Reviews by abitfishy

Pere Ubu has some pretty pioneering sounds on here. They have a razor-sharp guitar that is in the atonal camp. The vocals are like a mad hillbilly's yee haw. The album is pretty noisy and dissonant, which I swear it made me start hallucinating vocals early on in "Laughing" before they actually started, but no I found out it was just guitar screeches. It has some top notch beats as well.

I quite enjoyed this one, it does a good job representing the cynicism in punk music. I would definitely like to revisit this album, I believe this one is a 'grower' sort of albums.

Highlight Song/s: "Non-Alignment Pact"

Nice mellow album. My only prior knowledge of this album is through the marvellous songs of "Heart of Gold" and "The Needle and the Damage Done" other than that I went in blind. The album sounded like what I suspected it would sound like; I just had a hunch. I was a bit apprehensive about this album a couple songs in, but I believe it started getting better by the end, unlike some album where they progressively get worse. I think Neil Young really nailed the country sound on this album, it's done so well.

I think I will be humming the melody of "The Needle..." to the end of time, it's so infectious!

Highlight Song/s: "Heart of Gold", "Old Man" and "The Needle and the Damage Done"

A seminal album not just in punk music but I believe music as a whole. The Ramones combine the melodicism of the beach boys, beatles and girl groups with the trash rock abrasiveness of the Stooges and the MC5 which was a unique combination for the time. The result is some very strong earworms that are noisy as all hell and songs that pretty much end before they start.

The albums topics are all over the place with lot of it having unconventional and humourous elements. Some of the topics include drugs, love, Nazism, tropes, male prostitution. It has all the possible topics you could sing about!

Oh, one more thing: "PT Boat on the way to Havana!?" (love that line so much.)

(Ramones review done without mentioning "Blitzkrieg Bop." Phew.)

Highlight Song/s: "Blitzkrieg Bop", "Judy Is A Punk", "Havana Affair" and "53rd & 3rd"

First Wu-Tang/Wu-Tang member album. I found the entire thing quite long, it felt very bloated. Which seems to be the case with my experience with gangsta rap. Because it's a long album it's hard to remember anything that even slightly stands out, but I do remember that I found the first third of the album to be my favourite third of the album. I also remember liking the instrumental of "Knuckleheadz," I thought it was really well done.

This album was a good experience in learning the voices of Raekwon and Ghostface Killah and some hints of the other members, I hope it will help when I'm called up to listen to 36 Chambers.

Highlight Song/s: "Knuckleheadz" and "Guillotine (Swordz)"

I think I like the idea of listening to the Police more than I actually enjoy listening to them; not too sure why I think about that sort of stuff. They have really good hit songs, like "Message in a Bottle" for instance, but the rest of the album tends to be quite lame. I experienced this with their first album around two years ago. It's just filled with underwhelming new wave/reggae music. Just totally meaningless to me.

Highlight Song/s: "Message in a Bottle"

I definitely preferred this one to "Neon Bible" even though it was a long time ago, I remember not liking it at all, this however wasn't too bad. It's nicely-done densely layered indie rock. The vibes on the first track are amazing, so magical. The violins do a good job of giving drama that some of the songs require. Not too bad of an album.

Highlight Song/s: "Neighborhood #1" and "Haiti"

I recoiled a bit after seeing that this goes for 60 minutes, just a bit fed up with long albums recently. This album has lot of very much 80s-sounding guilty-pleasure anthemic rock songs that somehow all sound like could be contenders for singles; like my goodness gracious that's impressive for a 60 minute album. I was a fan of the A-side of the album, the B-side was a bit lacklustre compared to the first half.

My expectations weren't high, because you know, 'glam metal' and all. Definitely not too shabby of an album, not sure if I would want to return to this album. This is an album I think best fits as 3.5/5.0, as I think does it's job well but still has some flaws - like it sounding very generic and predictable. So, yeah it for sure exceeded my expectations which helped the time go by faster.

Highlight Song/s: "Women" and "Pour Some Sugar On Me"

Very peaceful album, just straight to the point chill-out music. This is like the definition of minimalistic and sparse music. Enjoyed this more than I thought I would, not a whole lot, but it's semi-interesting for sure. Reading the Wikipedia page - because I've been semi-interested in this album for quite a while now - makes it sound more boring than it actually is, when reading a Wikipedia page about an album usually does the opposite for me. I'd recommend this album.

