NOW Magazine's Scores
- Music
For 2,812 reviews, this publication has graded:
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43% higher than the average critic
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2% same as the average critic
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55% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 6.9 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 66
Highest review score: | The Life Of Pablo | |
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Lowest review score: | Testify |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1,287 out of 2812
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Mixed: 1,452 out of 2812
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Negative: 73 out of 2812
2812
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
Biophilia is one of Bjork's best and most challenging records; it's in a galaxy all its own, one that's not for the faint of heart.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Oct 7, 2011
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- Critic Score
At last, everything Escovedo does well is represented on a single disc.- NOW Magazine
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- Critic Score
This album is a stylized, slightly-paranoid romp sure to pluck the heartstrings of anyone who has ever lived life with reckless abandon.- NOW Magazine
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Illmatic is timeless because of Nas’s introspective, hyper-detailed approach to his daily life--even to moments that don’t seem particularly notable.- NOW Magazine
- Posted May 22, 2014
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- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jul 16, 2015
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- Critic Score
Boucher's production prowess, beautifully complex and ambitious songwriting, is self-evident on Miss Anthropocene.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 21, 2020
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- Critic Score
Free of misguided anger but with healthy amounts of trademark anxiety and angular riffs, Grace’s expression is powerful.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 16, 2014
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- Critic Score
Weariness gives way to willingness as Solange unpacks and ultimately celebrates Blackness, from the politics of Black hair in Don’t Touch My Hair (featuring Sampha) to a reclamation of Black masculinity in Scales (featuring Kelela).- NOW Magazine
- Posted Oct 11, 2016
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It’s sometimes surprising when you discover that pop songs, as loud and vibrant as they often are, can be quite devastating. This is especially true on Mitski’s excellent fifth album. ... It’s a bold record, rising and falling over the course of 14 tracks.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Aug 17, 2018
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Kweli's curse- 'n' cliché-free rhyme-ripping proves he needs no help on the microphone. He outshines his celebrated guests, including labelmate Grae, KRS-One, Norah Jones (!), Sonia Sanchez, UGK's Pimp C and Bun B, Musiq Soulchild and Raheem DeVaughn.- NOW Magazine
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Throw in some elegant, economical strings arranged by Owen Pallett and touches of harmonica, vibraphone and sax and you’ve got the best 32 minutes of music you’ll hear anytime soon.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Sep 3, 2014
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- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jul 18, 2012
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- Critic Score
You can hear allusions Dylan has made to some of these lyrics in his own work over the last few decades, which makes the collection all the more revelatory. And he sings as gorgeously and clearly as he possibly can, as if it’s more important to him than ever that we feel his love.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Mar 28, 2017
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- Critic Score
Piano, reverb and guitar fuzz make it Del Rey’s dreamiest and most cohesive album since 2015’s Honeymoon and her most rock-inspired since 2014’s Ultraviolence. The National Anthem singer adds new shade to her ongoing California period, re-evaluating the narrative of life in the United States that she’s built her brand on.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Aug 30, 2019
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- Critic Score
It's full of breathtakingly beautiful harmonies and spiralling narrative lyrics that balance complex emotional subject matter with pitch-perfect delivery and hummable melodies- NOW Magazine
- Posted Apr 19, 2012
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- NOW Magazine
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Wilco's ace eighth album, the first released on their own label, dBpm, is a real kick in the pants.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Sep 29, 2011
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- NOW Magazine
- Posted Nov 6, 2015
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You can spend hours dismantling Sunbather and cooking up a neat sub-sub-genre for it (post-black-metal-gaze-death-dreamcore-whatever). Or you can just call it one of the year’s best records.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jun 13, 2013
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- NOW Magazine
- Posted Nov 29, 2011
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- Critic Score
This is the album I've been waiting nearly 10 years for them to make. Better late than never.- NOW Magazine
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- Critic Score
Of course, being an audio document, you miss out on the entertaining high-handed flourishes of González at the piano and Bárbarito Torres showboating by playing the laúd behind his back, but it’s still a stellar document of a special performance, the likes of which we’ll never encounter again.- NOW Magazine
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- Critic Score
Big Boi's lyrically on point, too, balancing cavalier wit and grown-man profundity that puts this album among Outkast's best. Your move, 3000.- NOW Magazine
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- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 4, 2015
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- Critic Score
The much richer sound on these formats spins songs recorded as many as 40-plus years ago eerily into the moment. It’s as if you’re listening at the exact instant of recording, making the music as personal as a direct memory.- NOW Magazine
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- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 8, 2011
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- Critic Score
As with his last couple of releases in the American series, his voice no longer commands attention with booming authority, but there's something about that gasping frailty that makes this proud final bow even more endearing.- NOW Magazine
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- Critic Score
The songcraft is high, balancing repetitive groove with dynamic surprises. There's so much variety here, from icy Joy Divisionesque excursions (Silhouettes) to Guided by Voices-through-an-echo-chamber mood (Continental Shelf) to melodic hooks (Bunker Buster) to howling post-punk fury (Death). It lends huge excitement to the project.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 14, 2015
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Mix this lovable simplicity with brilliant guest turns by Cam’ron, Lil Wayne and Rick Ross, amazing production by the Runners and Bangladesh, and Gucci’s exhilarating turns of phrase, blunt humour and excess charisma and you’ve got rap’s album of the year.- NOW Magazine
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- Critic Score
While there's still mystery and misdirection on his new album, Poison Season is nakedly ambitious and utterly satisfying.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Aug 26, 2015
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