Reviews by giddy

Is this what the album by The War on Drugs sounded like on the main list? I genuinely don't remember anything about it except that it was dreadfully boring. This one isn't very interesting either, but I suppose I don't hate it? I don't know, I don't really care for Bruce Springsteen, but I especially don't care for this kind of Springsteen worship, either.

A neat vibe, but I can't help but yearn for the vocals of Alison Goldfrapp or Beth Gibbon, and the tone, in my opinion, was mastered by Akira Yamaoka for his work on the Silent Hill franchise. It would be foolish to call this album bad, but a couple tracks was enough to capture what the album was going for, and I was exhausted by the hour mark. Perfect for a nightime drive, surely. But it's midday and I'm at home playing Fire Emblem, so I don't think it was ever going to truly work out.

I'm gonna play Devil's Advocate just a little bit here and say it is insane how ahead of its time this album was. Not only are we getting deranged vocal stylings found later on post-punk works like Public Image Ltd, but the slow moments a la Big Star (more literally than one expects) and the funky freakouts that are reminiscent of Can, this album is a smorgasbord of weirdo shit, and after 1089+ albums of sometimes weird shit, it's cool to see one of the OGs at work. Yoko Ono is easy to dunk on because of how outlandish she is, but if you really open your heart here I think you'll enjoy at least one track here. If you go into this album hating Ono because "blah blah blah, she broke up the Beatles, and did you see that Chunk Berry clip? Blah blah blah..." you're bound to have a terrible time. That's just self-fulfilling prophecy, yo. I'm not saying the album is fantastic, either. No way. It's too long, in fact the entire second disc could be removed with very little lost except some cool moments on Airmale. Fly is silly to me, but I understand why it's dreadful to others, and overall nothing here is utterly fantastic. I mean, back to Big Star for a moment, Holocaust blows Mrs. Lennon outta the fucking water, sorry Yoko. So, is it worth the time sink for most people? Probably not. I bet most would get more out of Approximately Infinite Universe or Season of Glass, but this is still a pretty important record for those underdogs out there, and if you go in spiteful, you're just doing yourself a disservice. High three, could be a four with some more spins of disc one.

I think there's probably better acts in this subset of punk music, it is a little derivative, unfortunately , but that doesn't mean it doesn't absolutely rip, and the short runtime is fantastic.

Bo Burnham is probably one of the most famous comedians of recent memory. Or, at least, he WAS, but when he stopped making content for that stretch of time everyone kinda seemed to forget about him. That was, until this came out. INSIDE was HUGE, to the point where everyone I knew was watching it when it came out. I missed that window, but I was aware it existed well enough to hear Welcome to the Internet a few times before now. And my main takeaway is... eh? It's fine for what it is trying to do, I think, but it isn't all that funny, with lots of jokes that are basically "look, I'm white, and so I shouldn't comment on this, so this is my commentary." It's self-referential without actually putting a spin on most jokes, and that irks me. Whoa, the puppet said something out of pocket? Who could've seen it coming!! The music is easily better than the lyrics, but Burnham's auto-tune is distracting on even the best songs, and the balancing of humor and catchy songwriting is near nonexistent. Could he make an actually good song? Probably, he gets close on here a few times, I love the "harsher" tones on Bezos I, but this project is too focused on being "the return of Bo Burnham" rather than anything too deep, and it's more of a shame than anything.

I genuinely thought I was about to be listening to a nearly five hour album, but I noticed the words "the best of" thank God. Louis Armstrong is iconic in the music scene, so I understand wanting to give him some credit, but does this really count? Not only is it a compilation, but really a compilation of a compilation. It isn't an album to listen to, per se, rather just "hey, this artist deserves credit so he should be on the list!" Kinda ignores the "album" part of the list, but oh well. Won't instantly give it a one, though, that's a dumb thing to do, too. Just setting up my prior views before I say that this isn't really all that much to write home about. Was it a century ago? Probably, but now I hear this and just think "Portillo's." It's Dixieland jazz, nothing more, nothing less. Is it an important milestone in modern music? Of course! Is it a very good album? No, not really.

