The Magic Whip Reviews

[He's So High]

Since a few people mentioned it in the main thread, I thought I start one especially devoted to it.

I agree in that Q Magazine will probably give it 4 or 5 stars. The NME will no doubt be very supportive as well. It's websites like Pitchfork that tend to be a little more random.


Published professional reviews:

UK Newspapers

The Telegraph 5/5
The Times 4/5
Daily Mail 5/5
The Independent 4/5
The Guardian 4/5
The Scotsman 4/5
London Evening Standard 4/5
The Observer 4/5
The Sunday Times Very Positive

UK Magazines

DIY Magazine 4/5
NME 8/10
Mojo 4/5
Q 4/5
Uncut 8/10
Guitarist 4/5
The List 4/5
Clash 8/10
The Skinny 3/5
New Statesman Positive

Online

Rolling Stone 4/5
The Atlantic 4/5
Louder Than War Very Positive
The Quietus 8/10
MusicOmh 4/5
Drowned in Sound 8/10
The Line of Best Fit 9/10
Pretty Much Amazing B+
Pitchfork 7.0
The AV Club B-
Vulture (Very) Positive
New York Observer (Very) Positive
All Music 4/5
Spin 8/10
Paste 8.1
Consequence of Sound C+
Billboard 4/5
Noisey/Vice Very Positive
Virgin Media 4/5
Entertainment.ie Positive

International

Musik Express 5/5
Laut 5/5
Rolling Stone Australia 4/5
Rolling Stone Germany 4.5/5
Dagbladet 5/6
Herald Sun, Melbourne 4/5
Hot Press 4/5
VG (Norway) 5/6
Dagens Næringsliv (Norway) Very Positive
Chicago Tribune 3.5/4
Oltner Tagblatt (Swiss) 5/5
Irish Times 4/5
Blitz (Portuguese) 4/5
Público (Portuguese) 4/5
Diário de Notícias (Portuguese) Positive
Mladá fronta DNES (Czech) 8/10
Boston Globe Positive
Cleveland B+


Track-by-Track

Drowned in Sound First Impressions Very Positive
The Line of Best Fit track-by-track Positive
HMV Positive

Overall

Metacritic 81/100
Any Decent Music 7.8

[My Name Is Mud]

Pitchfork love Blur all the same. Their reviews are compelling though I feel. They do unnecessarily hate some great music sometimes.

[He's So High]

Yeah, they gave Blur 21 a pretty good write-up, and the Midlife compilation. They weren't so hot on Everyday Robots, though.

[My Name Is Mud]

They don't hold Graham's solo work in that high a regard overall either I don't think.

[Neal Zeal]

Apologies if this has been reported elsewhere but I think I've just seen the first official review of the new album.
It's in the new (May) issue of Uncut.
Didn't have the chance to read the review properly but it scores ... (drum roll!)
eight out of ten!
Before we get too excited, Everyday Robots pretty much got 8/10s (or 4/5s) across the board.
Will try and read on way home later...

[tom_cas1]

Nice, very nice! Although the same score as Everyday Robots? You're having a laugh.

[101reykjavik]

ER got some pretty decent reviews though. I appreciate you may not agree with them Tom, but it did.

[My Name Is Mud]

That's because it was great.

[tom_cas1]

Compared to The Magic Whip?? I think not!

[My Name Is Mud]

Compared to The Magic Whip?? I think not!

Ah probably not (haven't heard The Magic Whip properly yet of course), but I thought it was great.

[daii]

uncut magazine, my scans >> https://www.facebook.com/BlurArg/posts/1060915453925184" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[101reykjavik]

uncut magazine, my scans >> https://www.facebook.com/BlurArg/posts/1060915453925184" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thank you! I'll look forward to reading that later.

[Sean]

uncut magazine, my scans >> https://www.facebook.com/BlurArg/posts/1060915453925184" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks for posting. Great read, especially Graham's interview.

Pyongyang is gonna be a belter huh?

[He's So High]

I probably sound a bit churlish, demanding outstanding marks from everyone, but I'm not quite sure why that review only gives it an 8/10. I didn't really see any negative comments. I actually think we might get quite a lot of this; reviewers too scared to give this a particularly good or bad grade, in case they're massively wide of the mark in terms of the general consensus. This is probably true for most albums, but particularly high profile ones like this.

[tom_cas1]

No way is it the same ranking as Everyday Androids.