Highlight Song/s: "1/1"

This album was Radiohead's release after the twin albums of Kid A and Amnesiac, Hail To the Thief has a lot more rock elements than those two but it still has quite a few electronic elements (just not as much as the previous two albums.)

There are some really 'weird' stuff even for Radiohead standards like for example Thom just straight up repeating raindrops 50 times in a row ("Sit Down. Stand Up.")
There are also some quirky melodies that I find just adoring like in "Backdrift" and "Myxomatosis"
I'm also a big fan of the beats in "Sail to the Moon" and "The Gloaming"

This is probably my second-least listened Radiohead album, I'd only heard it once before when I was going through Radiohead's discography about a year ago. So, I'm barely familiar with this one and I had forgotten what a lot of it actually sounds like, however I am hell of a lot more familiar with their other stuff; it's just Pablo Honey and Thief that I'm not familiar with.

But all in all there is a really good mix of different sounds on here, I believe it's their most eclectic album ever. I am lot more open now to re-visiting this album even though it's fairly difficult right now to grasp.

Highlight Song/s: "Sail To The Moon", "Backdrifts", "I Will" and "A Wolf At the Door"

I found this one more enjoyable than In The Court of the Crimson King. I'm still not totally sold on King Crimson as a whole, but this was for sure better than their debut. Part 1 of the title track is some pretty strong diversity in sound, most of the song is dissonant heavy metal then in the last couple of minutes it changes to something you might hear in a original music score. The songs just in general change direction pretty often and sometimes just changes at the drop of a hat. The violin is beautiful on this album, it invokes the feeling of yearning (e.g. "Exiles.")

So, it's not bad, but it wasn't totally exciting. It just felt 'ehhhh' to me. This is an indecisive vote from me.

Highlight Song/s: "Exiles"

This was allllright I suppose. The instrumentation is quite diverse and very rich and colourful, sounds quite cabaret in parts. The singer sounds a lot like Paul Weller (from The Jam.) And of course this has the iconic song "Our House" which has left quite a mark on me. It seems like that I'll be always hearing that chorus in my head with it going over and over again and never managing to end; it's like my life-long punishment for a crime that I'm not sure what I did to deserve it. Probably wouldn't give it another listen - it's not the best - but I know one thing for sure is that "Our House" will be stuck rent-free in my head, and will be forcing unwanted listens forever. So this album technically won't be fully going away for me.

Highlight Song/s: "Mr Speaker (Gets the Word)"

I really do like the thought and ideas Costello put into this album and some of his other albums (but mainly this one.) But I just can't seem to jive with him other than a song here and there. I'm not completely sure what it is, I think it's the way he sings the lyrics (not the voice) are what I don't like. Also just a lot of the tracks are underwhelming, and lack any substance for me.

This is my second listen of this album (first listen was a year and a half ago/before I started the generator.) Second listen didn't help it's case, I can't get with some of his other albums, so I might simply just not like music of his. Oh well, at least "Pump It Up" is an amazing song.

Highlight Song/s: "Pump It Up"

This is a pretty good album for anyone seeking just the classic post-punk sound, it also brings along some country sounds, which sounds so magical. The baritone voice is top notch, the vocals are something you might hear from a band like The Human League. It has some arty moments like the spoken word sections in "Trouble Down South" and "Psycho Cupid." The album has a nice mix of different sounds, some are noisy lo-fi punk rock, and then the next song might be a tune that you would ride a horse down the highway and into town with.

This album is quite good, I would recommend it.

Highlight Song/s: Chivalry

I just can't get with this one. Some positives are the sinister vibes - it just sounds plain evil - and some of the percussion sounds (like on "Tattered and Torn."
Now for some of the negatives. The swearing is overdone, it's all fuck this and fuck that, fuck it all and fuck her fucking brat. I feel the swearing could've been more done at pivotal points in the songs (e.g. at the end of a chorus,) which in my opinion would only would have amplified the experience. Rather than fuck as an every other word which is totally boring and a let down. The vocals are not great, I'm usually into harsh vocals (at least screaming and yelling) but something about Corey's harsh vocals doesn't excite or wonder me.

You might see there are more negatives than positives, that's how I honestly feel about it. Some of my gripes about this album might be with more general nu metal shenanigans than just Slipknot stuff. This album is unintentionally justifying my dislike of nu metal. All the albums I come across from the generator are always approached with open-mindedness, and are almost wholeheartedly approached without the intention of hating it. I always try to look at the bright side of an album, but that sometimes that gets you nowhere. Just most things about this album I just flat out do not like, and I won't be returning to even though there a couple positive elements.

