Reviews by littlestlassloves

I cannot entirely tell whether I liked this or not. I liked the guitar, the way the vocals were slightly echoey. I'm not sold of the wibbly wobbly voice and the random quoting of Elvis. I think I possibly liked the idea of it more that the reality.

It's going to get a slightly baffled 2.

2/5

A band that, given the music I was into in the 90s, you'd think I'd have heard a lot of, but I've never really listened to Drive Like Jehu before. This despite being aware of them because of a deep love of Rocket From The Crypt (John Reis, guitarist of DLJ, became Speedo, guitarist and singer in RFTC).

I enjoyed this a lot, but because the guitar was so reminiscent of RFTC in places, I found myself wishing John Reis was singing rather than Rick Froberg. That's not to say he was bad at all, and his screamy vocals worked great with the guitars, but I just love the vocals in RFTC.

I will say that they needed to learn brevity. Luau as the worst offender is far far far far too long, which coupled with the screamy siren sound you hear the moment it ends and Super Unison starts, was A LOT. But generally I'd have enjoyed everything were each track nearer 4 minutes than 8.

Discovering than one of the band now owns a donut shop where many of the flavours are named after bands (X-ray Speculoos!) was deeply enjoyable.

I spent ages trying to decide on a score. I really liked the sound, but the length of some tracks was such a deal breaker for me because there wasn't enough movement of sound to justify 9 minute songs. Just know that in my heart, this score has a 0.5 added to it:

3/5

Two days in a row where I realistically could have skipped the listen and jumped straight to the marking (yesterday being 5/5 for Different Class by Pulp).

I have heard this album a lot in my life. It's a record I associate with doing Uni coursework in the spare room of the house I grew up in while trying not to lose my mind. I still listen to it every now and then and while my opinion has changed slightly, I still think its a really good listen.

Del The Funky Homosapien is a big part of that. His rapping is one of the things I love most about the record, especially on Clint Eastwood which was the massive hit from this record in the UK (albeit the remix version). Also, I have said before that I'm a fan of Damon Albarn's work and I'll reiterate that here.

I don't think this is without flaws through. Damon shouldn't try and sing in falsetto for a start (Man Research (Clapper)) and I think a lot of the time songs are a bit too long and meandering (I'm looking at you Double Bass). But it's still something I would happily put on to listen to.

Not quite a 5 anymore to me (it would have been in 2001) and it's a spiritual 4.5, but for the purposes of this scoring system it's getting a:

4/5

Jarvis Cocker is a brilliant human being. Never has a man who looks and dresses so much like an accountant been such a great frontman who inexplicably exudes confidence and sex appeal. I have no idea why it works; it just does.

And this album is a brilliant piece of work, from start to finish. Snapshots into the lives of people in a certain demographic in the UK, which aren't always pleasant but always feel real.

Because I always knew what mark I was giving this, I read a few reviews while listening. The people dismissing it as "a bit rapey" or "creepy" really don't seem to understand that Pulp aren't endorsing these events, just laying them out for you observe them. Not every song has to shy away from the darker things in life.

A great album, that was never not getting:

5/5

I'm on my 7th Bowie album on the generator (despite only being 40% complete), there are two more to go, and I am once again annoyed that They Might Be Giants have zero albums on this list. No artist needs nine albums on the list! No one!

I liked the brassy sound of Dirty Boys. Bowie sounds more like Nick Cave during parts of The Stars (Are Out Tonight), plus it reminds me of Pulp for some reason, and I had completely forgotten about the video to this song starred Tilda Swinton. If You Can See Me is really fucking weird, which I don't always think of as a negative in music, but in this case the alien backing vocal was a step too far for me. How Does The Grass Grow also has some really odd ya ya yas but I did quite like that one.

To me, this feels like a firmly middle of the road:

3/5

I didn't like the last Roxy Music album and I don't like this one either. At least I'm consistent.

1/5

I find it hard to have an opinion on this. I just don't really get on with post-punk, gothy shit as a general rule.

It doesn't inspire enough rage/disappointment/fury in me get a 1, which I guess is such a bad sign, it should get it on the basis that it's inspiring zero emotion in me. But it's going to scrape a

2/5

Another looooong album. But full of very short songs. I think that's my preference. Had this been 1 hour 14 minutes of 6 songs I'd have been wanting to throw stuff.

I had no idea Minuteman were responsible for the theme tune to Jackass. And I genuinely really enjoy that song, and actually quite a lot of this record. I probably won't listen to it in full again, but it passed the time enjoyably while it was happening. Make this 40 minutes and I'd probably be fully onboard.