Yes, very happy to have the complete trilogy of Portishead albums on the generator now. It's a shame there's not more by this group, but they are the definition of quality over quantity. Now if someone just adds the live album Roseland NYC Live we'll be set. Admittedly, I do think this is the weakest of the trilogy, but it's still a damn fine album with some fantastic tracks like Elysium.

I'd like to think I could've enjoyed this album more. All the elements were there for me to think this was a hidden gem in early 2000s indie pop, but it kind of just did nothing for me. An album I can see the appeal of, but only from afar.

This is not music in my head. I turn it on and I instantly shut down the part of my brain paying attention to it. It isn't the worst sounding thing in the world, but it is not good. And having to listen to the hit, My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark, for the last decade plus really drags the whole experience down. I don't instantly hate the idea of listening to a Fall Out Boy album, but why did it have to be anything from past 2010? Just seems like a weird choice.

At the start of my generator journey I was looking at all of the albums on the list (can only not be curious what's all on there for so long) and thought that it was weird there was no albums by the Breeders on the main list. However, having listened to a few of their records at this point, I kind of get why they were left behind. The group have some fantastic hits, some of which are on this very album, and Kim Deal deserves all the credit in the world, but none of their albums feel especially special. They have the staying power with their hits to make this album something alright, but nothing here makes it an amazing ALBUM. Obviously, the main list has albums with this same issue (See: Britney Spears) but this makes me just realize that the Breeders are a band worth being known of, but none of their albums are the blow the listener away extravaganza that a lot of their contemporaries are. Still, No Aloha is a perfect song, and is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

Probably the (former) member of Pink Floyd's solo work I'd want to listen to the least, but I'll stay open minded. And I did. It was better in the back half, but it does feel like a repeat of The Wall, albeit with an entirely different story. It just feels like you're listening to a condensed version of a better album, and that album cover really makes the whole package feel like it was only finally finished to pull in some extra revenue for Waters before he dipped from Pink Floyd forever. It's a decent package, but I'd honestly rather spend my time with another Syd Barrett work, or that weirdo Nick Mason album with Robert Wyatt on lead vocals. Oh yeahhhhhh, that's the stuff.

I'm unfortunately with the negative side when it comes to The 1975. With how popular they seem to be you would hope for something a bit more standout, but instead you get predictable 2010s pop. Sometimes slightly better or slightly worse, but never enough so to really leave an impression. Still, happy to finally see what this band is all about.

It's relatively different from the album on the list by Eels, but it still isn't really my thing, although it does get better as it goes on.

I'm not sure if it finally won me over by the end or if it's just Stockholm Syndrome, but I was starting to get the sound by the end. I love the texture and the vocals are nice most of the time, too. I just feel like at first I really felt like each song was what a movie trailer sounds like if you played it back at half speed, 140p. It got old fast with the first few tracks. But I liked the calmer side shown on the last few tracks, and I wish the ambient feeling was more present throughout, but I respect this more than I like it, probably.

I like'd this quite a bit, but I'll admit there's very little to get out of this if you already are familiar with Siouxsie and the Banshees, which everyone here should be. The saxophone in the last track should have been throughout the album, would've really added that extra something to make this album really stand out. As it sits, it's good. I have to ask, person who added this, why not give the Siouxsie albums fives?

Happy Holidays from a "cool jazz" (the genre) album better than any "cool jazz" album on the main list.

I've known the song Smoko for a few years now and was pretty excited for this album, but it's just alright. I like the song The Price of Smokes, so I think I just like when they make music about smoking and how it relates to capitalist society. Good niche, that is.

I'm actually surprised to find I still think Mezmerize is the best of their albums even after finally listening to this, but this is still utterly fantastic. No band can scratch so many itches at once like SOAD.

This feels exactly like stuff I'd hate, pop country from the 90s that's an hour long? Yuck! But I'd be lying if I said I didn't have some small amount of fun, even if it was dragging a lot by the forty-five minute mark.

I didn't realize this was a big enough group to have two of their albums on the user generator. I wish I liked them more, but this one was still better than Watch Out!