trickykid

"I'm referring to"... correction of the previous one.
P.S.
MONKEY's ISLAND 2!!!!

senmayan, I appreciate your input, but you haven't understood what I mean when I talk about MANICHEISM; I'm referring to the users of DEBASER and not to music itself, which can be appreciated in its best form while overlooking the worst of any genre. Therefore, your statement: "I don't understand what is manichaean in this view, also because no one here has criticized punk, rather it has been pointed out that this last genre is indeed at the opposite of prog" made me write the above.
I'm talking about manichean division: pro-prog on one side, anti-prog on the other. This prevents us from stating some sacrosanct truths about prog, both positive and negative. Everywhere, it seems there is always a die-hard fan willing to sacrifice themselves to avoid letting the other say something undeniable.

Your reasoning is sound, but it should also be extended to those who defend it tooth and nail, not just to the detractors. From this perspective, it seems "slightly" biased to me.

Youth, I see that we are lining up Manichaeanly, some for and some against this and that. You've placed me on one side, and I can say that I'm fine with it, if this easy worldview suits you. But I had warned you, I have quite a few 70s prog records and some that are fairly recent and draw inspiration from that era (Porcupine, Tool), I love King Crimson, but also Jethro Tull (pre-Aqualung...so you know where you can stick your comments about La Bourrée by Bach?). Coming to the substance of your remarks – and skipping mercifully over the Manichaean pro/con view that you seem to enjoy – I don’t understand at this point what you mean by rock music, understood as a manifestation of youth culture. Now, that prog was, broadly speaking, a movement of BRITISH origin involving 4 CHILDREN OF PRIVILEGE seems beyond dispute, just as it is indisputable that the success of such music is entirely EUROPEAN and concentrated within 5-6 years of the 70s. So we are talking about something rather marginal in the small history of rock, which, nevertheless, has a devoted following of fans. If I say that often the language of PROG is verbose, excessive, and often lacks backbone, everyone raises their shields... I mentioned ELP and I see everyone saying “they're crap, they're crap,” which I share (and how could I not? a group that fuses Bob Dylan with classical music!!! How is that possible?), especially since I saw them live a few years ago: the people were delirious, mostly...incredible. The average prog listener is stuck in 1975 and admires the instrumental convolutions of their favorites, mistaking it for art. The faux-intellectualism derived from the classical music lessons that most prog musicians had in their youth and their bourgeois origins have a weight in music, just as much as the proletarian conditions and the initial inability of K. RICHARDS to play the guitar. Youth music is such because it breaks away from and contests the prevailing culture; rock music is so because anyone can become a star (even someone like KEITH or LENNON or PETE TOWSHEND). If you remove the subversion of rock music, well, there’s not much left...(see, the recent pop-punk revival: it has no meaning, not because it’s played worse but because IT IS REGIME MUSIC, compared to the original Sex Pistols or the Clash that many today would like to emulate...). I reiterate, I also like certain prog records, I have listened to them and they are here on my shelf...I don’t make them a banner cause like many here do – but some things seem incontrovertible to me. And referencing from a previous post, someone says that YES post-1973 suck or ELP do or (surely someone will agree with me) GENESIS post-GABRIEL. The drama in prog is that when ideas are lacking (and as many have already pointed out, the prog period was short FOR EVERYONE), everything gets filled with stories of wizards, knights, and endless, formal solos, with ultra-organized, syntactically perfect music. The average audiophile’s ability lies in finding what is good that those groups produced during the period when PROG was at its peak: those 3 really good records that perhaps they managed to create...the others, often, are just pretentious...upon this prog musical hypertrophy fell like an axe the PUNK and NEW WAVE. That every genre can be referenced, even by today’s groups, is another story.

If we don't want to rewrite the facts, what AZZO says is true. In particular:
a) it's true that prog musicians all came from a bourgeois background;
b) it's true that prog music is, too often, hyper-technical and quite showy, folded in on itself and self-indulgent (how to explain certain boring and at times soporific 10-minute solos?);
c) it's true that there are some masterpieces among prog records (and he rightly cites IN THE COURT...);
d) it's true that prog musicians pretended to be new BEEHTHOVENs (what do we do with ERICSONLAKE&PALMER?);
e) it's true that prog is WAY TOO OFTEN based on false-intellectualism-instrumental- snobbery (something only FRIPP can afford, and that's enough. Let’s not forget he didn’t only make prog. See his collaborations and albums with BOWIE, ENO, and others... or his solo albums or those from the late 70s and 80s of King Crimson);
f) it's true that prog hasn't stood the test of time, having had a brief period of success before being swept away by NEW WAVE and PUNK.
P.S.
the writer has several prog CDs and has attended KING CRIMSON concerts.

OUT OF TIME: was it true glory?!? The fans of the band ATENS are divided into detractors and fanatics of this album. It can only be said that the album is, overall, good, but the recording and arrangement of many tracks are CLEARLY aimed at the general public (which isn't bad in itself). With this album (the second released by WARNER), R.E.M. definitively steps out of the cult status to become international pop-rock stars, capitalizing (and refining) the sound conceived in previous albums. However, it is true that many tracks conceived for HEAVY ROTATIONS on musical radio & TV have annoyingly ground our gears with the added issue that they are not the best and most enjoyable works of R.E.M. On the other hand, amidst the aforementioned BIG HITS (which are not mentioned because they are truly HYPERKNOWN), there are some very interesting tracks (COUNTRY FEEDBACK, LOW, TEXARKANA, BELONG...). It is well-known that the best album, in absolute terms, by R.E.M. will be the next one, AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE. This, due to the reasons mentioned above and the importance it holds in the band's discography, as well as its critical and commercial success, rests at something more than a 4, but in my opinion, it does not reach the artistic peak of R.E.M.

My goodness, what a confusion. Yes to this, no to that, go for this, go for that. We seem to be at the stadium... but wasn’t it all born from the terribly UNHAPPY comparison between SONIC YOUTH / GENESIS?!? Almost no one responded to that (except for the young author, who reinforced the nonsense with an overly subjective and introspective statement).

Any reference to GENESIS is hereby dismissed, without appeal, in this review. It's sheer idiocy, instead, the perceived duty of "every rock music enthusiast" to review this album by S.Y. Do we want to churn out thousands of reviews (more or less useless) of the same album?
As for the rest, the review is well-written. The album is worth *** in absolute terms. But that's a given.

When I saw them live (a couple of years ago), they seemed a bit deflated halfway through the concert (especially GORDON)... The review gets full marks. The controversies surrounding the STONES are pointless. The idea of redoing their most famous album in full seems a bit of a re-concert (and thus, clever): they don't need it.

...and what needs to be done?!? ***