Record Collector's Scores

  • Music
For 2,550 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 51% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 44% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 74
Highest review score: 100 Doctrine Of Love
Lowest review score: 20 Relaxer
Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 6 out of 2550
2550 music reviews
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It’s Allison’s ongoing development as a songwriter that really shines here. Clean now feels like preparation for the emotional and musical strength of this record: a quiet acknowledgment of the tough times that life throws at you.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mind Hive is especially groundbreaking. In fact, several of its best tracks (the restless, motorik drive of Cactused and the jagged, staccato bursts of the menacing, 154-ish Be Like Them) quite openly flirt with familiarity. Yet, as always seems to be the case with this crew, these tunes are invested with enviable reserves of contemporary energy which ensure they’re served up fresh and minus the merest hint of parody.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It’s a lot to take in, and fresh corridors reveal themselves with each listen; it’s questionable whether they lead to any answers, and Fay would be the last person to claim they do, but it’s an intriguing exploration every step of the way.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The generosity of the endeavour can’t be faulted: hours on end of largely unheard/unseen audio-visual content relating to the era encompassing A Momentary Lapse Of Reason, The Division Bell, Pulse and The Endless River, new 5.1 mixes, a 60-page photo book, replica tour programmes, two 7” singles featuring a Pulse tour rehearsal version of Lost For Words and the 2007 Syd Barrett tribute concert version of Arnold Layne… and, ye gods, even more.
    • 100 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    16 Lovers Lane arguably even shades the triumphant Liberty Belle… when it comes to defining the Go-Betweens apogee. The extras, meanwhile, are both plentiful and tantalising.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hearing these oddly innocent songs (and his speaking voice) can’t help but reignite that overwhelming sense of loss, and also wonder, since Bowie passed on nearly three years ago: has any artist been so loved or missed by so many? Even with all its frolics, fumbles, filler and foibles, Conversation Piece can only be welcomed and celebrated.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    There’s rich pleasure everywhere you look: Peter Case’s heartfelt delivery of I Don’t Worry About A Thing, a spectral The Way Of The World by Anything Mose! and Taj Mahal’s nimble, forceful version of the sardonic opener, Your Mind Is On Vacation. The latter offers a thrilling pointer about how high we are going to fly, and includes Bonnie Raitt’s stunning version of Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy, where her passionate take skilfully unfurls the raging force underpinning the song. Elsewhere, there are blasts of controlled power such as Ben Harper/Charlie Musselwhite’s fiery take on Nightclub.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The charm of Thanks For The Dance can be found in the tidemark between the lapping waves of Cohen’s poetic self-effacement and the shoreline of our appreciation for his lyrical accomplishments.
    • 100 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    As the original album did for Prince’s artistic progression, so this super deluxe edition does for the posthumous reissue series: refine a vision, making good on all the promises of the past while pointing to a future full of possibilities. Whatever expanded edition comes next, if it builds on this it cannot fail.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Put together with love and care, it’s all a grand tribute and beautiful vindication for a once-despised band. Those witless saps who savaged them may be long forgotten but Motörhead are up with the greats. We’ll never see their like again.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    They may have been the unwilling faces of a barely-there movement, but De La Soul planted the seeds of something beautiful. Collections like this allow us to reap the rewards.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    It is a wonderful record – fascinating and engaging. Pure art. Give it the time it deserves.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    For the most part, the Cash sessions are a fun listen you might not return to often, their voices too far apart to really work, despite the obvious kinship. Still, it’s fascinating hearing Dylan as the junior partner – Cash seems much more on the ball – and previously-unbootlegged treats like Bob running through Wanted Man and the Staples’ Amen.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Vocally, Leaving Meaning is especially strong, with an atypical abundance of words appearing to have pushed Gira to experiment with their delivery.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    It can only tower when it comes to naming this decade’s great albums; miles above and light years ahead of anything else.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    It is simply one of the most beautiful records ever made and anyone who hasn’t experienced it needs to stop reading and do so immediately. But for those of us who have, while they have already heard the best possible version of No Other (as we tend to learn from all box sets of this ilk, the best version got released), in these newly-discovered versions there is much to learn about and love.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    One of Will Oldham’s strongest albums in recent times, if not ever. .... It’s thoughtful, beautiful fare, along with a few singalong stormers (Mama, Mama will get a crowd swaying at 30 paces) as you’d expect from Oldham, but it’s in the lyrics that he succeeds in his desire for self-reflection.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    This is possibly Dawson’s best work. Yes, it’s tough-going – you’ve probably realised he REALLY doesn’t dig this country of ours right now – but the blend of smarts, art and heart is more than enough to demand your ears on repeat.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The one-time folkie’s fourth album exorcises romantic demons by taking another bold leap forward.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In trying times, Wilco have found some joy in creativity and made another album true to themselves, full of “poetry and magic” to console and inspire.
    • 99 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The whole thing works beautifully and, if you shop carefully, you will end up with superb value for money and a repackaging of a great album that for once isn’t stuffed with redundance.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jenny Lewis and The National’s Aaron Dessner guest this time out but to be honest, the spotlight is increasingly and deservedly Taylor’s alone to enjoy. Surrender now.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Though some of the high-tech production gadgetry sounds dated now, back in 1985 it was a fiercely contemporary record. But while time might have blunted its cutting edge, Rubberband, for all its flaws, still fascinates.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    It’s a persuasive, heartening, softly seductive little basket of light; and as such is welcome anytime round here.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Those more straightahead tunes hint a sonically-reduced winter could be coming, but right now bask in i,i’s deep autumnal glow.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The 10CD version is a patchy collection of familiar highlights and sometimes enjoyable outtakes.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love Will Find A Way is very special: an ego-free celebration of the tune, the big-name guests all working with Bailey to realise his vision.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Was Real’s resulting stew is even more disparate than what came before – this time out, you can add boogie (Tetuzi Akiyama), jigs (WZN#3 (Verso)) and pure drone to the mixer – but still with the singular vision to bring everything together into one harmonious, joyous, borderless whole.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A debut album that suggests anything is possible.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Purple Mountains is no return to form – Berman left us in 2009 with no discernible lapse in quality – but a surprisingly welcome return, given the shift in quality contained herein. A purple patch, if you will, but a far deeper one than you would expect. Deep purple it is, then.