Longliverock

"while even the best works of Mr. Big are anything but innovative or original"
But ATTENTION, I didn't say that Mr. Big are INNOVATIVE and ORIGINAL: Mr. Big didn't invent ANYTHING. However, it seems that someone is not clear about one thing: INNOVATION IS NOT SYNONYMOUS WITH "PRETTY." One can come up with a new genre, a new sound, but it doesn't mean it's a NICE sound. Of course, one must appreciate the originality and avant-garde spirit, without a doubt. But even Gigi D'Agostino, in HIS genre, was one of the first and foremost representatives, one of the pioneers of modern dance (that is, "music" made with a computer…). This is just to give you an extreme example. Mr. Big didn’t invent anything, but their sound, at least for me, is thousands of times more beautiful than that of SP... As for GNS, it may be true that they have revisited old-school hard rock with the addition of punk ingredients... but they were THE FIRST TO DO IT!! That is, it’s true that they drew from here and there (but who doesn’t do that? Some more, some less; all the bands in history had their idols to reference when they broke through), but they fused them together, presenting it in a rougher and meaner way: so much so that they are not considered Hard-Rock, but rather STREET-ROCK, or "SLEAZY METAL," the INVENTORS and foremost representatives of this genre (Skid Row will also be part of it). The band that, along with Nirvana and Metallica, would compete for YEARS for the top spots in the American charts, in the years straddling the '80s and '90s, and that would sell 94 MILLION records worldwide: how can one deny that they had a huge impact on an entire generation??

"But look, no one has ever given a 10... As for classical music, Scaruffi has often said that he considers it a 'superior' musical form, and thus the ratings will inevitably be higher there." So listen, without "consulting" Scaruffi, try listening to "AT THE BLUE NOTE" by KEITH JARRETT. If you don't know him already, know that he is a jazz musician, not a classical pianist. However, by listening to Keith Jarrett, you will understand why ALL PIANISTS in conservatories and elsewhere, who study only classical music, define JAZZ AS THE MOST COMPLEX AND DIFFICULT GENRE TO PLAY... And by listening to it, you might also understand why it is very rarely necessary to resort to 10 AND HONORS... Just like, in the rock realm, an album that deserves a full 10, and maybe even a 10 and honors, for me, is MADE IN JAPAN by Deep Purple. PS: for me "led zeppelin 4" is a 9.5. But that's not the important thing: what's important is that we clarified that matter of critiquing artists in a certain way, and especially the constant referencing by certain individuals to quotes from Piero Scaruffi as if he alone possessed the supreme truth: you'll agree with me on this, right?

"But Scaruffi also gave 7.5 (a very high score for him) to their first album, and no failures up until 1976." Thank you for sharing YOUR view on the Led, with which I agree. But now you must enlighten me: 7.5 for Led Zeppelin's first album, a very high score for him. Sorry, BUT WHAT DOES ONE NEED TO DO TO DESERVE A 10? Answer me honestly: is "Led Zeppelin 4," in your opinion, not a 10 album? Or "Nine Lives," "Permanent Vacation," "Rocks," aren't they at least a 9? And leaving rock aside, I would like to know what he thinks and how he rates CLASSICAL MUSIC: do you think 7.5 can be a high enough score to evaluate the collection of mazurkas and nocturnes by Chopin performed by Arthur Rubinstein? And is 7.5 a high score for "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" interpreted, at the time, by CALLAS, ALVA, and GOBBI and the famous "3 tenors" (Pavarotti, Dominguez, and the 3rd one I can't remember)? Anyway, explain to me based on what criteria an album cannot be rated 9 or 10 or (why not) 10 with honors. About MUSICAL CULTURE, there’s no debate; I also have a lot to learn from Scaruffi, no doubt. But CRITICAL SENSE, the "TASTE FOR THE SUBLIME" in an art form (in this case, music), that cannot be learned or acquired anywhere: it is an INNATE GIFT. Someone might listen to a piece 10 times a day and not understand it; some hear it for the first time and immediately grasp all its nuances and meaning: it depends on the sensitivity and predisposition to art that each person possesses. It is a capacity that can be SHARPENED by listening to a lot of good music, but there is no school, website, or degree that can teach it to you. A gift that needs to be supported by considerable musical knowledge (otherwise, what's the point?), but one must distinguish between "musical culture" and objective and as objective as possible critical sense. Regarding the first, I have ONLY TO LEARN from Scaruffi. And believe me, between CDs and my computer, I have 35 GIG of pure music: classical, opera, jazz, gospel, soul, blues, folk, country, pop, rock, hard rock, metal... However, if I want to discover new artists, I can "ask for advice" from Scaruffi without problems; I admit that his knowledge is greater than mine. But regarding the second, the "taste for the sublime" and critical ability... well, you see for yourself.

