RingoStarfish

Well, Bjorky, by the way, it had been years since I last visited Debaser... it was more of a coincidence, and I apologize for the comment full of mistakes, but what can you do, I'm no longer used to the healthy debates among Debaserians... Rather, what’s the vibe like on the site now? It truly has been an eternity since I last set foot here, but well... this one about the electric eels was mouth-watering.

Just as progressive rock was significant as a movement in pushing the boundaries of avant-garde elements of more experimental rock, punk was fundamental in rejuvenating certain stagnations and vices that were undermining artists' creativity, conditioning them into what were becoming mere exercises in style. For the same reason, the evolution of punk into something more sophisticated, such as new wave with all its currents and layers, should be embraced enthusiastically. Just as progressive rock was a refinement of the previous blues-rock/pop-rock. Music is all a cycle when it moves in the right direction. Something that I honestly don't see much of in today's rock, which is all about mash-ups and frankensteinizations. Like Peter Gabriel playing Little Richard… we would never have allowed that as we now do with the bands of 2008 that "redo" Ian Curtis, Robert Smith, or Morrissey.

I also think that one shouldn't overthink one's instinctive considerations about the natural course of rock history... To say that punk, with its attitudes and intuitions, opened a crack in the monumental edifice of rock built by prog and its surroundings is not an accusation, nor a way to condemn the "before," but simply an observation. Moreover, it’s more than legitimate. One can and should love both Yes and the New York Dolls; I think it would have been commendable in those same years to listen to Motorhead, the Bee Gees, Ian Dury, Patti Smith, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

Great supersoul revival! So many lessons from John Morton & co...

Even though I fear that Adam is following the theory "by doing nothing, I won't mess up either... and since I could have ended things well with wonderful, let's only publish something if it can live up to wonderful." The myth that is being created around Adam in the two-thousands is also due to this legendary absence from the scene. To maintain this status, he needs to either stay silent or come out with his best album in the last 25 years... and that's not easy.

I didn't know that Wonderful was an old piece from the '70s... incredible... if Adam had been signed in '77, we don't know what other masterpiece albums we would have to discuss now, instead of settling for magnificent demos and glorious scraps like those in "Who taught you to..." or "Antmusic..." I consider Wonderful as an excellent comeback, much more conscious and lovingly crafted compared to Persuasion (which I managed to get my hands on). Persuasion is an album without infamy and without praise, almost a Vive Le Rock version from the '90s, filled with sadomasochistic lyrics from start to finish, fluorescent guitars, and female backing vocals, Adam very much turned on but often a bit boring. Nevertheless, there are a handful of songs that deserve to go down in history, like the title track, "All Girl Action," "Headgear," "Brain Candy," and a couple of others... but it’s really in comparison to Persuasion that you understand how much Wonderful is the first album made with true conviction and inspiration since Friend or Foe, a last gasp in the midst of all the confusion and inconsistency of the previous decade. If some "ifs" had come to fruition (IF the album had received the exposure it deserved, if Adam hadn’t fallen ill during the tour, if Adam hadn’t been at the peak of his bipolar problems, etc...) Wonderful could have been just the beginning of a new career; all the right cards were there to make Adam a mature yet irreverent songwriter as always. And on today's compilations, perhaps instead of the white-striped pirate in a hussar jacket on the cover, we would see the charming, seasoned forty-something from the days of beautiful dream.

Lame is also a song, connected to the movie, which I think is fantastic: offbeat rhythms, Pirronian guitars, and Adam, in the last two minutes, fully unleashes his madness, telling everyone to go to hell... let's say it's perhaps the negative opposite of "friends": now he's everyone's friend, but it's a superficial and evanescent friendship. So what could be better than to leave scorched earth around? "I fuck you All"!!!

don't be square, be there! I don't know whether to thank Adam for having "closed" his career, leaving us lying on the floor reminiscing and re-listening to all our records with nostalgia and admiration, or to still be waiting for the successor to Wonderful... he would surely do something much worse or much better... actually, after all these years, I’m definitely sticking to the second hypothesis... what do you think about "lame"?

great b-side babies...but what about the peel sessions?

don't be square, be there! I don't know whether to thank Adam for having "closed" his career, leaving us lying on the floor reminiscing and re-listening to all our records with nostalgia and admiration, or to still be waiting for the successor to Wonderful... he would surely do something much worse or much better... actually, after all these years, I’m definitely sticking to the second hypothesis... what do you think about "lame"?