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Hackett in Brazil (part one). Having exited the "Defector" tour stressed and overdosed on aspirin, Stefanuzzo decides to take refuge with Kim in her homeland, Brazil, and relax nicely for a few months, maybe writing some songs between drinks, a swim, and some lovemaking. And yes, this first Brazilian album of his (no musical influences, it was conceived and written there) isn't great. You can tell it’s the typical ultra-relaxed album of an artist making music during a serene time without putting in too much effort, just casually. Kim was also on vacation, no painting for the cover, just a photo she took of her husband, where Steve's expression reveals the vastness of how little he cared about putting effort into composing at that moment. But this kind of light-light pop doesn't suit him well, and the album is filled with very dull little songs (the nicest is "Hope I Don’t Wake Up," even if it sounds, to put it mildly, reminiscent of Yes, from around the same time, of course). Steve sings it solo (horrible choice), and indeed, the instrumentals save it: "Air-Conditioned Nightmare" is nice and the already typical classical guitar piece ("Cradle of Swans") raises the level of an album among his absolute worst. A couple of tracks could have been better, perhaps, but they weren't; the rest is mediocre pop with horrible backing vocals and sung parts.

Here it is, the worst album by Steve, the ugly mess wisely hidden for 14 years but then for some reason released in 2000 by his label, Camino Records. It wouldn't have been missed. There's no denying it, 1986 remains a terrible year for many big names from the previous decade, and it seems to be particularly catastrophic for everything that revolved or had revolved around Genesis (or almost, there was always Gabriel's "So," which is a fantastic album, but even that is his most commercial and features a couple of chart-topping pop tunes, one of which, "Big Time," is a piece of garbage). 1986 spared even Mr. Hackett, a year when he decided to play "pumped-up rock" and his miserable AOR. We had the decent (for someone who likes those sounds) album by GTR with Howe as an example, and that would have been more than enough, but in that same year Hackett recorded more pop-AOR songs with various collaborations (Bruno Mars, Bonnie Tyler, Chris Thompson) following the album with Howe (who doesn’t play here but is a co-writer on one track; I presume many songs here were intended for GTR). To be fair, a couple of songs are nice in their cheesy, over-the-top pop-AOR, like the duet sung by Tyler and Thompson, but here it's mostly pure crap, the worst kind of pop-rock-AOR, worse than what GTR offered. Ah, Steve, it's clear you weren't doing your best...

Steve closes the decade beautifully with an album that, as the title suggests, represents a return to serenity and the ability to compose music with a free and tranquil mind, after three difficult years during which his ex-wife Kim tried to take everything from him, even the spare strings for his guitars, because she had forgotten that her husband hadn’t played on "Invisible Touch" and wasn’t exactly making pounds flow from his orifices. Here, Hackett abandons the slightly exasperated eclecticism of some previous albums and finds "the permanent center of gravity," so to speak, in a more "dry" and compact album, more decisive in the musical direction to take. In doing so, Hackett manages to write songs that perfectly blend the electric soul with the acoustic-classical one (the perpetual alternation of acoustic and electric or the dichotomy of an introduction with a classical guitar leading to an electric change is present in almost all tracks) with a fluidity and naturalness I hadn’t felt from him... Who knows, maybe even since Spectral Mornings. "Sleepers" is, hands down, the peak of the album, a little masterpiece where Hackett's electric guitar starts to stutter again (remember "Ripples"? There you go), but all the tracks shine, with just a couple being slightly less convincing but still pleasant. Beautiful, beautiful.

Hackett in Brazil (part two). Three years later, Stefanuzzo and his lady return to Brazil to compose some music, this time with more conviction compared to the ultra-relaxing vacation of "Cured." This is an interesting album, not spectacular but with some nice pieces and good ideas, and perhaps a bit underestimated within its discography. This time, some vaguely Brazilian influences can be heard, at least in the choice of musicians, all local (a substantial group of percussionists, but not only) except for Mosley and Magnus. But since Hackett is a joker, suddenly there are references to Japanese music ("The Doll That's Made in Japan," with Kim on vocals as the "Japanese girl," but they also pop up in the excellent "What's My Name") with Hackett playing the koto, things like that. Being a joker, the album closes with 40 seconds of instrumental from Disney's "Pinocchio" song, just because. "Myopia" is also a very particular piece by his standards. In "What's My Name" and Matilda-Smith... (great track, perhaps the best) there's excellent use of percussion (Brazil, not Africa, yes, but it's never been so close to Gabriel as in these snippets of the piece) "Taking the Easy Way Out" is a nice ballad and so on. Here Hackett experiments with something a little different, and it's one of the times he pulls it off well. In my opinion, it’s a solid work, an album to reconsider at least a little because it's really not bad at all.

Steve Hackett on classical guitar is always the best, in my opinion (maybe it's because I adore the sound of the instrument), even when he records an album under unfortunate conditions and in a complicated time, namely during a turbulent divorce from his now ex-wife Kim and also at war with the manager who had taken away his chance to record music in a studio (oh, to put it mildly). This album Hackett had to play and record in his own home, in an improvised studio, probably while Kim was busy ripping the carpet off the floor to take that with her too (guys, we’re lucky she didn’t come to our house asking for her husband’s record covers back, just kidding Kim, don’t sue DeBaser). Apart from his faithful friend King on production and mixing, here there’s only Hackett and his guitar. That’s it. Not even his brother on flute. Just him. Him and the classical composers he pays homage to, because here Hackett relies on the safe harbor of performing other people's pieces. The most represented is Bach, of course, since he was the one who originally opened new "Horizons" in guitar playing for Steve many years ago. And well, it might be an album made out of necessity (it was the only type of album he could afford to make at that moment, in fact), but it's still Hackett playing Bach and company with a classical touch. A gem. Hats off.

