Out-bloody-rageously awful.

… nah.

It gets 3 stars for “Heroes” alone. Quite liked “The Secret Life of Arabia” too. The rest was utter nonsense.

Gets 2 stars for Roundabout. The rest is just prime Rick Wakeman knob twiddling guff.

So good it got a second listen.

It’s getting 1*, and it should be grateful.

Meh.

Liked it more than I thought I would. Just about.

I suppose Maggie May is worth 2 stars.

I had never heard of Nick Drake before now, and I liked this much more than I thought I would.

I expected to like this much more than I did.

Could listen to Sade all day.

I liked this a lot more than I thought I would, but it loses a star for the unnecessary “jam” tracks at the end.

Unnecessarily long. Did nothing for me, but I had forgotten about “The Way You Move”, which I always liked, so it gains it an extra star.

Just dull. Dull, dull, dull.

Even the presence of the only Pink Floyd song I like being on this album couldn’t save it. Absolute tripe.

Having spent over an hour of my day listening to this, I may as well have not bothered. Couldn’t tell you anything about it.

It has a nice album cover, at least.

I didn’t hate it, I suppose.

I think this made it onto the list by accident.

I should’ve enjoyed this - but I didn’t. At all. Completely forgettable, and far too long for a 6-track album.

This album should be grateful I can’t give less than 1 star. So bad, it made my dog’s ears pin back with fear when she heard it.

It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t close to being good either.

I fully anticipated despising this, having been on the Oasis side of the debate in the 90s. However, listening to it as an adult has me realising that they were a lot better than I remembered. Still can’t stand Damon Albarn’s voice, mind you.

Out-bloody-rageously awful.

It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve heard so far on this list, but it just wasn’t for me.

Beyond “Glory Box” I was largely unfamiliar with Portishead, and this album is much the same vibe as that - not a bad thing, just not really my thing, really. It’s atmospheric and I can see its appeal, but I doubt I’ll ever think about it or listen to it again.

I felt really conflicted about this because when it’s good - “Live Forever”, “Supersonic”, “Slide Away” - it’s perfect. When it’s not, like with “Digsy’s Diner”, it’s just a bit forgettable. A solid 4* album, but not the 5* I assumed it would be when listening back as an adult.

I didn’t hate this, but I genuinely couldn’t tell you anything about it. Not for me, and totally forgettable.

I hovered between giving this 3* or 4* - it’s a decent album, with the standout obviously being “Up Around the Bend”, but some of it was just a bit middle of the road. Out of the covers on the album, I preferred “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” over the Roy Orbison cover, but it didn’t need to be over 10mins long.

Albums shouldn’t be instruction manuals.

It gets an extra star for amusing song titles.

I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t like it either - I’ve never been a fan of Suede and that opinion hasn’t changed listening to them again as an adult.

A fabulous album, showcasing the tight grooves that would be heard on most of the defining hits of the next decade.

I was mildly drunk whilst listening to it, which I think helped.

I liked the opportunity to listen to an artist I have never heard of before and, whilst I didn’t hate it, it just wasn’t for me.

This was better than the last jazz offering thrown my way by this generator… but only just.

Even as a firm believer that The Beatles are hugely overrated, I quite liked this - it starts strong, with “Taxman” and “Eleanor Rigby” already on my (very, very short) list of songs by The Beatles I actually like. I didn’t even mind the sitar of “Love You To” (though do dislike the poor grammar), even after listening to Ravi Shankar earlier in this generator and despising it. However, by the time Ringo starts clapping away about his yellow submarine, the wheels had come off for me and, once more, I had started to wonder just what all the fuss is about.

My biggest problem with this album is that it feels like hard work to get to the good stuff - and this has some good stuff (compared to The Wall, which I heard earlier in the project, and was utter tripe beyond the title track). It just doesn’t really feel like it was worth the effort, which takes all the shine (ahem) off of it.

I was sure I liked Roxy Music before I listened to this. Now I’m not so sure…

Each of Billy Joel’s 4 previous albums have “that” song on them - “The Stranger”, from beginning to end, is all “that” song; back to back classics that cemented him as music’s great, New York storyteller.

I don’t have the words to express how bad this was.

I don’t mind Neil Young generally, but I find his early efforts quite dull and this is no exception.

Whilst my Curtis Mayfield knowledge may be limited, I was just expecting more from this - it never really got going, keeping itself firmly in the realm of (pretty underwhelming) baby making music.

