Expert Witness (MSN Music)'s Scores

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For 232 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 98% higher than the average critic
  • 0% same as the average critic
  • 2% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 17.6 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 91
Highest review score: 100 Run Fast
Lowest review score: 70 Brighter
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 232 out of 232
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 232
  3. Negative: 0 out of 232
232 music reviews
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    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Kool Herc: Fertile Crescent [EP]
    He wants to set his people on the right path and keeps thinking up explicit ways to say so. But none of them have gotten near that goal so far, not even theoretically, as they might if his skills included the ability to rise to actual hits, as opposed to pleasurable musicality, and also to sink to them.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Magna Carta Holy Grail
    Give it up to the one where Beyonce pledges gangsta devotion and, best of all, the one where the "billionaire" (he says) looks back at the betrayals of his own departed head of family with something that feels like dread.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Wack Album
    Struggling for cred as aging rappers will, they stumble occasionally. Some of these ideas obviously seemed funnier when they brainstormed them.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Born Sinner
    Like Illmatic it eschews pop emoluments, and conceptually it's just as canny.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Only Place
    The chirpy opener about fun in the sun is a feint‑-the lyrics that follow are so depressive that the consistent cheer and conservatism of the tunes is like some perverse minimalist art move.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Urban Turban: The Singhles Club
    Several [guest singers] distinguish themselves‑-SoKo all breathy, Lorraine nice and rough‑-as does (Tjinder) Singh, changing up the rhythms as he "milks" his usual tiny store of melody.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Thank Me Later
    Given his limitations, his famous friends are a mixed benefit, because they show him up.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Kaputt
    This is how the pleasure principle feels to an alienated unbeliever resigned to engaging the world on his own perverse terms.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Undun
    What I get from the album as a whole isn't a feel for the fictional Redford Stephens. It's the pop refrains, Euro orchestrations, and simplified drumming absorbed by a sound that shows no sign of standing pat.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Fragrant World
    Almost every track offers up at least a snatch of melody you're always glad to hear again.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Heist
    I find only the alcoholic's confession "Neon Cathedral" too much, and that one's counteracted by the relapser's confession "Starting Over," just as "Sayin' `That's poetry, it's so well-spoken,' stop it" counteracts his art talk. He's especially good on old cars and old clothes.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    An Awesome Wave
    This Leeds-to-Cambridge foursome's unhurried electro-mesh is always more than pleasant and half the time mildly enthralling.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Tempest
    How much you admire this record will depend on how redolent you find two of them: the quiet jeremiad "Scarlet Town" and the quieter love-triangle cut-'em-up "Tin Angel.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Dreamer
    As usual the songs come clear eventually.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Vicki Leekx
    Whether she's singing it for her penniless sisters or her affluent self is impossible to tell. That's why they call her provocative. Also, um, controversial.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Clear Heart Full Eyes
    He nails three [songs] flat-out....The rest tend more, how to say it, evocative.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Covered
    Fun as it is to hear her do "Creep," "Teenagers," and "Smoke Two Joints," this is a bigger mess than it had to be.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Seefeel
    The gears that never quite mesh in this disquieting but hardly apocalyptic industrial ambient may be metal and may be plastic but are probably both.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Femme Fatale
    The poppers keep on coming right through the bonus tracks of porn-lite funk-lite that's quirky and clever front to back.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Brighter
    The beats are less brooding and more funky and propulsive on Brighter while maintaining their presence and quirkiness under their ominous lyrics.
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