The Telegraph (UK)'s Scores
- Music
For 1,241 reviews, this publication has graded:
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63% higher than the average critic
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4% same as the average critic
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33% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4 points higher than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 77
Highest review score: | Hit Me Hard and Soft | |
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Lowest review score: | Killer Sounds |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 884 out of 1241
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Mixed: 355 out of 1241
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Negative: 2 out of 1241
1241
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
This is the darkest Fontaines DC album to date. But what drives it forward isn’t morbidity or anger, but a search for connection. It’s this that makes it not a dirge, but an oddly bright snapshot of life’s confusions from a band capable of capturing them brilliantly.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Apr 22, 2022
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You don’t need to be in an altered state to become overwhelmed by his mastery of controlled cacophony. It is a pleasure to report that everything is still beautiful in Pierce’s strange sonic world.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Apr 22, 2022
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- Critic Score
It may be billed as a tribute to a lost star, but this Winter wonderland serves as a reminder that the blues is still very much alive and kicking.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Apr 15, 2022
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- Critic Score
This is a very good project and will cement Digga D as a force on the pop charts, but if the 21-year-old wants to reach the next level and avoid becoming a pastiche like 50 Cent did, he will need to do more of the unexpected and dig a little deeper into his subconscious when it's time to drop that studio album.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Apr 15, 2022
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SERPENTINA isn’t a coherent whole but rather a doggerel and ill-considered mishmash of disparate parts.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Apr 8, 2022
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- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Apr 8, 2022
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- Critic Score
It is an absolute blast, a crunchy, punchy, smart, deliciously goofy charge through new wave pop rock. It bursts with earworm hooks, snappy choruses and the delightful sense that the duo at its heart are having such a hoot they don’t really care what anyone else thinks.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Apr 8, 2022
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While this pastiche is obviously intentional, it never really feels like one. It also creates a much more romantic and intriguing world to fall into than the closed-curtains one of its predecessor. Josh Tillman remains a curious cat, but here he also sounds like a much more contented one.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Apr 8, 2022
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Every tiny detail is in aesthetic congruence with the initial feelings that birthed these songs – all of which you’re made privy to in violently vivid detail. Broken Hearts Club is an expertly sequenced, perfectly packaged ode to a lost love.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Apr 8, 2022
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- Critic Score
They exhilarate and seduce the listener into a world that makes enduring and acknowledging turbulent times a bit more glamorous.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Apr 1, 2022
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- Critic Score
The sound is lean and clean, sharply separated with individual instrumentation shining through and not a lot of over-dubbing or effects.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Apr 1, 2022
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- Critic Score
This record is undoubtedly their strongest offering since 2006’s Meds, strengthened by the inclusion of the sort of furious social commentary that made them such heroes to countless kohl-eyeliner-wielding teenagers in the late 90s.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Mar 25, 2022
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Gifted keeps giving: Koffee achieves a brilliantly confident debut with the promise of more good things to come.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Mar 25, 2022
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- Critic Score
Mainstream Sellout portrays MGK as a victim of success; it gleams like a fancy ornament on an industry merry-go-round – then the music hits you, not with a roar, but a very loud meh.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Mar 25, 2022
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There are a few moments here that feel like major label fodder, sure, but on the whole Kojey Radical deserves enormous credit for putting out an album that remains thoughtful and spiky despite its clear intention to get people dancing.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Mar 18, 2022
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Because there’s a rap-type of percussion to her music, it’s hard to tell whether she’s ready to break into an indie harmony or some lo-fi poetry – yet this unpredictability is what makes PAINLESS so exciting to sit through. ... This should rubber-stamp Nilüfer Yanya as a generational star.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Mar 18, 2022
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- Critic Score
The songs themselves may not be complex but the simple and sincere emotions expressed on anthems such as the chiming indie epic Forever, the rip-roaring AC/DC-style rocker Running Round My Brain and the Rod-Stewart-flavoured piano ballad Every Dog Has Its Day carry a potent weight of feeling and offer euphoric release.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Mar 18, 2022
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- Critic Score
As always with Mehldau ambition often tips over into pretentiousness, but one forgives him because there’s a real musical sensibility at work.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Mar 18, 2022
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- Critic Score
Crash is clever and fun, as her admirers have come to expect from XCX, but until Charli scores a bona fide smash it is going to feel like an art project commenting on the state of pop rather than the real thing.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Mar 18, 2022
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The pure beauty and emotion of Rosalia’s vocals and the sensational grooviness of her rhythms all speak for themselves, offering a fantastically fresh take on Latin flavours and modern urban pop.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Mar 18, 2022
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The most disappointing thing is how thin much of Donda 2 sounds, how messy and badly structured the songs are, how few pop hooks or memorable melodies it conjures, and how weak and repetitive West’s rhymes often are.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Feb 28, 2022
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The album stands as a triumphant poke in the eye to modern listening mores. It sounds like a leisurely road trip around the hazy fringes of the most intense summer of your life, back in the days when summers – like this album – comprised segueing chapters.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Feb 17, 2022
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- Critic Score
The Dream is sensuous and seductive, but it often lingers on the borderline of turning into a nightmare.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Feb 11, 2022
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- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Feb 4, 2022
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- Critic Score
It’s easy to make fun of, but the melodies are uniformly gorgeous, the layered synth and string arrangements are bright and exciting, Smith’s singing is filled with pliant emotion, and it all adds up to a pop album so addictive that it feels as though it had been intravenously injected into my system.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Feb 4, 2022
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What songs they are: melodious, wise, elegantly understated but emotionally resonant.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Jan 28, 2022
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The don’t-bore-us, get-to-the-chorus model followed by the top half of Night Call works fine when taken in pieces, or as the beat-driven soundtrack to a gym workout. But it frustrates and alienates in its album sequence. Yet, Night Call delivers in affirming Olly Alexander as an artist capable of connecting with a varied, multi-generational audience.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Jan 21, 2022
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The Overload is a very fine debut from a group that sound like they think they are smarter, funnier and fiercer than all of their peers, and just might prove to be.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Jan 20, 2022
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The tension and ambiguity implicit in downbeat songs with upbeat choruses lies at the heart of an album that may not easily yield its secrets but will keep you singing as you try to work them out.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Jan 14, 2022
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- Critic Score
Dawn FM is his most ambitious album to date, and one that shows welcome signs of emotional and psychological growth.- The Telegraph (UK)
- Posted Jan 7, 2022
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