The Independent on Sunday (UK)'s Scores

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For 789 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 57% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 40% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 71
Highest review score: 100 One Day I'm Going To Soar
Lowest review score: 20 Last Night on Earth
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 495 out of 789
  2. Mixed: 280 out of 789
  3. Negative: 14 out of 789
789 music reviews
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    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    That's Why God Made the Radio
    A cloudless orgy of nostalgia.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Battle Born
    This is a production in search of an album, a massive empty shell, a big expensive nothing.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Violet Cries
    Throughout the exquisitely mournful Violet Cries, Rachel Davies issues Cassandra-like predictions of woe and mayhem, while Thomas Fisher's filigree guitars shimmer like sunset on a lake.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    At the BBC [Live]
    Winehouse's progression from fresh-faced ingénue to agonised diva is operatic stuff.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    MDNA
    Madonna may have done this stuff first, but nowadays Lady Gaga does it better. MDNA? Meh-DNA.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mercyland: Hymns for the Rest of Us
    It is mainly charming.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Tre!
    This is Green Day doing what Green Day have always done.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Black Rainbows
    Black Rainbows isn't all-out kick-ass noise but, by turns, spindly and fuzzy, smooth and angular.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Talk That Talk
    As off-the-peg as Primark, the Rihan-droid returns with more dancefloor fodder which has all the right bleeps in all the right places, but nothing to make you go "wow".
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Big TV
    White Lies have just enough elegance and intrigue beneath the bluster to carry it off.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lift Your Spirit
    Blacc proves he’s more than capable of stepping into the spotlight for his first major-label album which features 60s soul, folk, retro pop, R’n’B and even country.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sam Sparro
    A patchy affair which too often fails to transcend its blatant P-funk influences.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Kiss
    The rest of Kiss is like opening a tweenager's diary (titles include "Tonight I'm Getting Over You") and setting it to synthy, house beats, but nothing has the crossover appeal of that debut single.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Funny Looking Angels
    Two tracks truly warm the cockles. And if the rest is merely pleasant, hey, season of goodwill and all that.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Grinderman 2 RMX
    They've enlisted non-dance musos such as Robert Fripp, Barry Adamson, Nick Zinner and Josh Homme, as well as relative young 'uns Cat's Eyes and Factory Floor, with often delicious results
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Through the Night
    Through the Night aims for Dusty in Memphis, but it lands closer to Petula Clark.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Yes, It's True
    With its unrelenting positivity, Yes, It's True sounds like the Flaming Lips fronted by Deepak Chopra, and valiantly courts the daytime radio play that will inevitably elude it.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Very She & Him Christmas
    Consists entirely of tasteful campfire-folk covers of seasonal classics.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Peter Gabriel Tribute Album: And I'll Scratch Yours
    Very few of them add anything much at all to the original versions, which may be out of reverence or it may be a testament to the fierce identities of the songs themselves.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Not Your Kind of People
    This comeback album suggests a hiatus spent in a cryogenic freezer. Which is to say that they sound the same ... only rather less vital.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Time
    In place of the suavité we associate with Songbook Rod, we get a whooping, sequenced modernisation of 1970s Guitar-Rock Rod.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Kisses on the Bottom
    Suggests that McCartney lacks anyone to tell him when he's had a terrible idea.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Talé
    Effortlessly mixing traditional instrumentation with samples, this varied yet cohesive album has an angular funkiness and a soulful pop edge.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    MGMT
    It sometimes meanders like a wasted hipster at an Animal Collective after-show. Yet it preserves enough presence of mind to yield gems such as the sing-song "Alien Days" or the deliquescent "Mystery Disease."
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Crazy Clown Time
    He wisely sticks to the spoken word for much of the album, whether delivering the sinister inner monologue of a stalker or a robot-voiced attempt to advocate Transcendental Mediation.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Born to Die
    A delicious hybrid of Portishead and Nancy Sinatra.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ersatz G.B.
    Ersatz GB is a fine addition to an excellent recent salvo.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Glowing Mouth
    Glowing Mouth is so subtly soaring it could restore words such as "atmospheric" and "portentious" to the rock lexicon.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The Connection
    It's nice that Shaddix is still alive, but Papa Roach remain irretrievably atrocious.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    48:13
    Songwriter/producer Sergio Pizzorno opted for a more slimmed-down sound, stripping away layers of sound to allow the ideas to speak more clearly.... It’s a brave but largely successful move, as is the shift from mainly guitar-riff-based songs to ones predominantly fuelled by synthesisers.
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