Mike76

Cute album but a bit too "epidermic." A nice original and lively sound but the compositions are not equally exceptional.

@Charlie: with the phrase "music should be made by musicians," you're saying everything and nothing (but mostly nothing), especially because I think we have a rather different concept of what music is and who can be called a musician. "Moreover, his music is left to chance," nice discovery, even Free Jazz "relies on chance" and it’s still music, as far as I can tell. It seems to me that you’re more upset about the hype that the public and critics have generated around this album than about the work itself, but that’s your problem if you can’t discern the two. Anyway, I repeat, I’m not here to give you tedious rants (which, by the way, Piero annoys me too) about this album; I just say that I like the original way he uses the blues in contrast to the tiresome stereotypes employed by the Rolling Stones and other "true rock" bands. I enjoy his playful-surreal approach, which I find quite accessible, and I like recognizing elements from bands I love and listened to for a long time (I found more of a connection to Josef K, Birthday Party, and Clock DVA, although all the NW bands you mentioned are also ones I like). That’s enough for me to find it enjoyable even today in 2010, unlike any "Beggars Banquet."

@Charlie Parker: Well, to be honest, I liked Trout Mask Replica upon my first listen, but really in a "gut feeling" way, without overthinking its supposed importance. I mean, I find it infinitely more enjoyable and interesting than... I don’t know... a "Beggars Banquet" by the Rolling Stones. I think it really depends on the listener's musical background; I grew up with New Wave records, and I find Trout amusing, I enjoy spotting the influences that later bands have reused. Of course, if someone grew up on the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, they might find the way the blues is distorted on this LP annoying. I wish you the best of luck with your "transposition," maybe at the Venice Biennale you’ll find success.

The Restaurant Da Bettino where "you eat and that's it" is a gem.

Well, the title says it all!

Lux has some reason in defining Litfiba as revival Wave in '85, and I am the first to notice that they echoed a bit all over the English Wave, however in '85 something important in the New Wave scene was still emerging from across the sea (like Sister Of Mercy, Dead Can Dance, or Cocteau Twins) and Litfiba had already released several singles and EPs since '81, some of which were remarkable. But aside from the issue of dates, I don't feel Litfiba are so derivative in imitating English models; they managed to make their proposal warmer and more "Mediterranean." I don’t know if it’s the voice or something else, but they brought something original too, with hooks borrowed from The Edge and keyboards lifted from Duran Duran. They are certainly a minor New Wave band on an international level, but not insignificant in my opinion.

@Enbar, I’ll take a guess. Adams probably apologized to Loan for two reasons: the first is that even if he considered the South Vietnamese general a butcher with few scruples, he was still a butcher fighting for a just cause (and I believe that too); the second might be that Adams must have seen a lot worse in Vietnam, much worse than this (I’ll spare you some episodes I’ve read about so as not to ruin your sleep and appetite), only those weren’t documented and therefore didn’t exist for public opinion, while the execution of an enemy prisoner, routine for Vietnam during that historical period, became a media case (also because of the "celebrity" of the protagonist) due to this photo. If you think about it, it’s also what happens in our news: a story gains more space and importance only if there are images; if there aren’t, it becomes a brief segment read by the presenter. So, a bank robbery captured on camera becomes more newsworthy than an earthquake with dozens of victims in Kyrgyzstan for which there are no images.

Well, my idea of the general hasn't changed one bit; I had already understood from the interview that Fallaci reported in "Niente e così sia" that he was cynical and ruthless. I’m not sure if the images of him emerging from the building with a smirk and a cigarette are immediately before the incident (or archival footage) and whether he already knows what awaits him outside. I think the smirk is more "dedicated" to the camera and to the "playing a character," or perhaps to something that someone asked or told him. Still, even if he was already thinking about killing a Viet Cong, it wouldn’t have been strange: that was his daily life.
Anyway, I included the links to defend the photographer, labeled by some as a vulture in search of awards. You can see the general asking a soldier for the gun, gesturing for the other soldiers to move away, aiming at the prisoner, and shooting at point-blank range. In short, the general didn't call the photographers together and say, "Look at what I'm doing!" posing first. So, I believe Adams when he says he didn’t expect the execution and captured it purely by chance.

@Enbar77: if Diem killed and imprisoned a few hundred opponents, that doesn't make the Northerners look better who robbed, impoverished, and starved a few million South Vietnamese for years. I also think the Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia seems like a "just" war, even if they didn't do it out of charity (like everyone else, after all) but for their own interests. It wasn't the only conflict between "comrade" states since the now-forgotten Sino-Vietnamese war took place in 1979, lasting a few weeks and costing "only" a few tens of thousands of lives. Some say it was triggered by Vietnamese incursions into China, while others attribute it to the non-payment of arms by the Vietnamese. China and Vietnam have worked hard to erase the embarrassing memory of it, but the skeleton in the closet remains. If we want to find something good brought by Vietnamese communism, it could definitely be the spread of literacy and education, although used for propaganda purposes.