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I don't agree about the '90s: At least Dirty and Washing Machine are on the same level as this one, in my opinion.

They are very beautiful albums, especially "Washing Machine," the best post-this one, but they lose a bit on a whole series of things, certainly very personal and subjective, which range from the atmospheres and the images evoked by the first 5 albums (different, obviously, from each other) to the overall quality of the tracks (which remained high even after, of course) to the ideas and sound inventions. I believe their best drive came from 1982 to 1988 but without taking anything away, truly, from what they did afterward. I don’t discard almost anything by Sonic Youth except for 2-3 more recent albums, which seem like fluff compared to all the beautiful things they created.

Fluff in the sense, these few mistaken albums in the end, with what they gave us before (which they never really messed up, even the less successful things were theirs, you know, poorly executed, but still theirs).

I must say that I greatly prefer the two mentioned from the '90s over Evol and especially over Sister!

It's a matter of taste. By now, I know your tastes well; I know where your preferences usually lie, so I’m not surprised. But I can't agree at least with that "Gran Lunga" :-)

Oh, but of course! Of course you can't agree. What has always seemed evident to me (hence that "Gran lunga") is that the average level of song composition is significantly higher.

Explain that "average level of compositions" though (I don't think either of us is an expert in musical composition, I think, or did I miss something) because to me it’s a matter of different stylistic orientation and not quality in the compositions, which in "EVOL" and especially in "Sister" are seeking the perfect hybrid (aka "Daydream Nation") between noise experimentation and a more "indie-rock" vision of their music. In particular, "Sister" has, what might be for you its limit (?), that more "rocker" spirit and the more communicatively urgent approach of the band, the more direct and therefore less calculated, composed, and "refined." The things from the '90s, at least some of them, are cleaner, more normalized, of skilled craftsmanship, but I don’t think this is actually a factor that can be attributed to better compositional ability. If, on the other hand, you believe that the songs in "Washing Machine" are better than those in "Sister," which is quite understandable given the nice differences between the two albums (and there's an 8-year gap, a lifetime), this is also a matter of your musical sensitivity, perhaps leaning more towards their "refined" sound (so to speak, it's still Sonic Youth) but not a real compositional discriminant. Putting aside all the rambling, I must say that objectively in "Sister" the urgency I mentioned earlier leads in some songs to effective but somewhat limited compositions, so a bit of lesser compositional inspiration makes sense, in my opinion, but I don't find it that relevant or that stark compared to the subsequent albums. And I really don’t see it at all in "EVOL," which is perhaps, although objectively "transitional," a bit paradoxically their "perfect" album alongside Daydream. I then don’t care because nothing and no one will take away the crown of their best album from "Bad Moon Rising" :D

Great topic and great discussion, which is very dear to me (the one about compositional quality/better songs, which I actually see as synonyms): no, my point is not about differences in sounds, it's a matter of quality. The inspiration of the melodies and the construction of the piece, I don't know how else to explain myself, so I’ll try to illustrate with an example. Think of a Beatles album where all the songs are as beautiful as, let's say, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and another one where all the pieces are like "All Together Now," or a Pink Floyd album all on the level of, I don't know, "Comfortably Numb" and another all on the level of "San Tropez": now, I may not be an expert in musical composition, but the difference in quality seems evident to me. That "a bit limited and somewhat less inspired compositionally" that you also mention for "Sister" (indeed, EVOL is, from this point of view, far superior for me too), and so I see that we understand each other, I see it as "very limited" and with a compositional quality that clearly drops, both compared to what came before and what comes after (I consider the difference with Daydream Nation enormous, hardly comparable).

As the good Vincent said in "Pulp Fiction," "We’ll continue this later." Now I'm off to watch "The Favourite."

"of quality. inspiration of melodies" Eh but this is a subjective criterion see? For heaven's sake, absolutely sacred. But even though it’s obviously true that compositional quality = better songs, we need to see from which angle we are looking at this compositional quality, what they are composing, in what genre and in what attitude should it be framed? Not to mention that the "best songs," if we take this point for granted, become very subjective and subject to our tastes and sensitivities. A bit more "objectively," it must be said that the writing of "Sister," even though not always at the highest level (but for me largely it is), actually works quite well at a time when they were more than ever trying to combine their experimentation with a song form that is much more "direct" ("Hot Wire My Heart" is illustrative from this point of view and in my opinion is an effective little Sonic Youth-esque song). It might have a couple of less interesting songs (which is not the case in the previous or the subsequent albums), but that's a minor sin; other songs are of excellent quality, perfectly in line with what they were trying to do at the time. Ultimately, I simply think that you didn’t particularly like the songs, but that’s more attributable to taste than to any decline in their compositional inspiration (yes, okay, a couple of dips in tone, it doesn’t always have the expressive strength of Daydream, its compactness—despite being shorter) that you "perceive." For instance, I’m not saying that in "Goo" or "Dirty" they are composing less well, with fewer ideas; they were changing style and the level of the songs remains good, but for me, the strength of the writing indeed diminishes because I preferred the way they did it before. The discussion is strange and intricate because it’s inevitably filtered through our subjectivity even though there are also some objective parameters out there, there, somewhere, BEHIND YOU!

