Reviews by lukazimir_

2/5. I went into this album with exceptionally low expectations as the previous Bee Gee’s album I had on the generator “Trafalgar” is still probably the single worst album I’ve had on here so far. That is to say, Odessa exceeded my expectations! It still isn’t good, but it’s better than I thought it would be and I respect the fact that it actually has some ambition and ideas. there’s even a few tracks I thought were kinda neat like “Whisper Whisper” or the opening title track. But much of this album is still exceptionally lame soft-rock, and it absolutely does not end up earning a runtime that goes over an hour.

1/5. “Gimme an album with no soul, and make sure it sounds like it’s made of plastic too.” 80’s pop saxophone I despise you and will never forgive your crimes against music. Luckily it only appears on a spare few tracks here, but even without it this album is just nothing. The type of stuff that plays in the background of a terrible hallmark romcom.

4/5. This is some tasty salsa. I am not a dancer, but if I was this album would absolutely have me moving, everything here just works extremely well from the vocal delivery to the percussion and horns and everything else. Once you hear that bass line on opener “Plástico” you’ll know you’re in good hands.

3/5. My thoughts on this album were constantly swapping between good and bad but in the end I think I’m leaning a bit more positive on it. It’s a record that spends a lot of its time taking the piss out of rock and roll machismo, though sometimes it commits to the bit so hard that it just kinda becomes the thing it making fun of. The part of the album that ended up winning me over though was the guitar and bass playing on this thing, which are genuinely pretty great throughout. But the songs themselves are a mixed bag for me, some good, some very much not good.

4/5. So today I have a confession on my end, despite being a self proclaimed music lover I have never listened to an entire Sly and the Family Stone album until today. And damn was I missing out, this thing is great. The opening title track is an immediate banger, as is “somebody’s watching you.” I also love the 13 minute long blues jam of “Sex Machine.” Great riffs, great horns, and solid political/social commentary all throughout this thing.

2.5/5. I was very indifferent on this one on the whole. I quite liked the opener “the thrill of it all” as well as the track “Casanova” but the rest of it was very in one ear and out the other, just some meat-and-potatoes 70’s glam rock. there wasn’t any moments where I actively hated it, but also very few moments where I liked/loved it either outside of the previously mentioned highlights. Meh.

4/5. Though not the first “heavy” album, Black Sabbath’s self titled debut is still the foundation on which most metal music would grow on. And it is a damn good foundation too. The opening title track has this slow, distorted riff that looms over you like a giant beast. The a few tracks later you get the massive multi-phase “Wasp/Behind the Wall of sleep/Basically/N.I.B” which is straight up one of the bands best songs, especially when it gets into that iconic NIB section which has one of the best rock riffs of all time.

Like most debuts, it’s a bit rougher and looser than their future material, but that roughness also lends itself very well to this heavier style of rock. They would go on to make a few even better albums, but as a debut this thing is amazing.

4/5. A pretty great hour of Neo-Soul which mixes in a lot of jazzy elements, all held together by the strong vocals of Badu herself. The opener “Penitentiary Philosophy” is the most energetic song on the album and features a great build. But from there the instrumentals get a lot more slowed down and bare, which works very well for Erykah Brady’s confessional style of lyricism. The biggest highlight for me though is the massive closer “Green Eyes” which is a breakup song that goes through several interesting phases during its ten minute run.

2/5. I’m not usually a huge stickler for vocals in music. I love a lot of “bad” singers whether that be Bob Dylan or Phil Elverum. But for some reason, Dizzee Rascals voice on this album just annoys me. It deserves some flowers for being one of the first UK Rap records to actually gain international attention I guess, but in the 23 years since its release there’s just so many better albums in British hip-hop that in retrospect I don’t see much of a reason to revisit this outside of historical context. The vocals are as previously mentioned annoying, the lyricism is nothing to ride home about, the flow is passable, the beats are basic UK grime stuff. not a big fan.

4.5/5. Fun drinking game: Take a shot every time the word “funk” is said on a parliament or Funkadelic album. You’ll die.

Jokes aside, Mothership Connection is among the best funk albums of all time, this thing is an absolute unstoppable groove machine whether that be the sticky bass/synths of “Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication” or the spoken words over the intro track “P-Funk.” One of those albums that’s impossible to not at least nod your head to.

4/5. Listening to this album after all the recent stuff about Dre “embracing AI to make music” feels a bit depressing, because albums like the Chronic make you remember that he actually used to make good art (though granted he’s been past his prime for far longer than those dumb AI claims.)

The Chronic stands as one of the definitive west coast hip-hop and G-funk records of the 90’s and in my opinion it still holds up really well today despite some of the usual misogyny and homophobia that plague a lot of older rap records. And it’s loaded with great tracks whether that be iconic tracks like “Nuthin’ but a G Thang” or deeper cuts like “The Roach” which directly interpolates Parliament's “P-funk.” Of course you can’t talk about this album without also mentioning Snoop Dogg who appears on the majority of tracks and gives some really good verses (unfortunately Snoop is also a depressing shadow of his former self these days.) I do tend to be more of an east-coast fan when it comes to 90’s rap, but the Chronic is an absolute classic.

