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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    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    On a Distant Shore
    His facility with the form is evident on songs like “Easy To Love”, which aptly has the smooth, easy manner of a standard, and more dramatically with “On The Waterfront”, which renders solitude in epic fashion. ... Elsewhere, he reverts to form with the rolling blues arrangement of “Love This Way”, with his signature piano to the fore, and terse blues guitar punctuating his account of being “lost inside the darkness and the howling wind”.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    How to Solve Our Human Problems, Pts. 1-3
    Quite, quite lovely.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    9 Sad Symphonies
    Imagine Boudica painted by a pre-Raphelite and you’ll get a sense of this record’s softly swirling string tendrils and dreamily plucked harps. That said, there are also some shield-banging electro-beats to ensure the relatable rawness of everyday life comes battering through.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    With Love
    It's always an after-hours, nocturnal experience.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Electric Light
    There’s a little of Prince in the sensuousness of certain songs, but Bay doesn’t possess that same crackling sexual energy as the Purple One; he’s more brooding, introspective.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Content
    Like some hibernating agit-prop agency awakening to meet the needs of these hard times, Gang of Four are in typically brusque form on their first new material for 16 years.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Department of Disappearance
    It's a gently moving meditation on the effects of solitude and nature on the soul, set to Lytle's characteristic blend of chugging guitar grooves aerated by bubbling synths and soothed by high harmonies.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This Path Tonight
    Whatever his anxieties, it’s never less than gently engaging.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Young Narrator in the Breakers
    The combination of indistinct vocals and the band’s preference for meandering charm over more decisive structures tends to sap the music of potency.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Beautiful Thing
    Beautiful Thing is a confident statement about musical and human authenticity, with production by UNKLE’s Tim Goldsworthy which builds dub-like echo-chambers, inside which a kitchen sink’s worth of sounds claustrophobically rattle.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    How Did We Get So Dark?
    They’re still sculpted from the same small portfolio of sounds--basically, buzzing distorted guitar riffs and harmony chants borne along on pummelling drum barrages--which tends to impose too narrow an emotional range on the album. It’s like being hectored loudly by a bore.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Will Set You Free
    The arrangements on Barry Adamson's latest album seem more restrained than usual, his jazz-noir ambitions trimmed to a blues-funk palette of bass and drum grooves carrying Hammond organ or piano parts, with just the occasional solo horn part.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lollipop
    Lollipop is the best Meat Puppets album since the halcyon days of Up on the Sun and Mirage, full of scudding lysergic country-rock grooves bound in twisting skeins of dervish lead guitar.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Can't Touch Us Now
    Can’t Touch Us Now doesn’t have quite the exploratory breadth of Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da, but there’s enough variety to animate their tableaux of social portraits.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Don't Forget Who You Are
    It's quite easy to envisage entire arenas punching the air to songs like these and the pounding “You're Gonna Get It”, one of two tracks featuring Paul Weller.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Trustfall
    The record’s problem is that it never settles on one cohesive sound.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    reputation
    Swift doesn’t need her lover to save her, as she notes on album standout “Call It What You Want”, which is, arguably, the best song Swift has ever made. Its lyrics are more open and willingly vulnerable than anything she’s done before.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Talkin To The Trees
    This is not Young’s best work. It is, however, a record that should raise smiles on the faces of the faithful.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    so sad so sexy
    Li’s latest foray in pop is a brilliant display of growth, both personally and professionally. She once again proves that there’s no such thing as boring in her music.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Oui Oui, Si Si, Ja Ja, Da Da
    Though less ambitious than 2009's The Liberty of Norton Folgate, Madness's Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da confirms the benefits of spreading songwriting chores among the entire band.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Cross Culture
    Saxophonist Lovano's third album with his two-drummer quintet is a very mixed affair.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Glory
    Although it marks no significant shift in style--she’s still mining the same pop-R&B seam--it’s undoubtedly a better effort than its predecessor.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    One People One World
    It’s always been hard to translate the irresistible propulsion of Femi Kuti’s live shows into a comparably effective studio realisation, but with One People One World he makes a decent stab.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Big Day
    The Big Day is like a lot of weddings: too long and occasionally a little dull – with one or two unforgettable moments.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Cuts & Bruises
    [“Valentine” is] the most endearing entry in an album that has its moments but doesn’t quite leave a mark.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    One More Time...
    The album could have been shorter and catchier but fans will feel their cockles warmed and their pulses raised.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Time's All Gone
    Waterhouse's own voice is slightly under-recorded, but the musical settings--the understated Telecaster twang, the honking horns, the rumbling tom-toms--always churn with the right degree of roadhouse charm.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fragrant World
    A frustrating experience overall.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Off With Her Head
    Too much of this album purrs by, forgettably and disengaged. Banks really needs to bring herself into focus.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Classic
    Too much is still being worked through, though, for this to be the exhilarating, post-depression party its best music suggests.
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