Reviews by ultraclear

third album i’ve gone through from this generator; first one where springsteen really clicked for me.

OK I wasn’t too taken in by Darkness on the Edge of Town, but I liked this one quite a bit. He’s doing more shouting and growling than moaning here, and even when he does do moaning-voice I can deal with it better because it’s not nearly as pronounced in the audio mix.

Oh wow, I had no idea this album was as old as this. So, clearly an inspiration point for a lot of the stuff being done in the late 80s/early 90s, just to pull from stuff I’ve covered from the generator, I’m hearing Pixies and Green Day in this. But Violent Femmes doing it a lot better imo.

British post-punk, don’t have much new to say there

Even when it got slow, was still very pleasant listening. Soul music, indeed.

I generally like funk; this is not the best that’s out there. I like the didgeridoo though.

Very busy, all over the place, lots of fun!

Knew I was in trouble the second I saw the guitar and hay bales on the album cover. Prine’s a fun lyricist, but I still can’t really deal with country music

“Vagabond Holes” is an alright song and an excellent song name. Otherwise album forgettable + way too goddamn long

First song is literally them just yelling “Chic! Chic” over and over, then the next song is the unavoidable “Le Freak.” It’s a testament to how much I like disco sensibilities, funky basslines etc that I like this album a lot, since on paper I shouldn’t have patience for it.

First I ever heard of Amy Winehouse was literally news about her dying, so coming late to the party here, as usual. Undeniably excellent voice, though at the end of the day if I’m going for lounge music I’d still probably go for Tom Waits first, just the kind of person I am. GF tells me Back to Black is apparently where her best stuff is, though, so looking forward to that one coming up in the rotation.

Beginning to think jazz, salsa, etc are just kind of a bad fit for how I’ve been listening to the albums each day, because with every one of these my experience has been enjoying the first few songs, but then getting completely sick of it by the end of the album. Like I think this just probably isn’t music to be listened to in silence, by myself, on headphones! but it’s not like I own a bar or a club, so,

I’ve always found The Beatles to be pretty alright, but I’ve never been able to check into the degree of hype and mystique around them (the most interested I’ve ever been in them is a documentary that came across PBS once that was getting into all the studio techniques they’d used to produce the Sgt Pepper album, like the craft end of things was just more compelling to me than the album’s actual music). All that said, I really like Revolver, kind of marks the beginning of the Beatles era that I find more interesting (lol drugs).

Aerosmith’s cute every once in a while, but kind of wear on me during the course of an entire album

This one grew on me as it went on, but I still think I’m more interested about the album’s thematics and John Grant’s history than I am in the experience of actually listening to it.

I knew of Blur, but somehow made it this far without realizing this was a Damon Albarn project. Also they’re a solid coupla decades more recent than I’d assumed for some fuckin reason. Any case, I had fun with this one, probably one of the better entries out of the kind of stuff rock bands were putting out during the 90s.

Obligatory Lebowski

I dunno what I was supposed to be taking away from this. The literature on this one calls it “sophisti-pop” which I guess just means “80s jazz + they rap at some point”. For the range of stuff touched on, there’s nothing in here that I can’t find better-done elsewhere.

Had to skip “Around the World” because I value not having that one stuck in my head for the rest of the week, but yeah, Daft Punk Good. Sitting down with an album from them was a weird experience because that’s really not the context where I’m usually hearing them, but as always with EDM/adjacent it’s pretty much ideal focusing music for me.

A man with a very gravely voice sings buncha sleazy songs.

God damn I love Tom Waits so much. Most of the songs on here are extremely good and even the ones I was bored with are still compelling because it’s him singing.