The Independent (UK)'s Scores
- Music
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: | Middle Of Nowhere | |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest review score: | Donda |
Score distribution:
-
Positive: 1,261 out of 2310
-
Mixed: 1,019 out of 2310
-
Negative: 30 out of 2310
2310
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
-
- Critic Score
The blandness of the R&B pop-soul arrangements simply throws attention on to the repetitive narrowness of Bieber's delivery.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 15, 2012
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Dan Croll’s follow-up to Sweet Disarray suffers from a kind of creeping anonymity: immediately after hearing it, it’s virtually impossible to recollect the salient features of any track.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 1, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The sad fact about supergroups is that they are rarely the result of any musical imperative. This is painfully confirmed on the debut offering from the alliance of Mick Jagger, Dave Stewart, Joss Stone, Damian Marley and A R Rahman, on which the assembled talents cast around for a style of their own without ever unearthing the natural chemistry on which great bands rely.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 19, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Evolve involves mostly devolving back into the hoariest of tired rock cliches (including what sounds like roto-toms), and plodding grimly towards the summer’s festivals.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 21, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s all a bit stiff: the methodical chording of “All This Way” lacks swing or swagger, as if too tightly corsetted, and “Take Care” displays similar restrictions applied to their keyboard-led material: the plonking piano and falsetto refrain suggest someone’s trying for Brian Wilson magic, but falling well short.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 15, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s fine to be influenced by one particular band, but they need to find their own voice or risk being known as little more than The 1975’s pale imitators.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 13, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The free rein afforded by this latest solo effort renders most of these 15 tracks unrecognisable as songs.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 20, 2017
- Read full review
-
- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 7, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s safely on-brand. It’s just smoother, and slower, and sloppier than before.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 1, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Despite the album’s slick production and radio-ready melodies, one wishes Pale Waves could find a more sophisticated language to express youthful enlightenment.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 12, 2021
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
One hardly looks to Mary J Blige for restraint, but here the combination with David Foster’s orchestrations adds an extra layer of icing to an already sickly cake- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 30, 2013
- Read full review
-
- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 23, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
There’s a dispiriting aridity about The Mountain Will Fall, which lacks the joyous eclecticism of DJ Shadow’s earlier albums.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 23, 2016
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The result is a series of half-formed, indifferently performed tracks on which even gifted guitarist Hugh Harris struggles to locate the inspired touches that made Konk so impressive.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 9, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The riffs throughout this album are catchy enough to keep the beanie heads nodding along. But producer Travis Barker (Blink 182) repeatedly fills out the sound to the extent that the exposing angularity required to express true anxiety is lost.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 25, 2022
- Read full review
-
- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 22, 2013
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
He doesn't care whether you want it or not, he's going to do it anyway. And How to Compose... confirms that he undoubtedly still loves music. The problem is, it's usually somebody else's music,- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 17, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
One step forward, two steps backward: having produced perhaps his best album with 2014’s Carry On The Grudge, Jamie T is at best stationary, and often retrograde, on Trick.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 1, 2016
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Eminem belittles the trauma of a then 26-year-old Ariana Grande for kicks on “Unaccommodating” by comparing himself to the Manchester Arena bomber. The sour taste of this track lingers well beyond the album’s centrepiece, “Darkness”, which is intended as a searing critique of America’s toxic gun culture. Instead, his use of gunfire and explosion samples feels grossly exploitative.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 17, 2020
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Here, any trace of feedback or distortion has been eradicated to leave just a Fratelli-esque singalong punk-pop sheen to songs.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 1, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Mathers’ rapping maintains his signature sharpness of diction throughout; it’s the content that’s at fault: punching relentlessly downwards, so joylessly, so without inspiration.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 12, 2024
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
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.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 11, 2016
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s relentlessly dull, the sort of feyly English, unfunctional dance music Hot Chip pioneered to declining effect. Okumu’s airy voice barely brushes the listener’s sleeve, never mind mending their soul.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 9, 2016
- Read full review
-
- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 14, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Olly Murs might have a lovely on-screen personality, but only the merest glimmers of character are allowed to shine through the swaddling retro-pop arrangements of In Case You Didn't Know.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 6, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The group have been around for well over a year without arousing much of a stir, and the monumentally tedious poesie-rock of Violet Cries offers few hints that this should change.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 8, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
the only real flashes of character come from the reworked riffs of Old Neneh Cherry and Ann Peebles hits used on a couple of tracks.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 6, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
DUMMY BOY is an insufferable 13-track farrago of anything from rock riffs to calypso drums, all pinned by 6ix9ine’s obsessive use of the “n” word, along with every other negative trope found in the gangsta rap of the early Noughties. ... Avoid.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 6, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
An overstuffed pillow of an EP that seeks to calm all of the world's aches but just ends up sounding schmaltzy and smothering.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 19, 2021
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
With the toothless Volcano, they’ve abandoned that path [hinting at deep immersion in psych-rock] in favour of a wheedling, keyboard-heavy electropop sound with much less bite, pock-marked with dubious stylistic potholes.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 1, 2017
- Read full review