R.E.M.: Reckoning
CD Audio I have it
R.E.M.: Collapse into Now
CD Audio I have it ★★★★★
Their best, most complete, and most representative album since "New Adventures in Hi-Fi": inspired, diverse, with songwriting at the highest levels, perfect as a concluding record.
R.E.M.: Automatic For The People
CD Audio I have it ★★★★★
From the dark of "Drive" to the light of "Find the river," swimming through the night.
R.E.M.: Murmur
CD Audio I have it ★★★★★
Byrds, New Wave, Velvet Underground, Post Punk and melodic sensibility. Not the absolute best of R.E.M. (among the best, of course), but a fundamental debut for the Alternative Rock that they will help shape.
  • hjhhjij
    1 jun 14
    Beautiful album. I won't express my opinion on better/not better because I'm still stuck on "Fables of the Reconstruction" (very beautiful as well).
  • madcat
    1 jun 14
    If you're going in chronological order, next up are life's rich pageant and document, start licking your lips :D
  • hjhhjij
    1 jun 14
    I was really thinking about the chronological order, but I don't know when :D Thanks for the previews mad.
  • De...Marga...
    2 jun 14
    A group among my absolute favorites; here engaged in a debut already featuring significant songs like "Catapult," which beautifully kicks off the side.
  • De...Marga...
    2 jun 14
    ...usual mess...the B-side of the vinyl. One of the best rock bands of the last few decades, at least for me.
  • hellraiser
    2 jun 14
    Beautiful, excellent from start to finish, and one of my all-time favorites by the American band.
R.E.M.: New Adventures In Hi Fi
CD Audio I have it ★★★★★
One of their peaks, together with "Automatic for the People" of course.
  • Johnny b.
    5 sep 17
    Even more beautiful than I remembered. A heterogeneous album that showcases the strengths of a band capable of lasting a long time and doing so well.
  • Giannetto
    8 sep 20
    very beautiful, bought it as soon as it was released. Patti Smith appears on the record... still today a great friend of Stipe
R.E.M.: Up
CD Audio I have it ★★★★★
"It starts as a transitional album, becoming a blazing beacon" [quote from giov]
  • De...Marga...
    25 sep 17
    Five stars for me too; "Airportman," "Lotus," "At my most Beautiful," "Walk Unafraid," "Daysleeper," and especially "Diminished," one of the tracks by the guys from Athens that I absolutely prefer. A beautiful album, perhaps their last unforgettable page.
  • madcat
    25 sep 17
    ...and "Sad Professor," and "Hope" (how I love the latter, it gives me chills every time) etc. etc. truly precious and shining gems.
  • De...Marga...
    25 sep 17
    Do you know what I’m going to do as soon as possible, madcat? I’m going to listen to the whole album again!!!
  • Johnny b.
    25 sep 17
    Lately, I've been rediscovering R.E.M. albums that I listened to only partially and in a rush. They're amazing, but there is one of their flop albums.
  • madcat
    25 sep 17
    True Johnny, it's "Around the Sun" of course, I've been listening to it again lately and it doesn't seem so bad (I initially trashed it), their class remains, but certainly compared to the others, the composition of the songs doesn't shine like usual and in a hypothetical ranking of all their albums, it would be at the bottom. In any case, it's still enjoyable. Reveal, Accelerate, and Collapse into Now (I particularly love this last one) are albums that are great for me.
Radiohead: OK Computer
CD Audio I have it ★★★★★
Radiohead: Kid A
CD Audio I have it ★★★★★
Radiohead: The Bends
CD Audio I have it ★★★★★
Masterpiece and their absolute peak, as far as I'm concerned.
  • east of eden80
    17 nov 15
    Album bought in... 2001. Yes, I agree with you; however, it's sooo sad, I listen to it rarely because it makes me very gloomy!
  • Alemisso
    18 nov 15
    I've also reevaluated it after realizing the quality of Blackstar, Nice Dream, and Bones... in addition to the good filler role of Bullet Proof and Sulk. The rest are masterpieces of pop-rock music.
  • madcat
    18 nov 15
    I consider "Sulk" one of the best tracks on the album, but they are all at a very high level for me.
