The Wire's Scores
- Music
For 2,618 reviews, this publication has graded:
-
51% higher than the average critic
-
7% same as the average critic
-
42% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.6 points higher than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 73
Highest review score: | SMiLE | |
---|---|---|
Lowest review score: | Amazing Grace |
Score distribution:
-
Positive: 2,168 out of 2618
-
Mixed: 430 out of 2618
-
Negative: 20 out of 2618
2618
music
reviews
-
- Critic Score
'Bomboo Banga' is pure power monotony, her deadpan one-note voice mixed with car engines, samples of Bombay pop, Booty Bass and tribal rhythms, is a perfect soundtrack to a stroll down London's Banglatown. [Sep 2007, p.57]- The Wire
-
- Critic Score
Unsurprisingly, Badu’s is the least pretentious, the least bogged down in gushing musical detail; it’s also the most politically woke and personally reflective. It is perhaps the most in tune with Fela’s own unique worldview, with eternal struggle as a way of life. [Feb 2018, p.65]- The Wire
Posted Feb 23, 2018 -
- Critic Score
The whole set has the provisional, unfinished feel of a diary or sketchbook. Some tracks are arranged so sparsely you’d think they’re missing parts; the flipside of this is that For You & I an incredibly personal, even intimate listen. [Nov 2019, p.64]- The Wire
Posted Oct 23, 2019 -
- Critic Score
Stripping Yonkers’s tunes of any of these traits, Dwyer makes them over into larger than life anthems and the results are pretty damned splendid. [Oct 2020, p.59]- The Wire
Posted Dec 23, 2020 -
- The Wire
Posted Sep 26, 2018 -
- Critic Score
This new album manages to project an even simpler and more accessible surface with extraordinary depths of reference and feeling, even a track dedicated to Begum Rokeya, the Bengali feminist educator and author of the extraordinary genderswitching utopian fiction Sultana’s Dream. [Dec 2022, p.57]- The Wire
Posted Nov 22, 2022 -
- The Wire
Posted Apr 28, 2011 -
- Critic Score
With co-producer Andrew Lappin and an army of 20 musicians who contributed to various tracks in tow, she has produced a record that flexes its knowing complexity and retains a sense of experimental pop curiosity throughout. [Aug 2021, p.59]- The Wire
Posted Jul 28, 2021 -
- Critic Score
It's a remarkably brutal record, gleefully stomping about with all the toys spread across the floor, and all the better for it. [Apr 2016, p.54]- The Wire
Posted Apr 21, 2016 -
- Critic Score
From its cryptic title to its discombobulating assemblage of stylistic approaches in the track listing, Oil Of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides is chaotic and disjointed. ... Bringing a range of seemingly contrasting elements together, SOPHIE has been problematising commonly accepted binaries since dropping the berserk dance pop of “BIPP” on Glasgow’s Numbers label in 2013. [Sep 2018, p.49]- The Wire
Posted Aug 8, 2018 -
- Critic Score
Becs is something of a return, then, but equally it demonstrates that the guitarist's approach to pop composition has developed considerably over the past 13 years. [May 2014, p.83]- The Wire
Posted Jul 17, 2014 -
- Critic Score
Isn't so much a leftfield perversion of HipHop as it is a restoration of the genre to its avant garde roots. [#231, p.67]- The Wire
-
- Critic Score
A superb album, in which Wyatt gathers all of his strengths, with the personal and the political, the aesthetic and the ethical are brought together as only he can. [Nov 2007, p.64]- The Wire
-
- Critic Score
The way these surprises are smuggled in via skilful sonic illusions attests to Holden’s wide listening habits, and his judgement for bringing different sounds together like an old school studio producer. [Apr 2023, p.54]- The Wire
Posted Apr 4, 2023 -
- The Wire
Posted Oct 29, 2018 -
- Critic Score
The brasher moments of Afrique Victime are at least as worthwhile, Moctar having assembled a crack band. ... If this guy only really has two main modes – flamboyant electric blues and downhome, tricksy folk-rock – he can scorch in both, making complaints churlish. [Jun 2021, p.53]- The Wire
Posted Jun 29, 2021 -
- Critic Score
No great leap forward, but with a sound this distinctive, that's not yet a problem. [#205, p.59]- The Wire
-
- Critic Score
This is a rare gem of an album that projects Kacy and Clayton into the category of all time great folk duos. [Jun 2016, p.50]- The Wire
Posted Jul 18, 2016 -
- The Wire
Posted Dec 23, 2020 -
- Critic Score
As always Harris’s dedication to using a small spectrum of sounds to convey a wide range of emotions is noteworthy. Shade is another stunning piece of work – after all these years, Harris still makes it easier for some of us to get to know ourselves. [Oct 2021, p.48]- The Wire
Posted Dec 20, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Rarely has an album exemplified the 'body and soul' paid so much lip service in House music so willingly. [Apr 2008, p.58]- The Wire
-
- Critic Score
Walls Have Ears is a postcard from Sonic Youth in their salad days, with newly recruited drummer Steve Shelley cementing a core line-up that would endure until disbandment 26 years later. [Apr 2024, p.75]- The Wire
Posted Mar 20, 2024 -
- The Wire
Posted Dec 2, 2014 -
- Critic Score
On Centres, the songs have a lyrical content that makes their meaning more discernible. [Aug 2016, p.48]- The Wire
Posted Aug 19, 2016 -
- Critic Score
This is a spellbinding album by a singular guitarist who combines the dexterity of Paco De Lucia with the hypnotic death-drawl of Bukka White. [Oct 2013, p.51]- The Wire
Posted Dec 10, 2013 -
- Critic Score
Narkopop has a symphonic majesty, a sense of form and forward movement that no prior Gas record quite reached. Voigt's forest no longer merely murmurs; it positively exults. [May 2017, p.46]- The Wire
Posted Aug 8, 2017 -
- Critic Score
He cites Frank Sinatra and Disney soundtracks as influences, and creates gorgeous music that paired with the vibrant visuals, disguises the horror within the film itself. [Sep 2019, p.56]- The Wire
Posted Aug 22, 2019 -
- Critic Score
Blues Dream is both a compendious evocation and synthesis of a range of genres that never sounds merely eclectic... It's one of Frisell's most ambitious productions to date. [#207, p.61]- The Wire
-
- Critic Score
Hus’s second album Big Conspiracy is the refined work of a man who’s emerging calloused and implacable from a tough decade, most recently a 2017 conviction for carrying a knife which cost him eight months and a string of festival appearances. Through it all, his music has swayed joyously escapist more than harrowing or politically charged. [Apr 2020, p.56]- The Wire
Posted Mar 11, 2020 -
- Critic Score
Run The Jewels is a document of true friends finding the fun in being very angry. [Sep 2013, p.66]- The Wire
Posted Dec 10, 2013