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 he 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.
TIL I might actually be a Foo Fighters fan. The more you know...
A little bit more low-key than I was expecting from a "glam rock" album, but given that this band was apparently originally a folk band maybe I shouldn't be surprised. Would have appreciated a bit more of a pulse on some of the songs, honestly most of them were rather forgettable.
See THIS is what I like in rock!!! Great riffs and energy without sacrificing melody and tune. Phew, I'm glad I'm not just going to be a hater of all late-80s-90s alt rock.
Oh good grief...
Listen, I'm not really a lyrics person, first-and-foremost. When I listen to a song for the first time, I'm primarily focussed on how it sounds - are the melodies and production good? I can look past bad lyrics, silly lyrics, goofy lyrics, cringeworthy lyrics, as long as I still like the way the song sounds. Oftentimes I don't even fully notice or process the lyrics upon my first listen. So if I'm noticing lyrics, it's likely they're either outstanding, or in the case of this album, absolutely atrocious.
This was so icky to listen to. Distractingly horny, but not at all sexy, and the way he sings about black women feels disturbingly fetishising. Felt like I needed a good long shower after this. Safe to say I will never listen to this again.
That being said, the last song Make It Right has absolutely banging production - someone should steal that instrumental and write some half-decent lyrics over it.
Was pretty skeptical about this one but it was surprisingly fun!
We all know Bowie is a great artist, and this certainly isn't bad, but surely there's more worthwhile stuff of his to listen to than this? When he has about 7 or 8 other albums on the list, throwing this in the mix as well feels a bit excessive.
For a project like this I've accepted that you need to largely separate the art from the artist, because there are going to be plenty of people on this list that have done heinous things. But to be truthful, I was dreading this being a 5/5 because the idea of having this on my "highest rated" albums on my profile almost as some kind of endorsement was frankly a bit sickening. It's not a 5/5 (thankfully?) - a lot of the songs are very long, which when they're excellent songs (Dark Fantasy, Power, Monster, Runaway, All of the Lights) is a good thing but when they're not (So Appalled, Blame Game) it just kinda drags. It's also a bit difficult to stomach the lyrics at time knowing that this was not an album made by a man who actually would ever demonstrate the capacity to self-reflect and grow. That being said, it is undeniably a great album, made by a bad person. What a shame he's fucked in the head, indeed.
This obviously isn't peak Beatles, but it's still pretty damn fun. I had to laugh when the Mr Postman cover came on, then laugh at myself for enjoying it so much.
This is one of those cases where I have so much respect for the band and the music and that they're clearly good, but it just honestly doesn't really do much for me.
I can't lie I kinda live for this yeehaw shit.
The definition of easy listening. Pleasant, yes, good vocals, yes, but exciting it is not.
Dragged a bit in the middle for me, but otherwise I really liked this! This kind of metal I think I can get behind for the most part.
I really loved H61 when I got it a couple weeks ago, so was looking forward to this, but oof... it's all just kinda a drag isn't it? And I'm not anti-harmonica, but this was SO MUCH harmonica. A few pleasant songs, and the lyricism is surely as strong as anyone can expect from Bob Dylan, but for me I need the music itself to actually be enjoyable to listen to as well.
This isn't something I'd actively want to listen to again in my free time, but there's something very fun about listening to a live album!
Finding out how much I enjoy Dusty Springfield has been one of the great joys of the generator for me thus far!
I grew up listening to a lot of Dropkick Murphys on account of them being one of my dad's favourite bands, so I'm admittedly a bit preconditioned to enjoyment of Celtic punk, but how could you not love this?! So fun and joyful, and nice to have an album with a Christmas song generated at this time of year.
