Reviews by littlestlassloves

I had been doing so well at separating the art from the artist in this project until now, but fuck you, Marilyn Manson.

I saw MM at Leeds Festival in 2001, which ironically means I saw him duet with yesterday's artist, Eminem. I remember nothing about his set at all (it was the same year Rocket From The Crypt made people face the back of the tent "to experience the music differently" so it's not like I blanked out the whole weekend).

I like The Beautiful People. Everything is basically summed up as MM ripping off Nine Inch Nails, and I don't even like them very much.

This probably should get a 1.5, but, again, fuck you Brian.

1/5

The Generator linked to the clean version on Amazon Music by default, which was very confusing given that it dealt with the opening Public Service Announcement by just completely skipping it. I nearly carried on playing the clean version out of pure curiosity - I assume it's 75% silence - but searched and found the original instead.

I loved this record when it was released. I still see why I would have done to be honest. Songs like Kill You and I'm Back are catchy as hell. But when the Generator gave me the Slim Shady LP, I mentioned that I felt very differently about that as a middle aged woman than I did in my late teens/early 20s. I wasn't sure if the same would be true for this record.

It's probably not the popular opinion, but for all their shock value, I think Eminem has always thought carefully about his lyrics. However the subject matter in this album is where he started a bit more self reflection, in places at least. The writing is far better for it, despite often being as hate filled as on previous releases.

Stan is a really powerful song and I entirely understand why it was such a massive hit. It changed the world's vocabulary. I genuinely find it fascinating there are people who use "stan" in context and have no idea where it came from.

The Real Slim Shady basically defined an era. I can entirely play the MTV VMAs 2000 performance of this song in my brain while listening. It's still great.

To me, this is a much better album than The Slim Shady LP. I still enjoy this (with reservations) while my memories of that album were so much better than the reality of listening to it in 2025. There is still an absolute ton of misogyny, homophobia and violence on this album, but there feels like (a little) more commentary on where that came from and (a little) more thought about the impacts. Though, you know, he still wrote tracks like Kim, which urgh.

I hate skits and I had completely forgotten this album has the Ken Kaniff skit on it, which is probably the worse skit in the history of skits (bet that didn't make the clean version of the album).

This was probably a 3.5 for me, but I can't justify a 4.

3/5

[After listening to the record, I read the Wiki entry. I particularly enjoyed:

"In his book Edited Clean Version: Technology and the Culture of Control, author Raiford Guins writes that the clean version of The Marshall Mathers LP "resembles a cross between a cell phone chat with terrible reception...and a noted hip-hop lyricist suffering from an incurable case of hiccups".]

My Mum loves Richard Thompson's voice. Me, I don't get it. I like Linda's though.

This was a perfectly fine folk album but I have little to say about it, either positive or negative. Would have been a 2.5, but I can't stretch to 3, so:

2/5

Historically, I hold a "completely ambivalent" position on Nirvana, but this album has Heart-Shaped Box on it, and I do really love that song thanks to my parents getting MTV when I was in my early teens and it being played constantly. I loved the music video too.

Of everything else, I liked Scentless Apprentice and Milk It a lot (absolutely the right type of screamy), and Pennyroyal Tea (I like how it descends into shambles at the end). I liked Radio Unfriendly Unit Shifter and Tourettes too. Plus it's nice to hear All Apologies in the proper recorded version (MTV also obsessively played the Unplugged version of that too).

I actually enjoyed this album way, way more than I thought I might. I will say, now I've seen that clip of Dave Grohl telling Pharrell Williams that while in Nirvana he just ripped off disco drums, I can't unhear it, which certainly adds to the listening experience.

Genuinely a surprise to me how much I liked this album (which I imagine is a bizarre statement for a lot of people my age to read). It very nearly got the top mark, but it definitely deserves a 4.

4/5

Firstly, love an alliterative album appellation.

If I were only rating Boogie on Reggae Women, the album would be getting a 5/5 without any hesitation. I absolutely loved it. There were other songs I found fairly forgettable, or that I liked but they didn't set my world alight, but I thought that track was great. It has been a surprise to me how much I like funk. And a harmonica.

As for everything else, the "bum bum ti didi" part of Smile Please was hysterical. It certainly made a song that I otherwise would have probably instantly forgotten, very memorable.

The slower, more plodding, songs were generally less interesting. For me, the best of the bunch of that type was They Won't Go When I Go which I thought was really beautiful and Stevie sounded fantastic.

