ajejebrazorf

Dude, I know exactly what you mean, and in fact, your argument falls under "It’s genius but I don’t like it (because I prefer the variety of electronic sounds and certain complex rhythms to the 4/4 of classical)." “Genius but I don’t like it” doesn’t make sense to me: if I find something actually genius, how can it not please me? One thing is to say "Beautiful Naomi Campbell, but I prefer Carla Bruni," another thing is to say "Beautiful Naomi Campbell" - and your friend Briatore: "Do you want to go out with her?" and you: "Not a chance."

Holy God, the "brilliant but I don't like it" is one of the saddest concepts that exist. You can say "I don't like it." You can say "brilliant." You can say "It may be brilliant but I don't like it." But saying "Brilliant but I don't like it" reminds me of an old Zappa interview where he talked about the bourgeois pretending to appreciate paintings at modern art exhibitions.

but you...who? excuse me, but do you know us (part two)? Here on Debaser there are people who listen to everything, classical, avant-garde, jazz, electronic, country, kraut-rock, dance, stoner, metal, world music, new age, ethnic, Brazilian music and you lump us all together in a "you don't understand, you inferior beings are groping around?" I could be groping around too, but I wonder how you can so confidently label everyone. Well.

You have explained yourself. But there are many musical languages (the genres, with the aesthetics mentioned earlier), and you completely dismiss jazz-rock, for example, saying "it's not music." However, it is music. It's just that you can't evaluate the music of Bitches Brew using the criteria you would use to assess a piece by Ellington. It's like saying you don't like Joyce's Ulysses in English because you, being Italian and not knowing English, read it as if it were written in Italian, and it means nothing.

"and you cannot understand this because you don’t have the means...": but why do you know me? Do you know Caz or Open Mind? Do you know what we listen to, if we play, what musical knowledge or degrees we have?

What other standards? A record is made of the sounds that are in it, it’s a tangible thing, not made of a musician's supposed talent. I certainly don’t dispute Palermo as a guitarist. What I’m discussing, and what interests me, is that what I heard was very elegant and well played but with little depth. Period. What other standards should concern me? And I believe that on a record where one has control, many things come out, not just phrasing, knowledge of scales, and harmony. I don’t think you would be capable of judging a psychedelic piece, or an electronic suite, a metal track, or an Indian mantra. Behind every genre there’s a different aesthetic; if you want to talk about musicology, it doesn't all revolve around traditional European harmony. I could also be willing to say, like you, that absolute standards exist, but applying your traditional jazz criteria to other music really makes NO SENSE. "Do you like Mozart?" - "No, he doesn’t swing."

Emanuele, I just read this kilometer-long post... I mean, I’m not saying to be modest, but is this presumption really necessary? Are we all lobotomized? If someone isn’t a great musician, does that mean they can’t understand music? But if you can’t stand Miles Davis and then speak highly of Eddie Palermo, who may be an excellent guitarist, but what I’ve heard isn’t even remotely comparable to the worst records of Miles... that’s true snobbery. I’m fine with any judgment; I imagine you’re extremely knowledgeable when it comes to CERTAIN traditional jazz, but shooting down all music with certain examples (great Palermo, crap Davis) is something else. And above all, following your argument that one must have technical knowledge to understand music, you, aside from the guitar, don’t understand a thing like us (us who? Is there perhaps an identity of all debaseriani to lump us together as a bunch of poor blades of grass?). Am I wrong?

The clouds? But weren't we talking about the son of the stars? Pardonnez-moi monsieurs

in this case, from flowers comes manure...

at least he’s addressing a girl and not trying to hit on a basalt rock.