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@flinstone: there’s no way to quote, so I’ll restate the passage I’m referring to in order to avoid confusion, considering that there are so many comments here and most of them are quite long. Unfortunately, it’s not very readable, but otherwise I think it would become really hard to understand. Anyway: I agree with the philosophy of you and Jovanotti (“and there’s no music that’s worth more than the music you want to hear”), I am definitely the best critic for myself, but I need to be able to find information somewhere, and Scaruffi's work online is the only one that provides, despite the errors, a comprehensive and reasoned overview. >>>>>I automatically have strong and serious doubts about the reliability and authority of the entire Scaruffi corpus, and I don’t even consider it as a consulting source<<<<< but that’s fine with me, it’s absolutely legitimate. You read something you don’t like, you have doubts that it doesn’t match your way of seeing things, you don’t read it, amen. Not the theories: “Scaruffi’s site is all useless, I say that having read three entries,” “the form must be perfect,” “he only does it to sell,” “whoever reads him gets hypnotized and understands nothing and doesn’t think for themselves,” “criticism is all useless” and other nonsense like that. Those drive me crazy.

No Arnold, you’re mistaken; the entry on Mahavishnu does exist (albeit sketched out for now, but it’s been there for a long time). Anyway, aside from the fact that I’ll overlook Malmsteen, Mr. Big, Europe, and other similar horrors, it’s normal for things to be missing. Even AllMusicGuide lacks millions of albums. So what? Anyway, LongLiveRock, since you know the music world so well that you even talk about better or worse genres (ah, and I want the link where Scaruffi says rock is inferior to classical and jazz), all together, can you tell me (to me, who is utterly ignorant, mind you) why an album by Clouddead or Cannibal Ox, or one by Spring Heel Jack should be considered inferior to an album by Europe? Just curious, since you’re so knowledgeable. @Flinstone: >>>>> The problem from my point of view is that once I’ve read ONE entry by Scaruffi on an artist I know VERY WELL and I find inaccuracies in that entry, absolutely arbitrary critical interpretations, bordering on nonsense, his whole nice system collapses for me instantly like a house of cards, like a domino that he might have assembled over decades, which is nice to look at, if you will, elegant, but super fragile and inconsistent.<<<< No, at most, you could say that entry is inconsistent. Or thinking like you do, since you’ve said something foolish, should I conclude you’re an imbecile? Or should I jump from the particular to the general like you do? >>>> At that point, not only does the desire but also the necessity to know deeply fades, because I know that unfounded news is always lurking.<<<< Can you name a critic whose opinions you completely agree with?

I find these generalizations insulting. I find it insulting that you pretend to know what I think, that you pretend to know my tastes. But then, do you think you are immune to any kind of conditioning? And enough with this bullshit about hypnosis, enough for fuck’s sake, enough! It’s nonsense! Do I really need to explain it well why it’s nonsense? Besides, hypnosis makes me think of Giucas Casella, and I would tell you to speak as you eat; it may be, in fact, it’s true that for many, everything Scaruffi says is gold. And there's nothing wrong with that, the bad thing is that his theories are then repeated without reflection. But it’s not Scaruffi’s fault. Do you think the kid fascinated by Scaruffi who repeats to you that “Trout Mask Replica is the only rock album worth listening to” is different from those who don’t know fuck all about classical music and tell you “greats like Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven”? Do you think there’s the slightest difference? Or from those (see also one above, I think longliverock) who say “I don’t listen to hip hop, but I know it’s an inferior genre”? But do you also think it’s different, from saying “and then from 7 to the Aqua (raise your hand if you’ve heard that album, because I don’t believe you if you say you have). The crux of the matter is that it’s not Scaruffi who’s the problem; it has nothing to do with it, the problem is ALWAYS wanting to talk about things you don’t know. Did you want to know my approach? Here it is: don’t say anything about things I don’t know perfectly. Or at most admit it before that my impression is that I don’t know a subject well.

Have I disappointed you? I mean, you can say any nonsense, taking on a paternalistic tone when you have no idea about the people you’re talking to (and this shouldn’t be read as "you don't know who I am," obviously), which is the most insulting thing in the world (meaning if in your last comment you wrote "poor idiots, I’ll teach you how the world works and how music works, poor things, study," the meaning would be the same). You allow yourself to say ridiculous things like "you are hypnotized," and then I’m the one who’s insulting? Man, I am astonished.

>>>A suggestion: listen to what @fusillo says: start from the DIRECT knowledge of the artist, listen to their music, and if you want to delve deeper, visit the artist's official website and read autobiographies (when available). Very often, it is the artists themselves who give you inputs, declaring their masters, groups and artists they were inspired by, whom they consider important in their formation. This is already a way to build a path for yourself, to consciously and autonomously broaden your horizons, without being guided. By listening to the music, you develop your sensitivity; try to define styles, techniques, and distinguish the sounds of various instruments. Read the lyrics if possible. Only after doing all this work, if you wish, can you compare your impressions with the systematic work of a music critic. In this way, you will engage in a dialectical relationship with them, rather than a dependent one (a dependency that will always exist, even unconsciously, if you choose the reverse path: first the critique, then the music). Forgive me, I don't want to teach anyone anything.<<< Ah, you don't want to teach anything to anyone? What bits of wisdom! A' flinstone, MA VAFANGUUL!

