Reviews by littlestlassloves

When I say I don't like jazz but I do like jazzy, this is what I mean.

This takes a lot of what I really like from this era of rap/hiphop and replaces the parts I don't like with something more interesting. The songs aren't all about crime, misogyny and the rapper's ego and so are instantly more attractive to me.

The samples and loops on this album are fantastic, creating such a funky backdrop. Plus it has Can I Kick It? on it. A genuinely inventive, fun and interesting record.

Probably a 4.5 for me on first listen, but I think I'd enjoy this even more with repeated listens so

5/5

We coincidentally got this album the day before Dion released a biography and tie-in album The Rock ‘n’ Roll Philosopher. The longevity of some of the artists on this list is genuinely impressive - he released his first album with The Belmonts in 1959!

I was pleased to learn that this had been packaged with another album on Amazon Music and so to be true to the Generator, I only had to listen to the first 8 tracks. The question then became, would this be enjoyable enough that I would keep going?

No.

Nice voice, mostly fairly dull songs (I liked Good Lovin' Man).

2/5

I assume the reviews for this album are mostly middle aged British people saying "Fucks sake, Jamiroquai is on the list!" and pretty much everyone else saying, "Never heard this".

I would be surprised if, were a new version of the book to be released in 2025, this would make the cut now. It is decidedly uncool and I think time has not necessarily treated it particularly well, but that being said, I do actually like bits of this.

I liked We're Too Young To Die and Emergency on Planet Earth when I was 13, and I still do now. I had never heard the full album before today though, and can now safely say that Music of the Mind can get straight in the bin. It also became pretty samey throughout the record.

This feels like a 2.5 kinda album for me, but I think this needs rounding down rather than rounding up.

2/5

Look, McCartney is my favourite Beatle. I'd pretend to be cooler and say George Harrison, who I think is the default pick to pretend you aren't selecting the obvious choice (Lennon) or being a contrarian (Starr). But I love Paul's voice and he wrote my favourite Beatles songs (Lady Madonna and Fool On The Hill). However...

I do not see the point of multiple tracks on this album and I think it gets a pass solely because of who he is. I have absolutely no issue with the lo-fi recording style or Linda doing backing vocals, but some of these tracks barely count as songs. There is no reason for The Lovely Linda to be an actually recorded song on an album released by a man who was in the biggest band in the world at the time.

That's not to say that I dislike the entirety of this album, not at all. I like a lot of the songs, but the idea that people are out there rating this 5/5 is incomprehensible to me.

3/5

I really, really like a lot of the instrumentation on this album, but the Iggy Pop delivery of lyrics is *a lot* on a number of these songs.

I always knew before embarking on this project that the singer's voice was hugely important to my enjoyment of any album, but it really is make or break. I could see this getting a much better rating with a different singer, although it felt like the last track was never going to end, so it was never going to get full marks even with a vocalist I liked.

Probably more a 2.5, but I'm going to give a generous 3 because I really liked Search and Destroy.

3/5

Reading about the controversy around this live album was possibly more interesting than listening to this live album. I did think it sounded particularly clean, so reading conflicting statements about just how much of the finished production is overdubs was fascinating.

I would have much preferred a studio album on the generator, so finding out this is the only Thin Lizzy record on the list was disappointing.

This would probably have been a 2.5 but as no half stars,

2/5

Classic 80s.

The singles are all great, though I do have a particular fondness for Hungry Like The Wolf due to the Reel Big Fish ska cover version on a Duran Duran tribute album (which starts with a spoken word intro that includes the phrase "little bit of hot nookie, yeah?" and ends with "was that too much? I never know...").

Of the non-singles, I particularly enjoyed Last Chance on the Stairway and The Chauffeur.

This is getting a very solid 3/5 and I'm now going to listen to the Goldfinger cover of Rio (which is also an excellent Duran Duran ska-punk cover).

3/5

I only knew Criminal from this record, which I do like a lot, and we'd previously been given Fetch The Bolt Cutters by the generator, which I gave a 3 but really thought was a 3.5.

