t even the best one by this incarnation of the band (that’s possibly 2019’s Warp and Woof). But this is yet another solid addition to one of the most impressive canons in US indie rock.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jul 5, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
This is a record full of elegant consolation, but one that refuses to patronise the listener.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jun 27, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Released from both internal and external shackles, Muna feels like phase two for one of pop’s best bands.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jun 27, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Borrowing 10 beats from inventive producer Soundtrakk’s vault, Lupe tries out different flows with varying success.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jun 27, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
She can be puckish, yearning, impossibly weary, intimate – and that’s all on one track, 20 Years a Growing. The pair’s most engaging songs start spare, then meander with gathering intensity to an orchestral crescendo- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jun 24, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
This is an EP to fall into, as though in a swoon, its fine detail revealing itself over time.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jun 20, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Certainly, there’s an appealing directness to the maximalist likes of Wake Me Up, with its bellowed chorus seemingly precision-tooled for festival crowds. ... Unfortunately, the quality flags as the album goes on, and the undistinguished likes of Crest of the Wave only succeed in coming across like an ersatz Everything Everything.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jun 20, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
O’Brien’s music, while often smart and sharply played, is rarely exciting as it skips from dusty funk to spiky electronica, and her poetry isn’t quite limber enough to enliven the bare scaffolding supplied by her band.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jun 13, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
More introspective and contemplative than his previous two multi-platinum albums, Gold Rush Kid finds Ezra becoming a man for all seasons.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jun 13, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
There are flashes of the full-throated musicality that made her an exciting prospect, but the album falls short. Perhaps hampered by a pressure to take her sound in a fresh direction, Balbuena loses the vitality that distinguished her in the first place.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jun 10, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Every Head album is a gem, but Dear Scott – named after a note-to-self by F Scott Fitzgerald, down on his luck – has a particularly deep internal lustre.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jun 6, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
As several of her songs attest, music can be consolation in the most troubled times, and Big Time is a silky balm.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted Jun 6, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Gallagher still has a voice that can imbue even the most meaningless lyric with more feeling than it deserves. But the old adage about cooks and broth holds true, because for all the efforts of the crack team surrounding him, the results are largely unremarkable and at times, as in the case of Oh Sweet Children, downright cloying.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted May 31, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The most country thing about this body of work is the hard-lived wisdom it offers up. The love songs are very grown-up.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted May 31, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Two years on, this sequel is a similarly entrancing, sometimes frightening listen.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted May 23, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Ultimately Styles is more concerned with mood than minutiae. On Harry’s House he’s created a welcoming place to stay.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted May 23, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
This electrifying, uneasy record stops, starts and turns, often within the confines of one track. The beats are restless; few comforting grooves are allowed to build for very long.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted May 23, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
While there’s nothing as obviously stellar as Grammy-winning US Top 5 hit Boo’d Up or its even better sequel, Trip, Ella has always had a gift for parsing the everyday dramas of twentysomething relationships in relatable (and sometimes 18-rated) language.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted May 16, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Its first side certainly has its moments. ... Unfortunately, there is just as much pedestrian material that stubbornly fails to lodge in the memory.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted May 16, 2022
- Read full review
-
- The Observer (UK)
- Posted May 16, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The album takes a step back from the vast productions of Welch’s most famous work, with nods to the Rolling Stones (Dream Girl Evil) and plenty of unexpected chiaroscuro, the better to foreground her luxuriant voice.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted May 16, 2022
- Read full review
-
- The Observer (UK)
- Posted May 9, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
All these highs and lows pass in an unvarying, mid-paced indie-rock fug, with little to hold the attention outside her gossamer delivery of candour and insight.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted May 9, 2022
- Read full review
-
- The Observer (UK)
- Posted May 3, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Although this album was written at her new house in Baltimore, when Sangaré got stuck there during lockdown, many of these tracks look to her home region of Wassoulou, whose sung heritage and stringed instruments she has turned into an international world music phenomenon.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted May 2, 2022
- Read full review
-
- The Observer (UK)
- Posted May 2, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Though not as affecting as the original, if we’re talking about club bangers, Kehlani makes it their own.- The Observer (UK)
- Posted May 2, 2022
- Read full review