  • Alemisso
    18 nov 15
    True, the first few times I listened to it, I said: "wow, but no one has noticed this one, it’s amazing!"
  • Loconweed
    18 nov 15
    petition to abolish "for what it's worth," "in my opinion," "in my view." It happens to me sometimes too, but it’s not necessary to specify that what we’re saying is our thought unless we’re schizophrenic. Here, I finally found the place to say it. Peace.
  • madcat
    18 nov 15
    You're right, in my opinion obviously.
  • Alemisso
    19 nov 15
    Ahaha
  • madcat
    19 nov 15
    : D
Renato De Maria: Paz!
CD Audio I have it ★★★★★
I started to get to know and love Paz after watching this movie. I've said it all.
  • hjhhjij
    8 jul 13
    And this is a point in favor of the film. However, I would never give it a 5; actually, I was very disappointed, perhaps because when I watched it, I already had titles like "Pentothal," "Pompeo," and the various stories of Zanardi stamped in my mind.
  • madcat
    8 jul 13
    In my opinion, the director and actors did a great job; they reinterpreted the complex atmospheres of Pazienza's comics, creating something personal and original. In this sense, Fiabeschi is emblematic, as he has a tiny, almost nonexistent space in the comics: the director used this to create a character from scratch that, at the same time, encapsulates a great deal of Paz's universe, paradoxically making him the most representative of his work in the film (along with Penthotal, which in the film becomes a fusion of Penthotal and Pompeo, two souls that the director manages to blend perfectly).
  • hjhhjij
    9 jul 13
    I appreciated the sincere tribute to Paz with this film, but the modifying and mixing ultimately resulted in a movie that didn’t resonate with me at all, what a shame. Yet, I'm not saying it’s a terrible film.
  • madcat
    9 jul 13
    In fact, what I really enjoyed was this creative mixing while staying true to the spirit of the works that makes this film great. If it had just recreated, I don’t know, an episode of Zanardi (which it actually did, and in fact, that's the part of the film I like the least), the story of Pompeo and the story (?) of Penthotal would have seemed a bit cliché to me. In the end, there are two different languages, cinema and comics, and it's right that there are modifications and reworkings, obviously not distortions of the spirit of the work.
  • hjhhjij
    9 jul 13
    "In the end, they are two different languages, cinema and comics." This is obvious. What hasn't convinced me is the result. Perhaps if he had limited himself to recreating Pompeo in film, it would have been worse. Or it could have turned out to be something amazing, who knows :)
  • madcat
    9 jul 13
    By the way, did you know that they did a theatrical adaptation of Pompeo? I haven't seen it though.
  • hjhhjij
    9 jul 13
    Damn, when did this project come about? A theatrical adaptation of Pompeo, ambitious to say the least, but undoubtedly interesting. I had no idea about it.
  • madcat
    9 jul 13
    It was at least four years ago, if I remember correctly, I was expecting something like that instead. There are some perfect monologues in Pompeo for a transposition (see also Santamaria's monologue in Paz!, taken literally from a monologue in Pompeo).
  • hjhhjij
    9 jul 13
    But indeed it makes sense, it's doable. And it's interesting. But now go and dig up that adaptation :D
  • madcat
    9 jul 13
    Who are you telling, I wanted to go there and instead I missed it :(
  • hjhhjij
    9 jul 13
    Well, at this point let's hope for a miracle, you never know. A little while ago I found on YouTube Black Rider by Wilson-Waits-Burroughs and I watched it there, with the actors singing the pieces written by Waits and performing. The spoken parts were in German and luckily I had studied a bit of it :D You never know mad ;)
  • madcat
    19 sep 13
    The new film by Max Mazzotta (Fiabeschi in the film) titled "Fiabeschi torna a casa" has been released, and I can't wait to see it.
Ride: Nowhere
CD Audio I have it ★★★★★
The latest edition, the one with the added EP "Today Forever," is, quite literally, the other cornerstone of shoegaze. So ethereal was Loveless, so fluid is this, like a mountain of water that overwhelms but does not destroy: it transforms, modifies, purifies.
  • De...Marga...
    9 jun 14
    Great quote madcat; an excellent album for a great band.