The New York Times' Scores

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For 2,074 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: 1,596 out of 2074
  2. Mixed: 443 out of 2074
  3. Negative: 35 out of 2074
2074 music reviews
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    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Under the Blacklight
    This album is a pleasant surprise disguised as an unpleasant one.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Natural
    Natural sounds like the band's familiar, idealized dust-bowl Americana sound, with a little reggae, a little marimba and thumb piano, and strong overtones of Thomas Hardy. This was a good idea: For a British band that's fundamentally anti-commercial, it’s productive to dive into brambles and think about ancient ritual.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Unglamorous
    The sound is noticeably sweeter, with strings and synthesizers, and so are the lyrics.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Stage Names
    While this album isn’t as riveting as earlier Okkervil River CDs, there’s plenty to enjoy, and plenty of reason for hope.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Untitled
    In setting aside its trademark sound, Korn hasn’t yet replaced it with something of its own, but at least the band is working on it.
    • 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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Is Is [EP]
    Karen O seizes every chorus with her best feral yowl, while her partners, the guitarist Nick Zinner and the drummer Brian Chase, sound as tautly focused as ever.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Horseshoe Curve
    The album revels in roiling percussion, chirpy horns and extended, ecstatic solos.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Those The Brokes
    It’s impressive how far this band can push its bright, modest sentimentality in 2007 without fetishizing it, making it hard and unpleasant.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Beauty & Crime
    Thanks to a keen sense of proportion and concision--and the unmannered integrity of Ms. Vega’s singing style--the album isn’t ponderous.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Zeitgeist
    The album is surprisingly effective in musical terms: drone-laden and distortion-jacked, it sounds about as tough as anything this band has produced.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
    The result is an indie-rock album that sounds mysterious without being diffident or difficult, without piling on the noise or retreating into whimsy.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Time On Earth
    With Matt Sherrod on drums, Crowded House sounds like its old self (and like Mr. Finn’s solo efforts).
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    New Wave
    It’s still a short, sharp shock: 10 songs, with no shortage of vehemence.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Libertad
    Libertad sounds old, heavy, wrapped in a tough skin. At the same time, by virtue of sheer outdated flamboyance, it seems almost willfully naive.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Easy Tiger
    It is focused — read: not insanely self-indulgent — in a way that recalls albums of his like “Heartbreaker” and “Gold."
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Mix-Up
    Low-fi, hazy and lightweight.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Theology
    The acoustic songs are pretty but tend to run together, waltz after waltz. The London versions are more individualized, and they let Ms. O’Connor push toward extremes.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    My December
    "My December" isn’t a shocking change of direction, though it’s also not very good.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Icky Thump
    Its rock is louder, its campiness richer.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lost Highway
    [It] yield[s] unsurprising but reasonably strong results. [18 Jun 2007]
    • The New York Times
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Era Vulgaris
    On this album he decisively shakes off the enervation and jokey detachment that made the Queens’ last few albums sound like in-jokes. This time Mr. Homme hones his songs.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Memory Almost Full
    It has a simplicity that gives it a rougher, rockier, more homespun sound than most of his recent albums.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tromatic Reflexxions
    The album is brilliant on its own terms: a party record with no fixed strategy, one that wiggles out of all responsibilities to the partier.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Eat Me, Drink Me
    Despite some spooky background noises, the music leans toward a glam-gone-grim style, reverting to a sound that predates Marilyn Manson’s past industrial-rock stomps.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Good Girl Gone Bad
    This CD sounds as if it were scientifically engineered to deliver hits.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ultra Payloaded
    Mr. Farrell has become the happy hippie that Jim Morrison never was.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Double Up
    This is a nutty album, but a pretty single-minded one.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sweet Warrior
    Even when Mr. Thompson uses his caustic wit for laughs, the songs on “Sweet Warrior” hold a tension and vehemence that make their bitterness linger.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Boxer
    There are verbal nuggets throughout the album... but it’s not the antihero sentiments that make the songs memorable; it’s the methodical yet obsessive patterns that frame them.
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