True, the discourse is quite complex: I essentially agree that without a doubt, as always, the subjective factor is at play, just as it is also true that there are in some ways objective factors (otherwise, picking up on the example I made above, one couldn't even claim that Comfortably Numb is superior by a galaxy to San Tropez, and I would say objectively, yes) that make you realize that a certain piece is better than another. Then again, I pulled out a couple of striking examples of qualitative difference: often the discourse is much more linked to "nuances" than to a "black/white" perspective.

Not bad as a debut, really not bad; and it already contains a masterpiece: "The Burning Spear."

Milestone.

I only have the one with the unpronounceable title, which is beautiful. I think I'm going to buy this one soon.

Vivadixie is the best, but this... Let’s say this one is more melancholic, you know. And I’m fond of it because I discovered them through this, drawn in by Waits.

Rarely have I felt such heartbreaking sadness. Only certain things by the Eels come close.

Among the contemporaries maybe... But first there was always Nick Drake, the progenitor.

I am ignorant on the subject, and I deduce that I will have to fill this gap as soon as possible. Can I start from here, or do you recommend another beginning?

One of the first three, go ahead.

Oh well, Nick is Nick! In the end, the common thread is always the same: not exactly cheerful people, with an amazing talent, who often, alas, have left the scene as we know. And it seems he has managed to escape, at least... for now ;)

ALL the first three, dear De Marga.

A thousand thanks, you are two fantastic guys. I will manage even though my limited inclination for the sites where you can access music will make things problematic... but I will figure it out. I read that the singer had a bad ending.

and that’s what I was referring to... he committed suicide two or three years ago.

"The singer," to be precise, was actually the only true member of the band. Mark Linkous = Sparklehorse, then all the musicians who rotated from album to album.

Oh yes, of course, I agree with S. ALL the first three. But the fourth one is nice too, it's just not as good as the first three.

The third best by Kubrick after A Clockwork Orange and 2001. All these films and CDs you own (I believe physically and not downloaded on the computer) are part of a parental inheritance (I doubt it's maternal) or is it the result of your money? Sorry, just a little curiosity xD

I am very attached to him.
Because of a beautiful early morning awakening many years ago: I was in my little student room away from home, all alone since I had no idea where my roommate had spent the night.
I turn on the portable radio beside the bed to fully wake up and "Ricky Don't Lose That Number" just starts playing... I immediately perk up my ears: I love everything about it, the piano groove high in the mix, the sophisticated and slightly jazzy chords, the acid and urban harmonies. Luckily, at the end of the song, the disc jockey reveals the title and the band, allowing me to mentally take note.
With Steely Dan, I was still at a standstill in terms of a single, inevitable familiarity with "Do It Again" that had blasted a few years earlier on the radio and in the clubs.
After about a year, I owned all five/six albums released up to that point: priceless music, a joy of life.

I prefer the debut, but I have to say, great album.

Oh yes, with them an album is worth the same as another, you know, the differences are always minimal.

Never heard it and I don't think I'll feel like it during this time, but years ago the Pretzel Logic CD often played in the car, beautiful, very beautiful.

With "Pretzel Logic," it is truly impossible not to use the term "Masterpiece."

and The Royal Scam?

I would say it's even better, even more sublime and mature. As I've said before, their entire discography is of the highest level, but from Pretzel to "Aja" they've sequentially produced four masterpieces, each one better than the last. Plainly, "Aja" for me is the ultimate peak.

You know what I regret? It's that between official and semi-official lives, I still haven't heard a definitive live that lives up to all this goodness.

Unfortunately, it's true. There's the great definitive live album of Little Feat, for example, which is immense, but there isn't one from Dan.

The Feat is a monument.

Epochal.

Great, but Gaucho still remains the best, I'm sorry.

It's definitely a brilliant debut; however, as already mentioned recently, "Royal Scam" and "Aja" are their two masterpieces!

Note: I have the version with the 2.0 cover, but in the mp3 version I have for the iPod, I put the original cover (still by Kim of course), which is much, much prettier than this one.

Ah: very beautiful also the schizophrenic artwork by Kim, in line with the album's bright sounds. The good thing about the divorce from Charisma will be that shortly after this album, the same year, Hackett will say "mavaffanculotuttiva" and release his first album entirely for classical guitar with an independent label (and coincidentally, there isn't even one piece for classical in this album...). The drummer on this album is Ian Mosley, who a year later will be the drummer for Marillion, oh yes, somewhat like Fish who sang on Banks' album, there's this clear vibe of "student-master." Probably Mosley fled to Marillion after Steve Hackett had him play on a song like "Give it Away" anyway...