A good album this "Wild Orchids," within the average output of Hackett's electro-acoustic work. The main flaw of the album is indeed that 17 tracks are too many, and not all are valid, and the extreme stylistic eclecticism of the various songs doesn't help either. This is another characteristic that I both like and dislike in Hackett; for instance, here it seems he takes pleasure in surprising the listener with songs that are vastly different from one another in terms of genres, styles, atmospheres, etc. In the end, I can't help but think that his stylistic signature is to not have one. And while I usually enjoy versatility even within the same album, and appreciate Hackett's versatility as well, sometimes with him it feels excessively forced, as if he has never understood (or maybe simply doesn't care) what exactly to put in his albums. Fortunately, the average quality of the songs here is more than satisfactory. There are acoustic/classical/orchestral pieces (once again the Underworld from the splendid "Metamorpheus") and electric pieces, extremely sweet and wonderfully bucolic soft songs ("To a Close") and edgy, dark tracks, covers of Bob Dylan, and songs that you would never think "Wow, this is Hackett, you can tell" (like "Down Street," which by the way is one of the most beautiful, or "Ego and Id," composed by John Hackett, a classical flautist, and it’s an amazing electric piece...). Recurring musical themes, beautiful songs and others decidedly less so ("Wolfwork"). A bit messy, but it's a good album.

Hackett's misstep in the last decade, one of his less beautiful albums which, by the way, is placed between two much more inspired ones. There are a couple of decent songs (the title track is nice, for example, as is "The Wheel's Turning") but overall I find it weak, flat, and very disappointing, with few ideas and even some messy parts. There are melodies, arrangements, and solutions in several tracks that aim to be epic but flirt with the cheesy; sometimes they hit the mark and give it a high five. It's a heavy album to listen to, boring, even if here and there in almost every song there's that piece or that passage of guitar that, okay, is nice, but it's not enough. The cover is also terribly cheesy... Sure, the wolf cubs are nice, but the overall effect, my goodness, no. For me, while waiting to listen to the latest release, the decade 2010-2020 has been fruitful for Hackett from a qualitative perspective, "Wolflight" being the only half misstep.

the movie of my childhood, purely sentimental rating (the real one would be two points lower).

A classic, very beautiful. A science fiction fairy tale, very well directed. One of Spielberg's last great films.

Enough with the attack on Philip Dick. What harm has he done? I hold on tightly to "Blade Runner" and "A Scanner Darkly."

Even the emotional bond with the Jurassic lizards cannot save this film from its mediocrity. Useless.

In my opinion, Spielberg's best. The umpteenth way to interpret science fiction, here the aliens are good, just a bit curious. Technically spectacular, great special effects (for 1977), a great film, it ranks in the top 10 of science fiction movies.

emotional sufficiency.

7/10

Always one of my favorite "pop" albums (in quotes because there's more to it than that). The band's mature album and for me absolutely their masterpiece, with all the other (great) works trailing behind in its wake. A killer sequence of tracks, from "School" to the fantastic title track (one of their best melodies, and can we talk about Helliwell's sax solo at the end?), passing through "Bloody Well Right," "Rudy," "Asylum," etc. On a desert island, I'd gladly save a spot for it. A perfect album, with a wealth of ideas that deserves applause and not a single flaw.

Beautiful pop record, I've always liked it a lot. It doesn't quite reach a 5 but it's close, really a great album (and not even their best, after all). Tracks like "Goodbye Stranger," "Gone Hollywood," "Casual Conversations," and "Child of Vision" are worth the price of admission, or rather, the album.

Very trashy.

It may also be one of their most accessible and lightweight works, and it certainly falls short compared to other masterpieces of the immense swans, but for me, it still rocks. Disco, maybe 5 stars are too many, but in any case, it would never go under 4 very, very abundant stars, and here we are.

Epic, swan god. E-P-I-C. One of the most successful stylistic turns ever. However, in my opinion, "Filth" and "Young God" are not inferior to it.

TOTAL.

3.5/4. The Folk parentheses of the Swans. An episode that has remained quite isolated in their discography, it is probably the least interesting album from the extraordinary band led by Gira. However, there are still some valid moments, including a beautiful cover of Blind Faith, which for me is the most successful track on this The Burning World. If this can be considered a "half misstep," it must be said that with the following album they will make a remarkable comeback. In a big way.

The younger brother of "White Light From the Mouth of Infinity" has little to envy its predecessor. A beautiful record, extraordinary and increasingly numerous melodic openings, the epic and decadent folk of early '90s Swans offers pure emotions. Many tracks are intense enough to bring a tear. A masterpiece within a masterpiece? Perhaps, "She Cries (For Spider)."

Well, carefree, irresistible, over the top, unbridled (the various "Baby Boomerang," "Rock On," "Telegram Sam," "Thunderwing," "Cadillac," "Chariot Choogie," "Rabbit Fighter) and then there are those moments... Those of the title track, those of "Mystic Lady," those of the devastating melody of "Spaceball Ricochet," and those of an eternal song like "Ballroom of Mars," a piece I can't describe... The atmosphere, Bolan's voice, his interpretation... Beautiful disco.

Just enough, yet definitely superior to the terrible American remake. There are good atmospheres and some rather unsettling scenes. Then there's the hilarious pair of angry ghost mom and son, especially the little one. Salvageable.

The infuriating mother-son duo is always lovable, but even they can't save this horrible film, one of the dreadful monstrosities in the history of cinema, American and beyond. A completely useless remake of a film that was barely acceptable on its own, it stands out for its astonishing banality and total absence of even mildly unsettling scenes. Unwatchable actors (aside from the ghost couple, perhaps), deplorable screenplay and direction. Abysmal.

Psycho Killer.