Randy NewmanBest Randy Newman Albums Ranked

Good Old Boys

rollingstone

10

“The Ambrose Bierce of rock & roll has released another selection of his bitter and desperately sardonic fantasies. Good Old Boys has a conceptually "Southern" atmosphere; it also has drunkenness and depression, fun celebrations of political figures, lunacy, congenital birth defects and obsessional portraits of stereotypes that can leave the listener confused as to whether […]”

Good Old Boys

pitchfork

9.3

“Randy Newman’s Good Old Boys is nothing less than a tour of Southern bigotry and pride in the 20th century. It remains as shocking, pristine, and regrettably relevant as the day it was released.”

Dark Matter

pitchfork

8.0

“Dark Matter is Randy Newman’s first album of new songs in nine years and his smart mix of cynicism and sentiment is fully intact.”

Harps and Angels

rollingstone

8.0

“Randy Newman has earned a nice living in recent years as a film composer, but connoisseurs covet his Seventies work, when he emerged as one of the most cutting and empathic of American singer-songwriters. So his return to political-minded material on Harps and Angels is reason to wrap yourself in the flag and cheer. Newman […]”

Land of Dreams

rollingstone

8.0

“Randy Newman and the members of Jane’s Addiction would probably be the first to tell you that they don’t have anything in common, that they don’t listen to each other’s music, that they shouldn’t be in the same record review. And that’s probably true: Newman, forty-four and unprolific, makes immaculate pop music, with a lushness […]”

Trouble In Paradise

rollingstone

8.0

“"Here we are, living in paradise," sang Elvis Costello a few albums ago, and while Randy Newman probably would agree with that statement, he’d be more interested in its underlying frustration: if this is paradise, why aren’t we happy? On his ninth album, Newman has chosen to explore the ambivalences of paradise, not only sundrenched […]”