Highlight Song/s: "Tattered and Torn" and "Diluted"

The Replacements sure have an interesting sound, they first-most have punk attitude but the songs themselves are bit more complicated then that. Like the song "We're Comin' Out" shows more the punk side then that's contrasted with the song "Androgynous" that is a straight ballad track with little - if any - guitar; which quite shocked me to be honest.

I think the album got better as it went on, the first third of the album was a bit shoddy and then the second and third thirds only improved.

The vocals are top notch and are one of my favourite aspects of the album. The rasp, the ruggedness but yet so, so melodic, he's kind of like the American Joe Strummer - which is a plus from me.

One thing to say is that this album - Let It Be - is a hell of a lot better than another album that has the same name that released in 1970 (love most of their other stuff except for their final album.) I suspect this is one of those albums that grow on you rather than one that is an instant favourite. Strong 3 star album.

Highlight Song/s: "Favorite Thing", "Seen Your Video" and "Gary's Got a Boner"

Nice to hear some just raw straight blues from time to time. It has nice bitter-sweet vocals with slow parts mixed-in frantic parts. I wish the guitar was a bit higher in the mix, I feel I like would've liked this one a bit more had that happened. Overall when it's added all together, it's quite a bland one. It's a fine album, but I wouldn't go seeking this again.

Highlight Song/: "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man" and "Baby, Please Don't Go"

This was an amazing album, this totally took me by surprise. I've been wanting to get more into these guys since I heard their Arise album (252 albums ago.) The vocals are incredible, they're just filled with pure anguish and anger. This album has some cool Brazilian tribal music elements, I really like the touch of it, always great when a metal band decides to stick it to the purists and does what they want with their sound (in this case a tribal-metal fusion.) And now to address the elephant in the room, the riffs. The groovy mid-tempo riffs featured on the album emit just plain meanness (like in "Straighthate" and "Endangered Species.") These guys sure do know how to make a riff or two.

This was an enjoyable listen and it didn't seem to drag which is out of the norm for a first listen of a 70 minute album. Only the final track I didn't like, but I liked just about the rest.

Highlight Song/s: "Roots Bloody Roots", "Attitude", "Cut-Throat" and "Straighthate"

This is a pretty sweet album. It seems to be a collab album between an up-and-comer musician (Lo Borges) and an already established one (Milton Nascimento.) I liked Borges collection of songs a lot more than Milton's, he seemed to hit more than he misses here on the album. Though I know that isn't an unpopular opinion. There are some songs on here that just give pure ecstasy like "Clube Da Esquina N° 2." Just simply amazing. It's structured pretty well and has cohesiveness to it. I'm not very used to Brazilian music, I'm glad the generator has these sort of albums on here, so I can get more into non-english music and appreciate them like most other music. So yeah, this is definitely a good one.

Highlight Song/s: "O trem azul", "Um girassol da cor de seu cabelo", "Clube da esquina n° 2" and "Trem de doido"

I would say that Nu Metal is among my least favourite music genres, but I didn't really mind this one. It's like a heavy rock album with some cool industrial and electronic elements (e.g. "Points of Authority.") Lots of the songs on the album fluctuate between subdued rap sections by Mike Shinoda and the explosive choruses which has angst-driven vocals by Chester Bennington. I can see why this album was a big deal and people reference it a lot, and they talk about how much it means to them.

Soo, I wouldn't say I'm a complete fan of the album, but it was a lot better than what I was expecting. Only song on here was aware of before the album was the amazing song of "In the End" and may have heard "Crawling" (though not fully confident I have; it just sounds familiar.) A new found song that I really like is "Papercut" which is a song that is simply an amazing opener to the album and probably of all time.

I wouldn't mind listening to this album again, because it has some really cool sounds. And another reason is because it isn't 70 minutes with 15 minutes of it being a silence hidden track, like some other famous nu metal bands around that time period.

Highlight Song/s: "Papercut" and "In the End"

Still not impressed by Steely Dan. I got their first album about a week and a half ago, that one was alright I suppose, just like this one. I don't know much more to say other than that it's very well thought out and every imperfection was taken out. Though a lot of the songs are just mediocre some stand out like the song "Show Biz Kids" with its earworm of a refrain. The album also has some interesting percussion sounds going on. BUUUT that's where it ends with noteworthy stuff. I don't see myself coming back to this one, just so basic and dull.

Highlight Song/s: "The Boston Rag" and "Show Biz Kids"