Fiammy

Perhaps you didn't read carefully what I wrote. I don't like Picasso, that's true, but I recognize the uniqueness in his technique. The "Water," which I call a toilet because I like to call things by their proper name, disgusts me and I absolutely can't see anything artistic in it. For me, it isn't art. I haven't made a manifesto for art as disengagement! On the contrary, it has a lot to do with philosophy, so much so that the entire history of art is permeated by the cultural humus of the time and often intertwines with philosophy. I only said that the philosophical justification of a work is not enough to make it valuable. And don't come talking to me about subjectivity, because I read your comments on other artists around Debaser: you denigrate them with your intellectual arrogance. So, if you were champions of subjectivity, you wouldn't do that, right? The Velvet Underground has their historical justification in the derivation from expressionism, in Warhol, in the experimentation of repetitive sounds, etc. But for me, that's not enough to attribute to them a genius that I just don't see! Then excuse me, but comparing them to Baudelaire, that’s where you really went off the rails!!!

“You talk about pleasantness, and you give me the opportunity by saying, ‘I’m sorry, I could never even remotely compare a toilet in a room to a painting by Monet, Picasso, or Degas,’ but I remind you that the Impressionists were ridiculed as mere daubers who lacked any technique or knowledge of painting, and Picasso was literally mocked even by enlightened people when he first showed Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Many still find it disgusting, just as you find Duchamp's urinal disgusting.” It’s true, but that’s not the point. I’ve studied both and I assure you that their merits in technique are indeed there. Not in a toilet placed in a room. If you’re interested, I can call the plumber here around the corner; he has a ton of artwork in his shop...

"Read Baudelaire or deSade, who are among the artistic grandparents of the Velvet Underground, do you think it's just recreation?" The grandparents have degenerate and disqualifying grandchildren.

If you think about the meaning of things, everything becomes easier... studying what? Styles? It’s clear that aesthetic judgment has no escape if everything has an artistic justification within a handful of concepts. The fact is that we seek different things. When I listened to Heroin, my thought was: experimental, but why should I torture my ears? I won’t listen to it anymore. I probably shouldn’t even have worried about it, since you reject the idea that one can listen to music for pleasure. I’m sorry, I will never be able to even remotely compare a toilet in a room to a painting by Monet, Picasso, or Degas. It’s just a toilet. I'm not interested in the philosophy it may inspire; if I want to see a toilet, I’ll look at the one in my house. If I want to philosophize, I have thousands of books to read. Art is recreation. It’s something different from speculation. So, long live the "craftsmen" like Phidias and Michelangelo. Just don’t say too much that they’re craftsmen: you might receive applause, but also serious spitbacks.
I’m sorry to see that there are some who talk about progress in art, as if it were scientific research. Thus, the crap that comes after is always better than the work that came before. The philosopher of the latest fad can stay at home as far as I’m concerned. There’s no justification for preferring a scarf tied to a pole over the study of forms in classical art.
P.S. - The definition of light music that I gave you was fine. Are the Velvet Underground rock? Then they are light music.

We will probably never understand each other. The idea of beauty and art that I have certainly isn't that of a toilet placed in a museum room. And do you know why? Because I could do that too! I have so many revolutionary and experimental ideas that you can't even imagine. What does it mean that the concept of art has changed? Isn't art pleasure? What the hell do I care about an experimental song that sucks and gives me a headache? And philosophy with art? What does music have to do with philosophical thought? Besides, philosophical thought is highly debatable: I could take Britney Spears and tell you she’s inspired by Democritus' atomic theory and the pleasure principle of the Epicureans and bullshit like that. Am I perhaps improving the crap that Britney Spears puts out?

I’m the last person to say that music isn’t also about study. Music is a meeting point between instinct and study, in the sense that STUDY is only instrumental to the harmony of the final product, where a jumble of notes becomes a brilliant passage. Once the product is finished, it will be instinct that judges, loves, or hates it. And there will be no critics at that moment, nor artistic influences to flaunt. The Velvet Underground were certainly avant-garde. But they failed to do this. They didn’t leave behind an appealing work. Perhaps this is what critics don’t understand, the next step beyond taste, beyond likeability. Since we’re talking about music, we can’t avoid discussing taste. However, taste, as we know, is subjective (or at least most people think it is), and this has led to discussions about music in the wrong way. It’s not true that I don’t appreciate sounds different from those of Europe and the Western world in general. But this discord has absolutely nothing to do with it, because the same people who put the Velvet Underground on a pedestal, for some reason, don’t do so regarding jazz music or African music, but in relation to what? To the rest of rock. To everything that is branded as stuff for kids (with the usual terms: overproduced, pompous, baroque, what a drag!). It’s a kind of intellectual revenge, am I mistaken or not?

First of all, "light music" means, by subtraction, that which is not classical music. So, the Velvet Underground definitely fits in. Cultured music doesn't mean anything at all, except perhaps that it differs from less referenced products. I didn't talk about the importance of the album, nor about its whistling appeal. In reality, you responded to me with the usual stories: you contextualized the album in question for me, describing the cultural background in which it developed. You talked about experimentation. The fact of who and what Reed studied isn’t indicative of anything (especially considering the worthlessness and ridiculousness of American education). You only said that it's a fact that it was a fundamental album, then you threw in basic concepts about 20th-century innovation in artistic and musical fields. Which is an open secret, and it still remains to be proven that the new is necessarily better than the old. I want, for example, to find someone who has the courage to say that Marinetti is better than Dante Alighieri!!!! Or that the hack artists who display their toilets (in the literal sense!) in fine museums and pass them off as art are better than Phidias.

However, at this point, I would like to know who decides which movement is more cultural: symbolism, psychedelia, baroque, minimalism. Who makes all these decisions? You? Scaruffi? Have you all attended conservatory? Has it ever crossed your mind that you ask too much of light music? Or that anything can be written in a music history encyclopedia? Is experimental music inherently beautiful, catchy, poetic? On what basis do you make these arguments? I want to understand. On what grounds do you judge light music works with artistic and cultural influences? The story of the banana and Warhol is nice, for goodness' sake, but what does it have to do with anything? When you talked about the genesis of the album, what it is inspired by and what has inspired it, do you think you added something to the music of these artists? You didn't add anything at all. You only made them less likable. You and the know-it-alls who still think that art is a collection of concepts and who want to rationalize what is not rational. And don't come to me saying that what is catchy is not real music. Isn't Puccini catchy? Isn't Beethoven catchy, or Mozart, or Wagner, or Chopin?

Hello, I listened to Heroin. I pity it. It gave me a piercing headache and I can't find any kind of genius in it. If I tell Scaruffi, do you think he’ll get angry? The arpeggio is nice. The problem is that it's a bit of a drag. But I think you haven't judged its catchiness or its technique. Or Lou Reed's pitiful voice, at least in this track. It must have been innovative, I don’t doubt that, a gem for connoisseurs like those who frequent this forum. For me, it was a torment of 7 minutes... I just can't bring myself to like it...

The idea of the main theme starting from Tie Your Mother Down, going through White Man, and arriving at Teo Torriatte is wonderful. Everything else is brilliant. I recommend you give it a listen. Ps - it has nothing to do with The Works! Ps - I take pleasure in seeing that it's always the same thing. No one talks about the album, but everyone talks trash about the artist in question. What professionalism.