>>>Is it possible that you haven't noticed the various manuals, compendiums, histories of music, cinema, etc., that Scaruffi advertises for clearly profit-driven purposes on his website? But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Obviously, Scaruffi doesn't rely solely on the sale of his manuals, but on the fact that he has built a business around the "Scaruffi format." "Indoctrinate, hypnotize, closed circle": but it is very clear that Scaruffi absolutely needs to form his own clientele. He shapes this clientele, catechizing them by using his own lexicon, his own iconography, building a system of cultural references that belong only to him and to the limited (or not) circle of his loyal followers. This explains the need to create a closed circle, which goes from critical reviews to rankings, to votes, to the organization of the Scaruffi method system. A self-referential system, that self-generates and self-reproduces. Not by chance, from your posts (yours, @riccardo’s, @Larrok’s, etc.), it is clear that if I ask you: why is such an artist, in Scaruffi’s opinion, so worthy of consideration? You answer me: because that’s how it is written in his review. Asking again: where does Scaruffi get what is written in his review? Your answer: from objective evaluations, you see the rating Scaruffi gives to this artist? Do you see that he places him in the ranking of the 100 most important rock artists?<<< Here you risk a heavy insult, because besides having lined up a series of breathtaking nonsense, you are immensely arrogant and presumptuous. But what the hell do you know about my tastes? WHAT THE HELL DO YOU KNOW THAT THEY CORRESPOND TO THOSE OF SCARUFFI? Anyway: it’s nonsense that Scaruffi's "cultural references" (as you call them) belong only to him. Scaruffi is very often the last in a series of critics who have similar thoughts, from Ira Robbins to Lester Bangs, from Simon Reynolds to Bertoncelli, and he declares this himself. As for the stuff he sells: Scaruffi is perhaps the only critic (as far as I know) to put his work online for free. The other critics sell it to you, all of them from the first to the last. And it is fair that way. He does it for free as well, and many of those banners serve to keep the site alive and mostly do not concern his books (books where you find the things that are free on the site). Anyway, you reach every level of ridiculousness with the story of hypnotizing; I am truly left speechless, damn it, when I read this sesquipedalian bullshit it makes me nervous.

@flintone:>>>The author of a site that wants to establish its critical system as a benchmark of authority has a moral obligation to verify the reliability of the data contained in what is published in its name. Only after that comes everything else (systems, categories, classifications, interpretations, rankings, votes, and so on)<<< this at my place is called being pedantic and extremely superficial. According to your reasoning, entirely centered on the perfection of form ("heaven forbid if there's an incorrect date!" "heaven forbid if there's a shallow opinion on an album!"), the Nobel Prize should be taken away from Dulbecco, who can’t get a subjunctive right even if he were paid to do so. Mistakes exist, it's a work in progress, Scaruffi asks to be notified about them and gradually corrects them, what else should he do according to you? But have you ever seen mistakes in encyclopedias, books, etc.? And should this make all the good that exists worthless? What matters are the arguments, what matters is what one can take and learn, but what the hell do I care about the mistakes, what the hell do I care about the entries I don’t agree with, but think critically for God's sake.

@fusillo: "don’t say that mine is populism!", jokingly, but if you make a statement about something you know in an absolutely superficial, biased, and even arrogant way, how should I define this attitude? >>> The claim about the best singer in the history of music is the first thing you read on Scaruffi's page. I didn't search for it with a lantern. Was it right for him to say something like that? I don’t know, as I said, I don't really give it much thought. <<< How can you talk about "the anxiety to establish records" and then not think critically about it? It’s one or the other. I do ponder it, and I believe a critic should take the risk (thanks to their knowledge and culture) of providing this kind of information to someone ignorant on the subject who wants to build a foundation and experience the most beautiful and interesting things. And saying that Tim Buckley is the greatest singer in the history of music, as far as I know, seems absolutely justified to me. If you say otherwise, I assume you have some other name in mind. >>> You ask me for the name of a credible critic? Great question, and on the other hand, I don’t read even one. <<< Good thing you were being populist. You don’t read critics: what do we do with reviews then? We act like little critics, only we’re generally much less prepared. We rely on passion and shared tastes with others, but that’s what we do: we play the role of little critics. And those little critics on debaser and elsewhere, I mean, your friends who give you tips, everyone but you apparently, turn to criticism to find out what to listen to. So if you tell me you don’t follow any critics, your argument doesn’t hold water. >>> On the official Tim Buckley website, which you must have visited, you can find all kinds of information <<< Yes, but unfortunately I discovered Tim Buckley, and that he had a website, by going through criticism, you through some friend who heard it from another friend who read some magazine or site written by CRITICS, who took the responsibility of telling you that Tim Buckley was a great musician. There’s no escaping it. By the way, I have some bad news for you, I hope you won’t take it too badly: Lee Underwood, Tim Buckley’s guitarist, is a critic. Now he’ll become a pretentious jerk in your eyes, and I imagine you’ll prefer the always genuine and so profound opinions of the common man. >>> And should I read Scaruffi? <<< But why, has anyone tried to convince you to read Scaruffi, or Polillo or Lester Bangs? You shouldn’t avoid reading Scaruffi, you’re obviously free to do what you want, you should avoid talking about a topic you don't know. Because accusing a critic of superficiality while being even more superficial is...madness, I won't use other terms.

What a mess! Now I'll try to respond.

and wants to be right based on just a few pages read, against me who at least knows what I'm talking about. Well. It would take a bit more humility.