For 2,075 reviews, this publication has graded:
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55% higher than the average critic
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4% same as the average critic
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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: | Live in Europe 1967: Best of the Bootleg, Vol. 1 | |
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Lowest review score: | Shatner Claus: The Christmas Album |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1,597 out of 2075
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Mixed: 443 out of 2075
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Negative: 35 out of 2075
2075
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
Mr. Bieber hasn't ever sounded this good. But even Mr. Harrell can't place Mr. Bieber on equal footing with some of his more accomplished guests- The New York Times
- Posted Dec 6, 2011
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- Critic Score
Throughout his cheerful jumble of a fifth album, Love After War, he pushes both of those buttons [tight execution and a suspension of disbelief], asking you to admire his tasteful slickness without delving much deeper than the surface.- The New York Times
- Posted Dec 6, 2011
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- The New York Times
- Posted Dec 6, 2011
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- Critic Score
The new versions can be garish (pseudo-tribal drums and jungle noises in "Ben"?) or touching.- The New York Times
- Posted Nov 28, 2011
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- Critic Score
The mess can be tense and charmed, or just dull. Ersatz G. B. is too often dull.- The New York Times
- Posted Nov 14, 2011
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- Critic Score
In making the songs so monumental, Florence and the Machine have also made them impersonal.- The New York Times
- Posted Nov 7, 2011
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- Critic Score
Normally, she's emphatic in the right places, but this album also includes some of Ms. Lambert's least committed singing.- The New York Times
- Posted Oct 31, 2011
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- Critic Score
Cut by cut, Someone to Watch Over Me is not as strong as its forerunners.- The New York Times
- Posted Oct 31, 2011
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- Critic Score
The sound is brand-name familiar but all too settled; the songs place their hard-rock hooks neatly but without the original band's startling ups and downs.- The New York Times
- Posted Oct 24, 2011
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- Critic Score
The energy of this album sometimes outpaces the singer, who's best when he's deliberate, and whose voice isn't as robust as it could be on these songs.- The New York Times
- Posted Oct 11, 2011
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It's a spare and occasionally stiff album that has more to do with, say, the Indigo Girls than the 1960s bands the Bangles grew up worshiping.- The New York Times
- Posted Oct 4, 2011
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- Critic Score
An almost total lack of good songs constitutes the album's basic problem. Once that's understood, the record becomes sort of entertaining: gaudy, vacuous, densely mannered.- The New York Times
- Posted Sep 20, 2011
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Like most tribute albums, Johnny Boy Would Love This is mixed, with a few misfires, like Snow Patrol's overblown "May You Never." But Mr. Martyn's pensive, moody spirit comes through, and the tribute should send listeners back to his own 1973 masterpiece, "Solid Air."- The New York Times
- Posted Aug 16, 2011
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- Critic Score
These ambitiously sung songs make for tremendous chaos: the lyrics about uplift are often trite, the furiously modern arrangements are often cliched.- The New York Times
- Posted Apr 26, 2011
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More than any of her previous releases Femme Fatale is blank. Ms. Spears isn't much more than a celebrity spokeswoman for the work of the producers Max Martin, Dr. Luke and others, who need artists like Ms. Spears as calling cards.- The New York Times
- Posted Mar 28, 2011
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Mr. Brown sings, with a modicum of angst [on "Up To You"]. But for much of this album--almost the whole second half, actually--Mr. Brown is chasing Usher with a ferocity out onto the dance floor, where no one will pay much mind to his words.- The New York Times
- Posted Mar 22, 2011
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Lasers is a chaotic album full of gummy rhymes that look better on the page than they sound to the ear, delivered with a tone of tragic bombast.- The New York Times
- Posted Mar 8, 2011
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Where the spirit-void blankness of R.E.M. once felt intuitive and intentional, it now feels accidental. Most of this record's musical temperament seems reheated or purchased.- The New York Times
- Posted Mar 7, 2011
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- Critic Score
Her uneven but warmly satisfying new album, Silver Pony, attempts the best of both worlds.- The New York Times
- Posted Mar 3, 2011
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- Critic Score
For me it doesn't work; it stomps on the fragility he's been building up for 40 minutes. But because it comes together so slowly, it's of a piece with this record's careful mood.- The New York Times
- Posted Mar 2, 2011
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- Critic Score
Lorraine is evenly split between mercilessly detailed songs like these and frustratingly blank ones ("Sweet Disposition," "Rocket Science"), which feel like hollow templates designed to be inhabited by other, less imaginative singers. On those songs Ms. McKenna sounds complacent; discomfort suits her better.- The New York Times
- Posted Feb 22, 2011
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- Critic Score
Every gesture feels like flagging down a passing ship from a barren island. Every emotion registers on the Richter scale. This can be wickedly effective, as many a successful British rock band will attest. And periodically on this album, the stars and planets do align.- The New York Times
- Posted Jan 18, 2011
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- Critic Score
Mostly, though, he comes up short, delivering rhymes that on paper are clever and punchy, but on record are congested and monotone.- The New York Times
- Posted Jan 3, 2011
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- Critic Score
Ms. Hilson's own records aren't tipping toward bona fide dance music as much as Rihanna's, and don't yet have their audience-strafing sweep. But a few songs here are good enough to stop the overthinking comparisons- The New York Times
- Posted Dec 21, 2010
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- Critic Score
None of these guests feel out of place here, but not because of the potency of Diddy's vision. Rather, it's because they have made records like these elsewhere, giving Last Train to Paris a secondhand feel.- The New York Times
- Posted Dec 20, 2010
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Keyshia Cole tries for a slow burn but rarely ignites on her fourth album, Calling All Hearts.- The New York Times
- Posted Dec 20, 2010
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It's a much lesser record than "The E.N.D.," and yet it isn't boring, even when the echoes of old songs are more than echoes.- The New York Times
- Posted Dec 7, 2010
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It's rigorously written, but Duffy sounds uncertain, spotlighting the particulars of her voice: the many crannies, the narrow backbone, the decay at the edges, the tentativeness she feels when it's unclear just how much room she has to maneuver.- The New York Times
- Posted Dec 7, 2010
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It's not awful. But while Acoustic Sessions carries the hush of a whispered secret, it divulges little beyond the fact of its stylish presence.- The New York Times
- Posted Nov 18, 2010
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Only the album's last track, "A Song About Love," feels true. His voice is serrate, his mood is foul, and the song is sturdy enough to stand up to both. It's the sound of Mr. DeWyze's then and now finally colliding.- The New York Times
- Posted Nov 16, 2010
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