3/5

This was a weird one for me: I really liked parts of this and really didn't enjoy others. I'm not sure it helped that he frequently sounds like Thom York, and I feel very conflicted about his singing voice too. I liked The One You Love, Hometown Waltz (because it reminded me of Harry Nillson), Memphis Skyline and Waiting For A Dream.

Ultimately I think this ends up a pretty middle of the road:

3/5

Live double album of 70's psychedelic rock? For fucks sake!

1/5

I just don't really get The Rolling Stones. I am still not a big fan of Jagger's voice, I hate that so many things just seem to end in a long jam session, and the whole thing just seems to last forever. The brass I like because I like the sound of brass instruments, but I just don't find this particularly interesting as an album.

I think I gave the previous Stones album the generator provided a 3, and while I don't think this is that much better or worse, averaging the two out to a 2.5 seems appropriate, so:

2/5

Yesterday I watched an old episode of Scrubs with a Coral song in it, and I thought to myself, I really should listen to some more of their songs: the generator is getting too powerful.

I love his gravely voice. The rest is good but not earth shattering. I would happily listen to it as background music without turning it off, and I may even choose to put it on sometimes, but it's not something I will continually return to. I think The Zutons fill essentially the same niche but do it better.

Still, not bad:

3/5

I really liked the first track: it was all beautiful atmospheric strings and Björk's ethereal voice melding perfectly. And then pretty much everything else that came after was a disappointment to me.

It just didn't gel for me at all. It's all relative obviously, and it's so far from my least favourite albums on the generator, I was just really hoping I'd have more fun with it.

2/5

I knew going into this, that this was the lowest scoring album globally, so I sort of expected to hate it. And... I don't?

I mean it's not something I particularly want to listen to, and honestly probably about 50% of it isn't really music so much as clips of people talking bollocks over droning, but it's less offensive than a number of other albums this generator made me listen to. I still hate that Liars album with a fiery passion, but this cannot inspire that much anger in me.

I am never, ever, ever going to listen to it again but, you know, I sort of understand why some people might?

1/5 (but it genuinely might have got a 1.5 out of me if the option were available)

Last time a Van Morrison album appeared on this list, it was so long I was facilating between despondent and homicidal by the time it finished. This album at a nice, sensible 38 minutes gave me more hope.

Moondance is great song that I mostly knew from Barenaked Ladies singing it as an interlude in a version of The King Of Bedside Manor recorded in a bathroom. It's weird how you sometimes end up discovering songs through very non-standard pathways.

I really liked Come Running. I really didn't like Everyone (too pan pipey). Glad Tidings kept morphing into Brown Eyed Girl.

Ultimately this evens out to "it's fine" for me. So...

2/5

I've struggled to have an opinion about this. It's fine. It weirdly made me think of the TV series Roseanne until it turned into the actual theme tune to Absolutely Fabulous.

2/5

I like the music far more than the vocals, although honestly I suspect the whole thing is an absolute blast to see live. On record, I enjoyed it, but I didn't love it. I liked the first half of the album better than the second and ironically I didn't really like Maps which was the big hit.

Its getting a straight-down-the-middle, perfectly acceptable:

3/5

I really, really enjoyed this. It reminded me of all sorts of artists I like, like Blur, Barenaked Ladies and The Dear Hunter, all for really different reasons.

I knew nothing going into it and listened to it multiple times the same day. I will definitely listen again. Not sure I can quite stretch to a 5, but...

4/5

My third Pixies album during this process, after two "It was alright, I guess" reviews. Well, we've finally cracked it! This one I liked!

It helped enormously that Surfer Rosa is the album with Where Is My Mind? and Gigantic on it two songs I already knew I enjoyed, but I actually really got into the whole thing. I cannot actually explain why this one appealed to me in a way the others didn't though. It just felt (to me) like a more cohesive, catchy, album.

I don't have a lot to say about it, other than it's getting a surprising:

4/5

Semi-regularly when listening to Generator albums, I'll have a couple of runs through a record so I can really make sure I'm happy with my marking. But when your (double) album is this long, that ain't happening!

Each of the records that make up this album are longer than I generally want an album to be (58 minutes and 63 minutes respectively) so my patience wore very thin by the end. Which is a shame because there are a number of tracks which I genuinely love.

I owned Bullet With Butterfly Wings on a cassette single and 15 year old me adored that thing. It's still a fantastic song all these years later, as are a number of the other singles from this album. Tonight Tonight and 1979 I also remember very fondly. But while I love those tracks, I never bought the record in its heyday and I genuinely can't imagine listening through it all again.

I will give it credit for being pretty varied in terms of sound (to the extent that a couple of times I had to check my music app hadn't somehow skipped to another artist) and when it leans into the distorted rockier end of their spectrum, I really enjoy it. But it's just so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so unnecessarily long.

3/5

P.S. Billy Corgan is an egotistical arsehole.