The Independent (UK)'s Scores

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For 2,310 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 48% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 48% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 Middle Of Nowhere
Lowest review score: 0 Donda
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,261 out of 2310
  2. Mixed: 1,019 out of 2310
  3. Negative: 30 out of 2310
2310 music reviews
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    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rave On Buddy Holly
    This tribute compilation ranges far and wide accordingly.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tough Love
    It’s not an album that fights for your attention, but one that knows it doesn’t have to try.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This Is Tunng... Live From The BBC
    What's impressive is the consistency of approach and execution.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon
    A touching, intelligent work.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Aventine
    It's all neatly-dressed, buttoned-down and restrained but sometimes suffocatingly introspective, with lyrics mining a private image bank; even so, some moments cut to the emotional quick.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kindness Is the New Rock and Roll
    A stunning return.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Confetti
    Its 13 tracks are a polished mix of flirtatious bops and high-octane tracks that celebrate self-worth, with the moving torch song “Breathe” serving as the album’s closer. Sure, there’s nothing groundbreaking to be found here, but it does prove that Little Mix do just fine when they’re relying on their own instincts.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Alchemist's Euphoria
    They’re sounding less thuggish and more nuanced than of old. But they’ve still got that off-kilter alchemy.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Blue Electric Light
    Any sense of individuality is concealed behind generalities, platitudes, and an irritably battered cowbell. Likewise, when he sings of romance, he keeps things sweet but vague.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everything Else Has Gone Wrong
    It’s a solid return – the sound of a band both rejuvenated and continuing the multi-layered sound of their previous releases.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Age Against the Machine
    The result is a set of gripping, euphoric grooves carrying raps that indicate a new-found maturity.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Valtari
    The eight tracks of Valtari, which, while pleasant, are somewhat underwhelming examples of the band's formula.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    McCartney III Imagined
    It’s always nice when artists sound genuinely excited to participate in a collective project, and that comes through in spades on the delightful, crisply produced, and well-arranged McCartney III Imagined.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Wig Out at Jagbags
    Wig Out at Jagbags finds him reverting to type, with willfully obtuse sonic strategies that strive to wrong-foot even the most devoted listener.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fake Sugar
    Beth Ditto’s debut album is a bit of a mixed bag.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hands of Glory
    Hands of Glory is a smaller, more intimate work than Andrew Bird's recent albums.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Luminous
    It’s not bad, as such, but like Primal Scream it promises more than it delivers.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Beyond the Sun
    There's no denying the aplomb with which Isaak handles even Presley's vocal parts, which are respectful without being slavish copies.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    As Long as You Are
    If I’m honest, it’s as hard to tell this Future Islands album from the last one as it is to tell one seagull from another. But that’s not to say they don’t all soar and swoop in a way that’s guaranteed to lift the heart.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Marks to Prove It
    Marks to Prove It sounds more like a band, with songs reached by trial and error and group arbitration, not by notation. It’s there right from the opening bars of the title-track.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    People, Hell and Angels
    Tracks such as the languid instrumental “Easy Blues”--which lives up to its name--and “Earth Blues”, a slippery sci-fi number, are worth the price of admission.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Paradise
    Soothing stuff; but there’s too little variety to counteract the general tendency towards stasis.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Heart Speaks in Whispers
    Sadly, following the great strides made on the grief-stricken The Sea, with The Heart Speaks In Whispers, Corinne Bailey Rae reverts to the blandly serviceable beige soul of her 2006 debut.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Prizefighter
    Gracie Abrams’s light graze of a croon skates elegantly over the sweet, piano-driven “Badlands”. Guest-free highlights include the delicately plucked “Alleycat”, resonant “Stay” and “Conversations with My Son”, which skips along its gorgeous acoustic guitar solo while Mumford’s lyrics pledge enduring love and support.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Different Kinds of Light
    On Different Kinds of Light, Bird isn’t an entirely new artist, but here she proves she was never the one-dimensional singer some might have pegged her for. Not then and not now.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran
    The result is a mixed bag. “La Fuerte” (“The Strong”) would be a forgettable club banger were it not for Shakira’s lyrics, still raw with grief. “Tiempo Sin Verte” and “Como Donde Y Cuando” are more interesting thanks to their minor chord acoustic strums and angsty one-two punch of electric guitar.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Suck It and See
    The overall impression is of someone trying to disguise their true emotions with comic bluster: in that sense, ironically, it's a more macho album than Humbug, despite its lighter touch.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Myopia
    This cohesive mood piece casts a hypnotic spell.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bootleg, Vol. 2: From Memphis to Hollywood
    This 2CD set features one disc of early rarities, and one of sundry items from Cash's Columbia catalogue--not the most comfortable combination, but not without interest.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Why Me? Why Not.
    Backed up by polished and expensive-sounding production, notably some lovely piano work on “Alright Now” and a hazy blur of strings and Kurt Vile-like chanting on “One of Us”, this is a strong, nicely workmanlike record, Gallagher never totally rocking the boat but delivering something far more personal and (for him) experimental than he easily could have done.
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