luciano

P.S. have you ever listened to Eva Cassidy?

2 for the CD: unlike the previous one, it is not original and, aside from considerations about song cones, it doesn't hold artistic value... so, if it's true that the previous one falls between 4 and 5, this one, as catchy as it is, deserves no more than 2. 4 (as encouragement) for the review: balanced and pleasant, it objectively misses the mark with the statement "it doesn't make you miss the debut work of the blonde English singer..." (but then for you "no angel" is worth 3?) and is lacking in information as well as descriptions. Bye

... your 1s on Sting are worth for me like 5 on the review I wrote on Synchronicity...

Since you care about grades, I give you a 5, as a reward for your insight; just one more time, I ask you to try to control the aggression. I would be interested in your comment on "Thievery Corporation" - "The richest man in Babylon" (for which you should get it, but I think it would be worth it): somehow I could force a parallel with the Police, obviously in relation to the times. Let me know what you think, bye.

Okay, you're right, even though it's almost 2, you deserve a better explanation: The first, biggest problem is the following: since I don't think there's a genre called "white reggae," this definition doesn't say anything beyond what it is, in fact, a definition. You place the unclassifiability of their music at the core of the definition, solving the problem by giving this definition... but then you don't clarify it as common sense would suggest! For example, why reggae, in which parts of which songs is there a reggae component, how are they connected through this component (which makes the album profoundly homogeneous), what are the elements that essentially keep the Police's sound "white"? (as a side note: I think of a parallel with Keziah Jones, who, in a classic rock structure, expresses a pure "blackness"... but it must be the late hour). This is what I meant: either you close the loop in the end, or in the end, you haven't said anything :-) Other, but minor, a) how many know that you are referring to "walking on the moon"? (and why not say it, perhaps using it as a platform to describe the piece and then at least touch on some details of at least someone else, details you've substituted with superlatives); b) 25 years later we might imagine that the Police wouldn't exist even if they were still together; c) fusion? Oh dear, I'll try to put them in the player, who knows maybe by this hour you'll even find the fusion...

x Marco - Okay, but if the problem was indeed with your review, you just needed to explain it to me explicitly in that context, without us creating this pandemonium down here. Anyway, no worries, all good. Thanks for the votes: I don't care about them, I don't even look at them, but I appreciate them as a gesture of goodwill. Bye.

The Police - Regatta de Blanc (look, we have the computer, and yet the internet connection, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to access this database…)

x Marco - "Simply dreadful..."; "... copying from some magazine like Cioè..."; "... it's like a third grader..."; "... if you really have to copy, at least do it well, and if you make things up, at least do it with a minimum of taste and a semblance of literariness." These are your phrases from your first attack, to which I did respond, perhaps rudely, but evidently less offensively than yours. "... you have to respond even if you don't seem particularly capable of it."; "... the know-it-alls..."; "... using the thesaurus to respond..."; "The talk on Sinchronicity ... is a bit of nonsense"; "... so much skill but few insights", etc... But what do you want? Here, I exchange a few ideas with someone in my spare time. What do you want? Did I seek you out? You're the one who made it personal; I would have been remiss not to defend myself. Do you think you’re on the side of reason? How long is this controversy you direct at me supposed to continue? And what’s it about? What does it have to do with the Police and the site that hosts us?

In this sense, while I agree with you on acknowledging a connection with the first two (Celebration Day and Since I've Been Loving You, which perhaps I couldn’t express clearly enough in the review for brevity’s sake, even though I really don’t see Page “dominated” by the market and Zep with “falling” sales), honestly, the 3rd seems to arise differently. "Tangerine," and we could write pages and pages about it; "Gallows Pole," with that sound from the first two intertwining with the soul of a story in a way that reminds me of how ivy grows around a tree; "That's the Way," which makes me think more of a post-Zeppelin work by Plant rather than the first two. If you're a fan of the Zep, you surely have the "BBC Sessions," which sit between "4th" and "Houses of the Holy"... don’t you find a profound difference between the sessions and the work gathered in "The Song Remains the Same"? The greater care, the better production, but the same sound, more direct and wild, characteristics that later emerged in favor of a beautiful, clean, simply perfect interpretation? I wouldn’t bet my car on it, but I would think that the fact that Page released a predominantly celebratory album with material recorded in the summer of '72 with West Was Won could translate into a concrete acceptance of the idea that the Zep's contribution to the global music scene ends there (and we might not both agree with this interpretation, but it remains the prevailing one). I won’t hide that when I was introduced to German progressive rock, one of the first little things I listened to indeed reminded me of No Quarter, but from there… Goodbye.

x marcmat - here you demonstrate civility and engage with me in a civil manner. I’ll respond mainly regarding B): while it is true that the second was born during their tours following the sales of the first, I don’t see why I should stray from that part of the criticism (I could cite a few of the most famous, but it seems to me that I would be contravening the guidelines of the founder of the database on which we are meeting) that sees a strong connection between the first two, almost to the point of "gluing" them together; in this sense, it wouldn’t be so strange to have three albums released within 24 months, where the first two can be considered the end of a period (which, by the way, abundantly redeems Page’s experience in the previous years, with the first being an "album" in the strict sense when it was released), while the last would serve as the opening of the next one. In this light, one thing that has deeply impressed me is that statement by Page in an interview given on the occasion of the release of the third, where he already addresses the thoughts on the reception that critics and the market would reserve for the fourth!