Of course I read what he thinks, but I didn't say he doesn't have an enormous musical culture, with which he has made lesser-known groups worthy of attention known. However, the number of EXTRAORDINARY bands he has dismissed is not fewer than those he has discovered and rated positively (it's not just Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Aerosmith: practically all glam metal, 80% of 80s hard rock, almost all pop). But that's not really the problem: as already mentioned, one can say that they don't like Led Zeppelin, give their reasons, and one can either agree or disagree with that opinion. But the issue is all those people who quote him here and there, elevating him to the Messiah of musical criticism, valuing every little punctuation mark as pure gold, and saying: "Piero Scarufi said this... so it’s true." Perhaps forgetting that for all his "expertise," he is still a human being. You who defend him, I want to hear YOUR opinion: You (and I mean YOU), WHAT DO YOU THINK OF LED ZEPPELIN? (just to mention one). If you like them, give me YOUR reasons; if you don't like them, give me YOUR reasons, without quoting anyone. I can provide MY reasons for considering Led Zeppelin one of the greatest rock bands in history and why I consider the claims of those who say they have ONLY copied and have NOT GIVEN ANYTHING to music as nonsense.

"I just regret that in defending your tastes you stumbled upon the 'DIVINE' and 'UNQUESTIONABLE.' No, dear Jackline, it’s not a matter of defending personal tastes: the problem is that this gentleman here (whom I hear so much about but do not know very well) is throwing the greatest interpreters of rock music from the last 60 years down the toilet. From what I understand, at least half of all rock music made from the '50s to the '90s is little more than garbage. I would contest something like that even to the archangel Gabriel if he appeared to me and said something like that. Imagine saying it to the 'DIVINE' and 'UNQUESTIONABLE.' And the problem is that there are people who cling to every little thing he says because 'he is the divine and unquestionable critic, the king of music critics,' and they take every word of his as gospel, as if he had written the Bible of music. What the hell, can’t you all think for yourselves?"

Well, "Appetite for Destruction" is their best album, but defining "Use Your Illusion" as NOTHING seems really excessive to me. For me, "Appetite" is a 5; but "Use Your Illusion," "GNR Lies," and "The Spaghetti Incident" are not a 1 or a 2: the first is a solid 4, the second and the third are around 3.5/4. Comparisons, as always, should be made in absolute terms: I say that if the "music" that is so trendy today were "NOTHING" HALF of what "Use Your Illusion," "Lies," and "The Spaghetti Incident" are, we would live in a vastly better musical world. And although they were the roughest rock band ever, I can tell you that the guitarists in rock history who have managed to invent solos like those in "Sweet Child O' Mine," "November Rain," "Paradise City," "Don't Cry," "Serial Killer" (with Snakepit), and "Fall to Pieces" (with Velvet), can be counted on one hand. If we base it on technique, then Slash was the worst guitarist ever. But the creativity and genius that that drunken, cocaine-addicted, womanizing man had and still has is something very few guitarists in the world possess. And so it goes for Axl Rose and Duff: the former is the author of most of the lyrics and the writer of all the most significant ones (have you ever read the lyrics to "November Rain" and "Don't Cry"?), and the group's frontman with his alcohol-drug-rock spirit, a perfect interpreter with his powerful and excessively raw voice; the latter, when he joined the band, wrote 40% of the music of Guns.