I really love her voice, but on top of that I think the instrumentation is also really interesting and beautiful in places. This sounds incredibly accomplished for a debut album (later reading that in 2022 Rolling Stone put it at number 25 on the top 100 debut albums of all time, wasn't a surprise... and made me want to check the list to see what albums didn't make it onto the generator).

On the more negative side, which is very much a personal preference for sub 5 minute songs (ideally sub 4 minutes), the tracks are often a little too long. It might be a little too samey in the middle section too.

Overall though, I really liked this. And slightly more than Fetch The Bolt Cutters, so

4/5

This contains a cover of one of my most hated songs ever (Unchained Melody) so, despite me being someone who enjoys a cover version, that didn't bode well.

Willie Nelson does get two albums on the list and I recognise this album was a massive hit, but it does seem weird that the man released 77 solo studio albums and the book decided a covers album was one of the two top choices to represent him. Feels a little dismissive.

I was mostly ambivalent to this album. Except Unchained Melody which I still hate.

2/5

Another artist where I knew the name but had never knowingly listened to any music.

I was not particularly into the first two tracks, but I liked Good Enough (which I admit is partially because the drums reminded me of, the significantly less cool, Two Princes by The Spin Doctors). I liked Who You Drivin Now? a lot too and, harmonica solo aside, Pokin' Around was enjoyable. I could have done without the snoring on Don't Fade IV.

Mark Arm's voice was occasionally a bit Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum, which I very much approve of, but ultimately for me this was fine, but not particularly stand out.

3/5

Sidenote: one of the facts Amazon Music gave me about Mudhoney made me love them a little:

"Mudhoney was given $20,000 to record the song "Overblown" for the Singles soundtrack. The band recorded the song for a grand total of $164, and pocketed the rest of the loot."

I don't get jazz at the best of times, but experimental jazz like this is 85% just discordant noise to me. I liked the bit of Spanish guitar playing we got briefly.

If I am to judge this against jazz the generator has previously thrown at me, I enjoyed it (a tiny bit) more than Bill Evans and less than Dave Brubeck so...

2/5

In general, this just isn't for me but it did grow on me over the course of the album. I liked good kid, with it's retro vibe and the music of Swimming Pools (Drank) was really cool. I also liked Sing About Me, I'm Dying Of Thirst and Compton.

I still don't like hiphop skits, and on a practical level, the skits being part of if the track on streaming so you'd be unable to skip through them, makes them even more annoying to me. They also make the album very long.

I feel like I'm probably not appreciating the short movie format of this album, but it's just fine to me.

3/5

In an effort to say something nice, Elizabeth Troy has nice voice but I kept expecting someone to yell "the crowd say bo selecta" at any moment.

I thought this was shite and I resent the 1001 generator for making me listen to it.

1/5

I have never been that fussed about Jagger's voice (something that has culminated this year in me taking the piss out of the way he sings the word strange in the Slow Horses theme, every time we watch an episode - "stwwwwaaaaange").

For the high points, I like Brown Sugar and I'm a fan of brass instruments, and there was much more of that than I expected. For the lows, as far as I'm concerned, jam sessions are only fun for the people playing them, so Can't You Hear Me Knocking and Bitch were absolutely not for me.

It was fine. One for the "never gonna choose to listen to it, won't turn it off if it turns up on shuffle" collection.

3/5

It's probably a bad sign that the two songs I liked best were covers. And yes I can see how Big Star influenced R.E.M., but frankly I'd rather just listen to R.E.M..

It's fine, just nothing really jumped out at me musically other than Down which I didn't like, but is absolutely bonkers. Lyrically, parts are really not good listening to this in 2025 (calling a song about a dying parent Holocaust, is... yeah, just no).

2/5

Due to mumbling Thom Yorke, I've so far found Radiohead albums a bit of a mixed bag in terms of my marking, but this one has No Surprises on it, and I love No Surprises.