I really enjoyed whenever the female backing vocals kicked in on tracks because they were a really lovely contrast to Stevie's incredible vocals. I have no idea what the weird sound in Bird Of Beauty is, but the vocals were great.

You Haven't Done Nothin' sounded like it was going to turn into Superstition as any moment. Which meant it was a really enjoyable song, but slightly disconcerting.

I am wishing for a 3.5 again... I think this was more great tracks than forgettable ones, so I'm rounding up.

4/5

Sonic Youth: a band where I am familiar with the name yet am not convinced I'd ever previously heard anything by them. I had about 4 false starts trying to listen to this album. Just kept starting it and then getting distracted and doing something else, then picking it up again, then thinking I wanted to listen to something else instead, then picking it up AGAIN.

So many 7 minute songs of intermittently screeching, then noodling, guitars. I have fairly consistently not been a big fan of post-punk so I just think this wasn't really for me. I objectively know that Sonic Youth, and this album in particular, had a massive influence on music in this era, and I sort of liked Thurston Moore's talky vocals, but I have no desire to listen to it again.

2/5

I do love Dolly's voice, and I enjoyed the album, though I don't think any particular song stood out over any other. I liked it enough to listen to the album twice, yet nothing has really lodged itself in my brain. I am however now hugely curious how many times Dolly had written "Mama" or "Momma" into her song lyrics...

I am still looking for the Dolly album that I can really love, because I think there's probably one out there.

I think this is really a 2.5 album for me, but I'm going to give a generous rounding up as it's better than a 2.

3/5

Well this is shouty. And also sort of initially sounds like a group of people having their own individual panic attacks while performing. And then goes a bit country. And then I recognised a song from a Nirvana Unplugged cover. And then we're back to a (new to me) dissonant guitar-noodling instrumental.

It's sort of impressive to make an album that's so weirdly eclectic, and yet I don't really like any of it.

I really debated the score here, because this absolutely isn't as offensive to me as other albums I've scored 1/5, but I didn't like the music that much and hated the singing. My only thing that really pushes the score a little is that the songs were mercifully short, and that doesn't get you a full star of recognition. A regrettable, not for me,

1/5

I am going to have listened to more jazz during this project than I have during the entirety of the rest of my life. I'm genuinely starting to wonder what proportion of this list is jazz, because it's beginning to feel like I'm never more than 4 days away from more jazz. And, at best, I'm indifferent to it.

The piano section in the first track is horrible, which is a shame as I wasn't hating the rest. I was somewhat surprised by the noise that I assume was a saxophone, but sounded like a swanee whistle. When your song is nearly 10 minutes long, you do not need a fade out ending.

After that I zoned out a bit, though I did quite like (at least bits of) Nomali. I still don't really find jazz that engaging though, so we're back to some more low scores:

2/5

I am a being of simple tastes: give me an album I suspect I'm not going to enjoy, but add honky-tonk piano to parts of it, and you are guaranteed to get, at least, an ok mark.

I did only listen to the original first 8 tracks though, not the demo versions now tacked onto the end, because I'm a purest (that's definitely the reason, it's not because I couldn't face 1 hour 15 minutes of classic rock).

I liked Things Going On and Mississippi Kid a lot. Free Bird is too long and only interesting when it ups the tempo... unfortunately it then makes my think of car commercials.

All in all, a much better than I expected:

3/5

I got to this late, due to a trip, so came back to it while stood up on a packed train.

I would like to think this didn't affect my marking too badly, but I did not find this album interesting. At all. She has a nice voice but the tunes are dull. I am not mad at it, but I genuinely don't understand why this is one of the 1001 Albums you should listen to before you die.

Following my self imposed "just being dull can't get you 1/5" marking system means this is a 2 (but should have been a 1.5 in a better scoring system).

2/5

I loved the Intro, which was a promising sign.

Reading the featured artists in the first track were Kanye and John Mayer felt like a double-whammy of "problematic" (though to very different extremes) and as I know nothing about Common, I looked him up. He seems like a great guy who genuinely tries to make the world a better place and then gets called hokey for it.

I think this is probably more a warm summer day album, than a dark dismal UK winter day album, but I enjoyed it regardless. I like that it feels like a positive, uplifting album thanks to the lyrical content. And yes, I like the production. If only Kanye had stuck to producing records like this instead of becoming what he is now.

Should be a 3.5 but I don't think this is quite a 4 for me, so:

3/5

Unsurprisingly for someone who likes punk, I liked this. It's the melodic Clashy-end of punk rather the purely shouty-end of punk, and I appreciate that enormously.