I generally don’t mind Cream, and this was on track for a middle-of-the-road 3* review from me. And then “Mother’s Lament” happened.

I’m not as clinically depressed after it as I thought I would be, oddly.

In some moments, this album had flashes of what it could have been. Whilst the inclusion of “Good Vibrations” might have seemed like a good idea at the time, it only highlighted all the ways this album felt like a let down. Listening to this album the day after Brian Wilson passed away was still a lovely thing, though.

My inherent dislike of Bob Dylan stems from an almost visceral hatred of his voice. I have been reliably informed by my dad that, some day, I’ll get it - alas, that day hasn’t come. I’ll be amazed if it ever does. Objectively, “Like a Rolling Stone”, is a good song - as are so many of his compositions. I just prefer when someone else sings them.

This just wasn’t for me. I don’t mind some of their later singles (especially the ones which have vocals), but this just didn’t do it for me.

Having suffered the misfortune of listening to “Heroes” earlier in the Generator, I went into this with low expectations. Just as well, because when we opened with a track that was 10mins long, I feared this was going to be another disaster. Thankfully, the album picked up after that - “Golden Years”, already one of my favourite Bowie songs, and “TVC15” are obviously the standouts. The rest of the tracks are all quite inoffensive, but mostly unmemorable.

This is a bit of a slow burn to begin with but, once you hit “Lovesong”, picks up, and has a run of songs that cement this as maybe their most cohesive album. It’s not perfect - you could lose probably 20 minutes of intro and outro, across the whole album, and it would still keep its coherence. Even my love of The Cure doesn’t temper an dislike of too-long songs.

Adele is someone who can be a bit hit and miss for me (in terms of her music, not her as a person - I’d very much like to be friends with her). The standout for me on this album has always been “River Lea”, and listening to it again just reminds me how much I love it. Whilst there are some misses on this album for my personal taste, even they are clearly well-crafted, well-written tracks that show just what a talent she is.

The highlight is “Street Life”, but there was no need for it to be 11mins long. The rest of the album was all instrumental - something which, thanks to this project, I’m learning I don’t really like. Especially in this case, as I felt like I was listening to the sort of music you’d hear in the lobby of a hotel.

I’d never heard of this album before but, as a fan of Costello’s early work with The Attractions, had high hopes. I wasn’t disappointed.

This was always going to be at least a 3* for me, given “It’s Tricky” and “Walk This Way” are on this album. I enjoyed listening to the rest of it, although no other tracks stood out to me quite like the two biggies.

For an album that was only just over an hour long, it seemed to go on forever - and not in a good way. 99% of it sounded the same, to the point where, multiple times, I realised I’d heard two or three different tracks instead of the one I assumed I was still listening to. “Once Around the Block” is the only song I’d heard before, and it is still lovely. I also really liked “Disillusion”, which I’d never heard until this project.

I really don’t know what to say about this - I didn’t hate it, but I couldn’t tell you anything about it either. It went in one ear and out the other. Just not my thing.

Undoubtedly “Superstition” is the standout track on this album; when the horn section kicks in midway through the first verse, the effect almost feels visceral. Sadly, the rest of the album feels almost like filler in comparison. It starts promisingly, but after “Maybe Your Baby”, never really gets to the cohesive heights that will be found on an album like Innervsions or Songs in the Key of Life.

Beyond standouts “Juicy” and “Big Poppa”, this was little to write home about.

I’m really not sure what to say about this one - just like my last foray into what I suppose is termed “world music”, this was effectively an hour’s worth of background music.

Having already established that I’m not a fan of albums which are purely instrumental, this was never going to score well from me. “Green Onions” is obviously the track that is most well known, but opening with it meant I lost interest quite quickly after that.

My Joni Mitchell knowledge was limited as I lined this up for a listen, but I was fairly sure it wasn’t going to be for me - and I was right. I can see her appeal, and why she is lauded, but she just doesn’t do it for me. She nearly got a bonus star for her excellent grasp of a song-coming-in-under-three-minutes, but I resisted.

This album should be in my wheelhouse but, if it weren’t for the title track, this would just be a standard 45mins of synth pop that isn’t anything to write home about. If anything, all the tracks up to the title track are passable - then you get to the standout, and everything after is just boring in comparison.

My joy at noticing this album came in at less than 30mins was short lived.