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The cave before Henry's dream is feeling and emotion at extreme levels. The one after is class in bursts, but the urgency is no longer there.

As for tastes, I would say I have nothing to say; for example, I find it pleasant and can't stand how it is often underestimated, almost as if it were an album made by scaruffi or that only scaruffi likes. I find other albums unbearable, but not this one. For the rest, I apologize for the inquisitive tone, goodbye.

I could agree, if I considered Dylan's albums from the '70s onwards as particularly relevant. However, while many are beautiful, they mostly hold self-referential value; unlike the '60s, which influenced the music world in every direction. I would make the same argument for Cave, essential up until Henry's Dream, then good albums here and there on established expressive canons. This is what, in my opinion, connects him to Dylan, and it's precisely why I find it not so easy to determine the best when making comparisons :)

--"A speech that can be made about Beefheart or similar artists. For me, since I can't stand this (or rather, I like an album to have values, but I also want music that makes me feel pleasant sensations), I have no sympathy for certain artists who are trapped in the compulsion to create things that must transcend what music is, and who forget precisely the reason why they have a true passion."-- I was simply referring to this, a hasty and simplistic interpretation of something you didn't understand (note that this doesn't mean you can't understand it, you just didn't get it now). As if Beefheart wanted to transcend music with a non-music, doing something else instead. ("forgetting his passion") At this point, I believe you miss the very meaning of music and the differences in enjoyment. In many cases, it would be better to have the intellectual honesty to suspend judgment and not pretend to place everything.

mmh it's hard to say who is the greatest not only because of an excess of democracy, (that's not my case) but also because of the value of the other candidates. In fact, I prefer both Tom Waits and Nick Cave to Dylan :)

@rooftrampler: given that no one will force you to listen to that album or delve into the captain, since that’s your business (to put it candidly, you can live without it), it has been pointed out to you that placing it within a necessarily partial discourse (since you don’t know trout mask, and I assume neither do you know the others) leads you to say imprecise and simplistic things, typical of someone who speaks without knowledge. There's no need to get angry; no one here is angry, but you've been told you're wrong, so there you go. By the way, I agree with donjunio and I would add that it’s time to stop saying it’s unlistenable, self-serving, etc., because from the very first listens, it can spark interest, and gradually one begins to understand its expressive range, the freak spirit, and the primal energy, the surrealism of the music/lyrics duo, the systematic yet always logical musical deconstruction. There are many records far more challenging than this one that are digested without hesitation by a good part of the debaser audience, see the early einsturzende neubauten, of course math rock, without even delving into jazz and classical music.

@rooftrampler: given that no one will force you to listen to that album or delve into the captain, since that’s your business (to put it candidly, you can live without it), it has been pointed out to you that placing it within a necessarily partial discourse (since you don’t know trout mask, and I assume neither do you know the others) leads you to say imprecise and simplistic things, typical of someone who speaks without knowledge. There's no need to get angry; no one here is angry, but you've been told you're wrong, so there you go. By the way, I agree with donjunio and I would add that it’s time to stop saying it’s unlistenable, self-serving, etc., because from the very first listens, it can spark interest, and gradually one begins to understand its expressive range, the freak spirit, and the primal energy, the surrealism of the music/lyrics duo, the systematic yet always logical musical deconstruction. There are many records far more challenging than this one that are digested without hesitation by a good part of the debaser audience, see the early einsturzende neubauten, of course math rock, without even delving into jazz and classical music.

It wouldn't take a page to quantify the captain's influence, but instead we discover him forced to revolutionize and astonish at all costs, and indeed what everlasting glory he has obtained from it! Admitting that you haven't understood a damn thing? There's nothing wrong with that.

In my opinion, that idea is art (and it needs to be historicized, as it is deeply connected to the fact that salons at that time were increasingly filled with pigs in ties). To claim that what is not art is art (or rather, that what is not "beautiful" is beautiful) is the ultimate assertion of subjectivity as both a starting point and an endpoint in aesthetic judgment. To say that what is not beautiful is beautiful is to clearly understand one’s role, to disregard beauty by severing the pleasantness that is merely tied to an object. In my house, we call it freedom. And that’s what I mean by artistic gesture, considering that Duchamp's fountain is and remains just a toilet (in every sense). If art is the idea, art is the artist, the man who self-represents the paradox of perception and meaning, and the circle closes.

but the point in Duchamp's "fountain" lies not in the object, but in the gesture of the artist, in his reclaiming of his role. attributing significance to what is merely a urinal is attributing meaning to the idea for which today the object persists (a testimony, whose subversiveness is very much alive). art, in this case, feeds on the ideal/spiritual sphere of the gesture, an expression before it becomes an object. extending the discussion, NO artistic object is intrinsically valuable, but it always is due to a dialectical relationship between the viewer and the work, through the inner representation of meanings mediated by the signifier. conversely, it would be like saying that the Berlin Wall is nothing more than a wall. oh, by the way, Trout Mask is an amazing album.