I was a bit surprised to see the song from this album with the highest popularity on Amazon Music wasn't Karma Police, but instead was Let Down. I should have guessed it was Tiktok's fault, but it's still surprising to me that a nearly 30 year old album track can suddenly become massive due to social media - it made the Billboard top 100 in August!

On the negative points, there are now two songs on two different albums with a computer generated voice that I don't like (the other is "You Liked This (Okay, Computer!)" by Will Wood, named for Fitter Happier by Radiohead). I don't care that it's intended to invoke a certain emotional response - in me, the emotional response is irritated.

The singles are all great. From the non-singles, Electioneering is fantastic and I really liked Climbing Up The Walls.

I can absolutely understand why this album gets all the plaudits. It's not something I'd personally want to regularly listen to from start to finish, but it's incredibly accomplished.

4/5

I like this project because it keeps throwing up albums I meant to get around to listening to but never did. This is definitely one of them. I'm predisposed to like a supergroup combining a member of Blur and a member of The Clash, so I had high hopes.

By all rights I should hate Damon Albarn's singing, and he seems to be floating in and out of tune throughout this record, making the position even more tenuous... but I inexplicably really enjoy it. Although the really high bits on Behind The Sun really tested that enjoyment and I can absolutely understand people hating it.

I have a weird amount of goodwill towards him - he's had a career dominated (as least in the UK) by two big bands, but he constantly has side quests into other, odder, projects. He clearly loves music and to me it's really endearing.

I really enjoyed this record. It may be because I listened to it after waking up far too early while feeling a bit bleurgh, but it just fit the time and feeling perfectly. It felt like a slightly melancholy hug.

I also want to call out one of the most accurate descriptions of my country of birth ever written: "A stroppy little island, of mixed up people".

I think it's more a 4.5 but I'm going for:

4/5

Another album where the only track I knew was because Scott Klopfenstein (ex member of ska band Reel Big Fish) covers it on his Twitch livestreams (Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard). If I had a nickel for every time that's happened blah, blah, blah...

I really enjoyed this album. It was another where I played it through once, then immediately looped round and started again. I even, and this is almost unheard of, voluntarily listened to the bonus tracks.

My favourite tracks were Me and Julio, Everything Put Together Falls Apart, Hobo's Blues and Paranoia Blues. I'm not sure why the guy chose to put two songs called [blank] Blues on his album, and sequence them one after the other, but it shows a certain level of confidence.

My only negatives were that I swear he slips slightly into a fake Jamaican accent briefly on Mother and Child Reunion - just because it's reggae tinged Paul, doesn't mean you should be mimicking the accent - and a personal dislike of the flute on Duncan.

I did genuinely really enjoy this album though. I think this would be another 3.5 in a world of half stars (I think there's better Paul Simon to come), but I'm rounding up:

4/5

An album where I went in completely blind: to the best of my knowledge, I have never heard anything by them, or indeed heard of them at all, prior to this listen.

I liked parts, particularly any bits that leaned into a more reggae vibe and had lyrics (although I did a full on double take listing to The Rough and The Quick), but each track was too long for my liking, and without vocals on many songs, it made everything seem even longer. I liked I Stole Your Car though.

It at times reminded me of Massive Attack or an instrumental Gorillaz, but it's just not an album I'd sit down to listen to.

Once again, I'm back to wishing for half marks but this is going to get a

2/5

I heard The Strokes at the time this was released, but have never listened to the album. 11 songs, 35 minutes is a promising run time. No hanging around.

This sounds astonishingly early 2000s, I think mostly due to the guitar tone, which I'm all for. However I hate how far back in the mix and distorted the vocals are. I really like the shouty-scream vocals we occasionally get though.

I loved the singles when they came out, but over a full album, I'm not as big a fan. This would be a 3.5, but I'm going to go for

3/5

Side note: I had never seen the US cover of this album until the generator made me read the Wikipedia page. It's absolutely rubbish.