Reviews by ultraclear

Lol I had people in the 00s recommend flaming lips to me. This was so boring!

Influence Alert: Marina and the Diamonds totally bites a whole bunch of influence from ABBA, it’s so obvious after sitting with an ABBA album all the way through (having previously basically only known them from the Mama Mia soundtrack *killed by brick through the window*). I liked a few songs off this one, looking forward to hearing more from the generator

Similar to Deep Purple, lots of fun! The arrangements are fast, energetic, interesting. Noticing I’m tending to like a lot of 70s metal, then something happens 80s-00s that loses me really hard.

I find Steely Dan to be technically boring, but perfectly serviceable cooking & doing the dishes music

Yes’s good songs are some of my favorite stuff out there, but the individual albums have a lot of songs that just don’t work for me

Oh my god I loved this. I knew by reputation that Deep Purple’s one of the bands that built the bridge from hard rock to heavy metal, and something about that boundary creates stuff I like way more than straight metal. Lot of Prog in the alchemy here

Wish I liked this more, the thing they’re up to seems interesting

What the hell every single song on this is super well-known. Major touchpoint filled in that I had no idea I was even missing

Hell yeah I love The Departed

I don’t think he’s country, but he’s something adjacent. I liked this, found it pleasant

I think people I know like B&S? I don’t think I did.

Haha god damn I like Alanis. So many choices she makes on here that should be obnoxious on paper, but just end up being extremely charming

*“HOWWwOWWowwW apprOAHpriaTe”* absolutely delightful

This one really grew on me! Very pleasant first listen, and then I found myself coming back to it a lot afterward.

Didn’t like this as much as 2pac & public enemy, in terms of 90s rap

2pac’s another Huge name who’s a blind spot for me. I really need to revisit this one; I basically can’t retain lyrics unless I’m literally reading them along to the music, and I wasn’t able to do that when I was playing this.

One thing I’m learning through this project is I should probably be putting more reggae into my rotation. It tends to be slower than I usually go for, but otherwise checks a lot of my boxes

I liked this a lot! Kanye really has a gravity about him, where I feel like I interpret a lot of the generator’s other rap/hip-hop selections in context of what they mean in context of things before/after KW's big deal albums

Really good bathtub listening. I’ve heard this one describes as like an album constructed for audiophiles/people who care a lot about precise mixing, which feels true.

There’s a couple albums like this on here where my brain lights up when it hears the recognizable stuff, and then doesn’t retain the rest of the music. Baba O’Riley is indeed really good, but I’m struggling to take an honest accounting of “ok is it genuinely so much better than the rest of the album or are you just really familiar with this”

like “do you think these songs are good or bad based on radio exposure, or did the ones you liked get radio exposure because they were the good shit?” I don’t trust the second one as an explanation even if it feels true.

Another thing I’m trying to keep tabs on as I go through this is stringing together influence points toward things I knew before going in. For some reason as I listen to REM, I keep thinking of They Might Be Giants, which is weird because the music isn’t exactly similar. Something in the attitude? I dunno.