However it does suffer from having some *extremely* well known tracks on it... plus everything else. It positively belts through 16 songs in 34 minutes though, and it it definitely something I actively enjoyed listening to, so much so, I heard it three times yesterday.

I am predisposed to enjoy this type of thing, and I enjoyed this type of thing.

4/5

Oh... more jazz... But bossa nova this time! AND its only 33 minutes long! This is more like it!

It turns out I quite like the type of jazz that sounds like it should be playing on a beach front establishment on a tropical island better than the type of jazz that sounds like it should be playing in a dark smokey basement bar. This will be unsurprising to anyone who's ever met me.

Not sure it was best experienced on a cold drk winter walk to work, but I still thought it was ok.

3/5

I think Ozzy had the perfect voice for this style of music and I enjoy little hints of his accent coming through every now and again. I also liked the heaviness of the guitars. I didn't enjoy this quite as much as Vol. 4 though, I think because the songs felt a little less focused to me.

Still a really solid album that I don't have much to say about.

3/5

This, in general, was less enjoyable for me than the previous Beastie Boys album the album generator gave us, and I'm not sure why.

I did enjoy playing spot the sample again, with 5-Piece Dinner being one of the most random examples of that: Shucking The Corn from the Deliverance soundtrack? Sure, why not. Plus The Beatles, The Isley Brothers, Curtis Mayfield, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Chic...

But overall, I liked Ill Communication much more. The vocals, which have always been whiny-shouty didn't annoy me there, but I found them grating on this album.

This feels like a 2.5 but I'm going to round up because I enjoyed the sampling.

I knew absolutely nothing about this going in, which is always interesting.

Seagull is very discombobulating while wearing earphones as it pans back and forth. It also reminded me massively of Let Forever Be by Chemical Brothers, because of the drum/bass. It did not need to be 6 minutes long, but it did feel like a decently high energy start to an album.

Kaleidescope sounded fairly similar to track 1 and I started to think this was going to feel like a very long 1 hour 11 minute album. It was at that point I read the Wikipedia, learned the Amazon Music version of this has 15 songs but the original only had 8, and breathed a sigh of relief - an easy point to bail out if things didn't change.

In A Different Place, slowed things down a bit and I realised who the singer reminded me of: Damon Albarn, but if Damon Albarn couldn't sing.... And I recognise that I'm in the 5% of the population who thinks Damon can actually hold a tune.

By the time we got to Decay, I was very much done with the vocals, and didn't find the music interesting enough to balance out my dislike of the singing.

I absolutely bailed out at the end of Vapour Trail.

2/5

P.S. My favourite bit of the band Wikipedia:

"The album was not well received by critics, Bell explaining "These were good times but the music took second place. When we recorded the Carnival of Light album we got indulgent". By the end of 1994 even the band themselves were critical of the album, referring to it within the group as "Carnival of Shite".".

(I am relieved to know, that album did not make the cut for the Generator)

I obviously know who she is, but had never listened to anything by Solange. Somewhat unsurprisingly she has a lovely voice, so it hung on the instrumentation and songwriting for me. Well mostly, given I'm on record as finding interludes incredibly annoying.

I still find interludes incredibly annoying.

This is alright but not particularly interesting. I listened to it on a long train journey, and coupled with the gentle rocking of the train (something that always makes me a bit tired), this record really made me want a snooze.

I only really perked up at one point. I am too white to type out the actual lyric, but at one point I thought she was singing "All my knickers around the world" and I had to check.

Nice voice, just not for me.

2/5

I sort of expected to really like this because I love Message In A Bottle and I love reggae/ska influences... but then it was just fine for the most part.

I was really surprised by how lyrically sparse some of these tracks are - I think of the Police as having interesting lyrics, so I wasn't expecting Sting to repeatedly sing rio rio rioyo. I also started getting a bit fed up of the "repeat a phrase a billion times as the song fades out" schtick.

On Any Other Day doesn't seem to fit on this album at all, but I kinda liked it. I also liked Bed's Too Big Without You.

Ultimately this feels very middle of the road with a few exceptions, so it's getting a middle of the road score.

3/5

I assumed I wasn't going to have fun with this album because it would be all gothy as that's how I think of The Cult, and traditionally, I have not enjoyed goth. Well, it turns out I didn't have fun with this album because it was uninspired classic rock.

Mostly, even if I don't enjoy an album, I understand why it ended up on this list. Not this time. Mind you, I wasn't hating it, just not seeing the point of it, so in my self imposed marking system that should mean it gets a 2. However the Born To Be Wild cover was so indescribably horrific it's getting:

1/5