"without forgetting more famous artists like Smashing Pumpkins" Damn, you were doing so well!!.. Tool, Alice in Chains, Kyuss, Soundgarden (which aren’t rock or hard rock), Pearl Jam... and then you mention the Smashing Pumpkins?? They’re not even worth half of the groups mentioned before, let alone Mr. Big... honestly, would you place the SP above Mr. Big?.." the importance, the impact, and the avant-garde they had, the Guns N' Roses, who are absolutely number 1 in hard rock in the last 20 years. Well, after this, everything becomes clear." Can anyone really deny that, after Nirvana, GNR was the band that revolutionized music the most in the last 20 years? There may be bands that play better (GNR with zero technique, and they were notoriously "rough"), the aforementioned Tool, whom I adore, and Alice in Chains, but GNR had an invaluable and fundamental weight, even from a behavioral perspective: they were 5 junkies, dealers, and car thieves, almost no technique, raw to the bone... an entire generation followed this band, they were the band that best embodied the spirit of "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll"; when young people saw GNR, they thought, "if these guys made it, we can all make it." I repeat: the impact they had on the music world in the last 20 years and on a generation was immense, perhaps only matched or surpassed by the phenomenon of Nirvana.

I’m almost 21, can you believe it? And strangely, I "discovered" Mr. Big way too late, at 19. Because at 15, I was listening to Guns N’ Roses and Nirvana, at 17 it was Skid Row, Slash's Snakepit, Velvet Revolver. Nothing strange, I’ve said it: they are one of the most underrated bands ever. It’s not just "hyper-technical" (I gave the example of many tracks by Dream Theater and Malmsteen, that is, great technique, zero "emotion"): those four had few rivals even in compositional and melodic art. It’s not that you “can hear” them, it’s that their songs are more beautiful than the others. I certainly wouldn’t classify them as hair rock (or the same genre as Kiss), and definitely not glam metal (Europe, Cinderella). I would say catchy rock/hard rock, why not, COMMERCIAL. Perhaps they didn’t have the importance, the impact, and the avant-garde that Guns N’ Roses had, who, without a doubt, are number 1 in hard rock over the last 20 years. But they rocked no less than them: guaranteed by someone who discovered them too late.

PS: one last thing: INNOVATIVE is not always synonymous with BEAUTIFUL. There are those who have "invented," from scratch, a genre, a unique sound, which, however, is not exceptional, it's not great, even though one must certainly appreciate the originality, without a doubt. There are those who perhaps play and rehash things that have already been done, there are those who are unable to come up with a riff that has not been done already 10 times, but who nonetheless makes beautiful music. For some here, it might be obvious that innovation is not synonymous with a good sound, but apparently, there are also those who clearly haven't understood this...

Let's be clear, anyone who puts Motley Crue on the same level as Avril Lavigne clearly hasn't understood a damn thing about music. And you might be surprised to know that I'm not 16 years old... Then I ask myself: do you have a brain of your own? I mean: you quote Piero Scaruffi here and there (or whatever his name is), building your argument on quotes from this guy, who can be as "expert" as he wants, but he isn't Jesus Christ. Now that you bring it to my mind, go read the latest review of "Aerosmith - a little south of sanity", and check out what your beloved Piero Scaruffi has to say about AEROSMITH (I said AEROSMITH), and then, a little further down, check out my 2 comments. Similarly, go read what your adored Piero Scaruffi said about the BEATLES (that's right: the BEATLES), or GILMOUR. For some time now, "re-evaluating" old artists by trashing them to look like an intellectual who goes against the tide seems to have become fashionable. So, Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, Europe, and all glam metal bands are trash, the Beatles only made JINGLE SONGS, PINK FLOYD can only be considered genuinely great in the Barrett period because everything that came after (the wall, the dark side, etc.) is "GILMOUR'S TRASH" (!!!), IRON MAIDEN are worth listening to only until "SSOASS," after that it’s TRASH, LED ZEPPELIN contributed nothing new to music and are really just great copycats, ABBA are losers (?!?), Aerosmith are tacky and a faded copy of the Rolling Stones, and so on, spouting complete nonsense about bands and artists who, I repeat, each of us, when we’re about to talk about them, should wash our mouths out for the INESTIMABLE contribution they have made to music, and for the millions, billions of people who listen to them. And, I repeat, when we have to speak badly of these bands, then you better wash your mouth out with turpentine and purify it with fire.