Grasshopper

I really define myself as the antiquarian of debaser; however, the meaning doesn't change much: I actually have a kind of repulsion for what the current market offers, also because every time I turn on the radio, I'm forced to switch it off in horror. But perhaps the radio isn't the best medium for discovering current proposals. There must surely be some interesting ones, but how to find them? I rely a bit on the reviews from debaser, which I read (not just write). But this is where the economic factor comes into play: if I read about a recent album that interests me, I will rarely find it at an accessible price, precisely because it is recent. I know that this is a limitation on my part, but I understand that by retreating into the past, I am always (or almost always) on safe ground, and above all, I know what I'm talking about. However, I have also reviewed some recent albums: see "Dieci Stratagemmi" by Battiato (2004), "Lampo viaggiatore" by Fossati (2003), and others (few) that I don't remember.

Unjustly cut down by certain critics, this masterpiece represents the application in song form of what had been developed in a much freer way in the unattainable "Passion," but it is still a splendid essay on the contamination between ethnic and modern. A review that, as always, pays close attention to the human (or perhaps, superhuman) side of Peter Gabriel, but offers little more than a nod to the musical aspect.

Criticism can sometimes negatively influence even those who try not to pay attention to it: it is a fact that having read multiple times that from this album onward, a transitional period opened for Van Morrison, I went straight from "Saint Dominic's Preview" to the Irish phase of the '80s, which I particularly appreciate, so much so that I enthusiastically reviewed "Inarticulate Speech of the Heart," realizing with a shiver down my spine that no one knew it. An excellent review and in a certain sense, necessary.

P.S. I read a sentence of yours that doesn’t quite sit right with me: "I've never really liked Genesis." Are you sure you know them well? (I mean the ones from "Foxtrot" and "Selling England by the Pound," but also the Gabriel era ones from "A Trick of the Tail," not at all the ones from "Invisible Touch"!)

Well, getting better all the time, keep it up, but I echo Ringo: it’s better to have a few more words for the music and a few less for the film.

You know, Delusion, that you're right? I had never thought about the affinity between "We used to know" and "Hotel California," but it's definitely there. And that's not all: just think, I actually reviewed "Stand up" by Jethro Tull!

Allow me... just to get into character, dear Massimof, I try to talk about music, not to hit the right polls. Then if my 3, given on the spot, coincidentally matches the average received from the record, all the better, but that’s not what I'm aiming for.

The vote you want, Massimof, even though the fact that you don't agree with my judgment should have little to do with the vote on the review. Anyway, here among people who give this record a 5 and people who give it a 1, do you want to see that, perhaps without meaning to, I gave it a 3?

It may also be that a 4 is deserved: it depends on how much the presence of a masterpiece weighs in an album that contains nine tracks. For me, even though it is beautiful, "Hotel California" remains 1/9 of the album, which is why I judge it as an "average album," perhaps too rationally, but that's just how I am. When I gave it a 3, I already knew it wouldn't be shared by many.

I don't know if Freud and his gang of life complicators have an explanation for this as well, but I know I made a bit of a mess with the keys, even giving two 5s to that hydrocephalic Max Pezzali. I will never be able to make up for it. Rather, since you brought up the father of all shrinkers, how would Freud have explained Max Pezzali if he had had the chance to know him?