Mike76

Simplifying, the main merit of Nirvana is that they pulled the masses away from the shit music derived from Led Zeppelin (read Guns'n' Roses) to the fluff derived from the Pixies, which was already a big step forward.

I think I have a good understanding of what it’s all about: Improvised Music From Japan EXTRA 2003 - AA.VV. - Recensione di Mike76
Japanese onanism.

I have good memories of it, but without nostalgia. The little skits were fun (for a child), but in terms of cartoons, it really wasn’t that great of a program, except for "Ghostbusters" and Lupin in the red jacket (although I don’t really remember if it aired there). Otherwise, it was pretty bad, including that "Holly & Benji" that many here remember. Let’s just say I don’t share the feeling that many have of experiencing the golden age of cartoons; in fact, I think that any "Gino Il Pollo" would easily overshadow 95% of the cartoons from back then.

"This rock band with their early albums (the debut 'Boy', the sublime 'October', the angry 'War', and the more than decent 'The Unforgettable Fire', all made more or less within about four years). Wow! They were true child prodigies!"

Naïve review full of digressions and bold judgments, just as I’ve found myself writing, especially in the beginning when one is caught up in a compulsive reviewing fever, churning out a review a day without paying much attention to details. At least you could have spared us the outbursts from your schoolmates or phrases like "two good albums with a very post-punk sound that leaned towards new age in the early '80s." The album is very good, yet I have never managed to fully love it as I have with other Cure albums; perhaps the pain and discomfort it seeks to express are too ostentatious (pornographic, indeed) and thus less credible. I definitely prefer "Faith" and "Disintegration" from The Cure, and even in my hypothetical TOP 30 New Wave, it would struggle to find a place. Nevertheless, it’s an album worth having, rating: 4+.

Kafkaesque.

So many things have changed since that match...

But how have I never commented? And to think that this is the first Suicide album I got almost a decade ago... a strange record, their style is still the same but the sounds used here are "commercial," "plasticized," and it's precisely for this reason that a curious contrast emerges, curious but not entirely successful. In my opinion, the two albums made by Vega with Pan Sonic around the same period are much better.

That the Suicide risked their lives at every concert is an exaggeration, but they must have endured a lot, and in an interview, Vega swears that at one point an axe even flew onto the stage... things that were happening simultaneously on the other side of the Atlantic with an equally seminal band like Cabaret Voltaire.
I've never liked the Cars, but I must admit that Rick Ocasek did a good job producing this album; he made the sound of the Suicide richer and more varied with more "pop" synthetic sounds, without erasing the characteristic hissing and crackling synths of Rev that made their debut so raw and essential.
A less "punk" sound, therefore, which highlights great melodic episodes like "Sweetheart" and "Dream Baby Dream" (rare are the "underground" artists capable of such great pop pieces) and while lacking a track with the intensity of "Frankie Teardrop," there’s the successful urban nightmare of "Harlem" to fill that gap, not to mention the modern reinterpretation of American popular music styles (doo-wop, rockabilly, country, bebop) rewritten in a punk-futurist key.
An album that, in my opinion, holds up well against its heavyweight predecessor and will decisively influence foundational bands like Soft Cell and D.A.F. The reissue from Mute comes with the bonus CD of the Rehearsal Tapes, demos recorded roughly before their debut that are particularly expressive and surprising (it was around 1975!) with Suicide's already mature style highlighting the darker and more spectral aspect of the duo's music.
A double CD that I would recommend even more than the first album to a newcomer. Five, five, five.

If the esteemed gentlemen R€nzulli € P€lù were to commit to reprinting the now hard-to-find material from 1982-84, I would be much more grateful.