What a crazy pull for my first album.
Faves: With a Little Help From My Friends, She's Leaving Home, Within You Without You, A Day in the Life
The world would be a better place if more art could be as unashamedly fun, dramatic and theatrical as this.
Faves: Paradise by the Dashboard Light (duh), For Crying Out Loud, You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth
I've never heard of Yes before, so I was pleasantly surprised by this. A bit bizarre, but the good kind. The melodies and instrumentals are very pleasant, even when the vocals leave more to be desired. The tracklist is a mix of group-composed songs and solo-composed songs (seemingly from time/budget constraints?). This means that one moment you'll be listening to an 8min prog rock suite, the next it'll be a keyboard cover of a Brahm's symphony, or a 35s cacophony composed by the bands percussionist. It makes for nothing if not an interesting listening experience, with many moments of "I have no idea why you would make that decision, but I'm fascinated that you did".
Faves: South Side of the Sky, Long Distance Runaround
Message in a Bottle is an excellent track, but then as the rest of the album plays it feels like most of the songs just kind of meander and never really change in energy. And then about halfway through you realise oh yeah, this album is literally called "White Reggae" and all of a sudden that's all you can think about. It does pick up a bit by the end though, and there was the occasional good hook (but then most of the songs don't go anywhere else after them)
Faves: Message in a Bottle, Walking on the Moon, Contact
Grooves all around. Was kinda hoping that an album called "Off the Wall" would go a bit more, y'know, off the wall with its energy, but still a good funky time nonetheless.
After listening to this I read through the Wikipedia page on Michael Jackson's life (which I did already know about but had never actually read up on in much detail) and couldn't help but reflect on how incredibly sad it would be how he ended up
Faves: Rock With You, Off the Wall, Get on the Floor
"Thrash metal" hey... well that doesn't really sound like my kind of thing, and the Wikipedia description doesn't exactly do a great job of selling it ("dry mix and nearly inaudible bass guitar"????). But y'know what, Metallica are iconic, so let's go into this with an open mind.
Okay, so they're not screaming at least. That's a good start... this has been going on for a while... oh wait we're only halfway through the second song... oh this is a pretty cool guitar riff! ... aaand the song is still going...
I don't think I'm a metalhead.
Faves: Harvester of Sorrow, The Frayed Ends of Sanity
This is in many ways an extremely perplexing choice for the list - it's the only Dion album on there, and it's not from his "peak" era of fame as a 60s doo-wop artist, the Wikipedia page is remarkably slight and doesn't really give you a whole lot of context on the album, at least not enough to explain why it would be considered "essential" aside from stating that some other artists found it influential in later years.
That being said, I found it to be a really beautiful album. This style of baroque pop is right up my alley, the production is gorgeous and while there are a couple of less-good tracks (I could have done without "He's Got the Whole World in his Hands") I definitely can see myself putting some of these songs into my regular rotation. I'm glad I was prompted to listen to it by this generator and I hope that Dion has come to appreciate his work here more than he initially did.
Faves: Born To Be With You, New York City Song
Super pretty melodies, great vibes. Don't think much will stick with me in the long run but this was a lovely start to my Friday and with it coming into the warmer months where I live I would not be opposed to putting this on again for some easy summer day listening.
Faves: Misty Roses, Beach Samba, Canoeiro
I can definitely appreciate how influential this was to the 90s alt rock scene, but I'd be lying if I didn't say a good chunk of this was just "whatever" to me.
Faves: Debaser, No 13 Baby
Wow, back to back Pixies albums, what are the odds?
I think I liked this better than Doolittle...? It seemed to have more melodies that I enjoyed, and it has Where Is My Mind which is a certified classic, but also there's still a fair bit that's kinda just... tuneless and not very fun. And the vocals are... not good! Dunno, guess Pixies just aren't my cup of tea.
Faves: Where Is My Mind, Tony's Theme
Oh wow, this is absolutely stunning. I want to spend so much more time living in the world created by this album.
Faves: The Stars of Track and Field, Seeing Other People, If You're Feeling Sinister
Really good listen! Pretty much exactly what I expected an R.E.M. album to sound like, so this is a positive example of expectations being met.
Faves: Radio Free Europe, Talk About the Passion, Shaking Through
I guess there was nothing strictly wrong with this, but it was incredibly unremarkable. Feels like there's lot of better stuff in the same vein that I could be listening to instead.
Faves: I Can't Help Myself, A Million Pleading Faces
This is the favourite album of one of my Tumblr mutuals and when I saw it had been generated my first thought was how I needed to tell them that I had listened to it for the first time. Luckily it was brilliant so I don't have to disappoint them with a negative opinion.
Faves: Ballad of a Thin Man (idk who Mr Jones is but he got eviscerated omg...), Like a Rolling Stone
I liked this much better than the Metallica album I had a week and a bit ago!!! It felt a bit more melodic, and the songs felt like they had more depth to them, even though some of them did drag on a bit for my liking (seriously, sometimes I would think a song was coming to an end and thought "oh, well that was actually pretty good" only to look and find it was ONLY HALFWAY THROUGH). I'm still not a metalhead, but I would sit through this again with little complaint.
Faves: Battery, Disposable Heroes, Orion
This really can't be judged by the modern standards of what makes an album, because it predates them, but good god this is just a fun collection of songs. Is this something I want to listen to on repeat? No, but that's okay because I don't have to in order to appreciate the sheer impact we had. We owe so much to Little Richard and other Black artists for pioneering so much of modern music as we know it.
Good, but that's about it. I can see how this might be beloved by some, but I didn't feel like there was much essential about this, and while I wouldn't mind listening again, I don't think I'll be thinking about it a few days from now.
Faves: Connection, S.O.F.T., Blue
I struggle to really get enthused about albums that are largely (or entirely) a collection of covers or standards. However, I do enjoy a touch of bluesy rock and there was plenty of that here. I actually enjoyed the two instrumental tracks the most.
