The New York Times' Scores

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For 2,075 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 55% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 41% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 71
Highest review score: 100 Live in Europe 1967: Best of the Bootleg, Vol. 1
Lowest review score: 0 Shatner Claus: The Christmas Album
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,597 out of 2075
  2. Mixed: 443 out of 2075
  3. Negative: 35 out of 2075
2075 music reviews
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    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    B'Day
    “B’Day” isn’t an ingratiating or seductive album, but it is nervy and fascinating.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Game Theory
    Black Thought... sounds more focused than he did on the Roots’ last album, “The Tipping Point,” and more engaged than on the one before it, “Phrenology.” But because he’s not the kind of rapper to modulate his emotional pitch, his intensity can level off into monotony.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Idlewild
    OutKast’s brains and playfulness sparkle throughout "Idlewild."... But despite the new, jazzy trappings "Idlewild" is more superficial than OutKast’s older albums.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Kelis Was Here
    It's typically garish and glorious.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Back To Basics
    Contains a roughly even number of great songs and lousy ones.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Waterloo To Anywhere
    Unfortunately his slurry vocals are often mixed too low, and his world-weary bons mots are undermined by jaunty melodies and tempos.... But Mr. Barât packs an electrifying amount of rage and misery into 33 minutes of music.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Reprieve
    Subtle sounds -- acoustic instruments, electronic tones, environmental noises, distorted echoes -- well up around her, and they open up pockets of shadow around her usual pinpoint clarity. Now the atmosphere is as important as the words.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Christ Illusion
    The album has a kind of demented gravity, and the music bears it out: it is the most concentrated, focused Slayer record in 20 years.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    In My Mind
    He seems to be a better thinker than a writer and a better writer than a rapper. [24 Jul 2006]
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Highway Companion
    For about half of “Highway Companion” Mr. Petty’s reticence opens the songs to a sense of mystery. For the rest, he just sounds reserved and cagey, singing about restlessness but sounding all too settled. [24 Jul 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Yell Fire!
    Originality seems less important to Mr. Franti than moral directness. [24 Jul 2006]
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    White Bread Black Beer
    [His] best work in 20 years. [25 Jul 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    In The Maybe World
    Ms. Germano’s music is beautifully haunted and composed, but almost too claustrophobic to bear. [17 Jul 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Monochrome
    It’s the sound the band became known with: big guitars playing suspended chords, crisp drums, barked verses and carefully sung choruses. [17 Jul 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Cansei De Ser Sexy
    A gleeful throwback to early-1980's art-school pop.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Happy New Year
    The album is a perfect introduction for latecomers to this essential New York band.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    American V: A Hundred Highways
    The music isn't afraid to call for tears, but it does so through understatement. Cash's voice is always exposed, whether it's full-toned or faltering, and most of the tracks are folky and reverent, placing measured finger-picking above churchy chords.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Loose
    "Loose" is an addictive, deceptively lightweight album of electronic pop; at different points it evokes Janet Jackson, M.I.A., Gwen Stefani and Gnarls Barkley. [19 Jun 2006]
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ganging Up On The Sun
    Angst has rarely sounded sweeter than it does on "Ganging Up on the Sun," which swirls with classic vocal harmonies, vintage organs and lightly strummed guitars.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Warning
    Imagine the Postal Service, but far more danceable and quirkily experimental.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Big Bang
    On this album, then, the bad news is the same as the good news: Busta Rhymes is still Busta Rhymes. Which means that this CD contains about a half-dozen songs so infectious that they obliterate all the rest.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Sun Awakens
    The Sun Awakens" is best described as a doom-folk record, encompassing the thick sludge of hyperdistorted electric guitar as well as the rattle and vibration of double-stopped riffs from his acoustic guitar.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Rather Ripped
    It is a fully legitimate, clear and strong rock 'n' roll record in the band's own style. And it may really be the best one.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Begin To Hope
    The songs are pretty on first listening, and some of Ms. Spektor's straightforward love songs, like "Fidelity" and "Field Below," reveal a gorgeously unguarded yearning. But she doesn't hide her quirks elsewhere.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Son
    On "Son" she shows off a new confidence, even a willfulness, as she sets free her voice and her sonic wit. [29 May 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Decemberunderground
    "Decemberunderground" is less cohesive than its predecessor and apes the band's influences far too obviously for musicians of this caliber. Even so, it's vastly entertaining.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Be Your Own Pet
    "Be Your Own Pet" is smart and crafty, but most of all, it's a wild-eyed blast.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The River In Reverse
    Mr. Toussaint's florid yet precise New Orleans piano, the way he can make a horn section laugh or sigh, and the stubborn idealism and canny humor of his songs temper Mr. Costello's convoluted earnestness.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Peeping Tom
    Given his abrasive experimentations with Mr. Bungle and Fantômas, his fascination with mildly skewed beatscapes is a surprise, fun but passé. [29 May 2006]
    • The New York Times
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Drift
    "The Drift" sets out only to follow its own obsessions; it's both lush and austere, utterly personal and often Delphic in its impenetrability.
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