3/5. This album was way hornier than I was expecting, which does lead to some questionable lyrics (especially on the song “In and out of Paris and London”) but also based on the tone of everything here the band seems to be taking the piss out of it all. It doesn’t all work for me, some of it gets a bit too cheesy, but there are some genuinely great highlights here like the opener and biggest hit “Something for the weekend” or “through a long and sleepless night.”

5/5. Up there with the best live albums ever made.the story goes that after recording “Folsom Prison Blues” in the 1950’s, inmates began writing Cash letters asking if he’d play a show in a prison. Over a decade later in 1967 thanks to some shifting around at his record label, Cash was able to do just that and performed at Folsom Prison. Which ended up being a major revival for his career musically as he was struggling for much of the 60’s before this (thanks in part to severe drug problems.)

The biggest boon to the audience of this album being prisoners is how they react to the music, they cheer at every act of violence and cruelty that cash sings of and it’s hilarious. As for Cash himself, he is at the top of his game here as both a singer and a showman and you can feel that he was having so much fun playing this concert.

Of course with the show being at Folsom prison he opens with “Folsom Prison Blues” but the hits keep coming from there whether that be “Cocaine Blues” or “25 minutes to go” (which was actually originally written and performed by poet Shel Silverstein who Cash worked with a number of times.) the album even closes off with a song written by a Folsom Prison inmate titled “Greystone Chapel.”

At Folsom Prison is both one of the greatest live albums and greatest country albums, and it is always a joy to revisit.

5/5. Rage Against the Machines self titled debut makes its intentions clear with its album cover, which is a photo of a Vietnamese Buddhist monk immolating himself to protest against South Vietnam and their oppression of Buddhists.

The album itself is angry and as blunt with its messaging as a hammer to the face (which has still somehow not stopped moronic conservatives from blasting “Killing in the Name” at rallies.) however that bluntness is to the albums advantage, as it works perfectly with Zach De La Rocha’s delivery, creating this sense of political righteousness and clarity, like the rap-metal version of a political revolutionary.

The songs themselves here are all fantastic, there is not a weak-link in this track list. There’s of course the big hit “killing in the name” which tackles police brutality, comparing the officers of the LAPD and their actions to the lynchings performed by the KKK. And there’s “Bullet in the Head” which has maybe the best build-up on the whole record in its back half. You even get Tools Maynard James Keenan appearing on “Know your Enemy.”

This album predates the rise of Nu-Metal by quite a few years, however it easily clears almost anything from that scene and is in my mind the definitive rap-metal album.

4/5. One of the essential indie albums of the 2000’s. Its production is so dense that it can sometimes overwhelm the senses, like on the opener “In the Flowers” once the instrumental fully kicks in. At points it almost feels like if the Beach Boys were a synth-pop group. However in all that chaos, there is a lot of beauty to be found in this album once you approach it on its own terms. Whether that be the catchy insanity of “Summertime Clothes” or the slower burn of “No More Runnin.”

2/5. Classic case of the double album that really doesn’t need to be a double album. I get what she was going for here, with the first disc being more hip-hop influenced and sample heavy and the second disc having more live instrumentation, but the issue is that both discs have quite a bit of bloat. It would have been better to just mix the best tracks of both discs into a leaner ~40-45 minute album. As it stands though, the bloat on this thing really brings it down and lessens the impact of any of the highlights.

3/5. The first half of the album has some strong cuts, especially the nearly 12 minute long “Papa was a Rollin’ Stone” but past that track it mostly just becomes some very standard Soul ballads. Not bad ballads by any means, but not among the groups best either. Though I do think the closer “Do Your Thing” picks it back up a bit again with some great horn and piano pits as well as some background percussion. Definitely a mixed bag, but I enjoyed it well enough.

2/5. Queen 2 is split into two halves (the two sides of its vinyl record basically) with “side white” which was primarily written by Brian May and “side black” which was primarily written by Freddy Mercury. Of the two I’d said Freddy’s tracks are overall better, though I didn’t love either side in general, I’m just not a big fan of this early harder/profiler phase of Queen’s career, the glam rock they’d evolve into just fit them much better. My favorite track is probably “the fairy fellers master stroke” which has some solid harmonies, but beyond that…ehhh.

3/5. Solid album, though it definitely doesn’t rank among the best east coast hip-hop records of the 90’s for me. The beats are pretty simple but I honestly thought they were pretty good overall! Theres a hypnotic quality to them. Lyrically Jeru is alright, though there are some clunky ass bars here. Like on the song “Da Bichez” with the line “But you can’t obtain this, poppin’ that coochie for Gucci” which is so dumb that it loops back around to being hilarious. But there are still strong lyrical showings here like on the closer “Statik.” Will I revisit this one in full? Probably not, but I’m glad I listened to it regardless.

3/5. I tend not to be a fan of the Smiths and Morrissey outside of “The Queen is Dead” which I begrudgingly admit is a great record. And in the process of doing this generator I have learned that I do just prefer my Jangle-Pop with R.E.M. flavor. That being said, Meat is Murder is also a fine enough album, there’s some good pop hooks in this thing on tracks like “That Joke isn’t funny anymore” though there’s also a number of tracks like the closing title track which just feel like boring dirges. So it adds up in total to be a mixed bag for me.