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Saccharine Trust, great band, seen live repeatedly centuries ago, relate to the Huskers like XTC relate to Black Flag: it’s practically no wave/no New York, the Huskers play hardcore with heavy psych influences. Wipers are a bit like the Sound of hardcore, one better record after another but nothing essential—Huskers have changed the perspective of hardcore in an indelible way, while the Wipers have perhaps degenerated it (in the positive sense of the term). Both have lyrics that are not even comparable to those of Husker Du, which are, by the way, very different (return of the rat oh no no no no, a masterpiece). Nice talk about objectivity (especially considering the “nice words”), it means I can say that the lyrics of the 883 are better than those of Area, right? That today’s rock has nothing to do with the Velvet Underground but is a derivative of 50s bubblegum rock, right? Oh, they’re opinions just like the banality of Husker Du, it’s subjective! But come on... If you don’t start from at least a minimum of common ground, you won’t get anywhere.

But at this point I'm also curious: since you find the same characteristics of ZA in "millions of other artists," can you name a couple?

It's the usual game of completely decontextualizing the work to try to find something sufficiently general and evaluate everything and everyone with the same yardstick, which is objectively a gross nonsense even if one comes from jazz. If one comes from literature, it takes on grotesque contours, like saying that Burroughs or Céline or Pynchon write "texts" that are banal because they are less linguistically elaborate than the beautiful (???) descriptions of D'Annunzio, who feels the need to extensively talk about the furniture of every shabby room his protagonist crosses, or about the whales in Melville and all the techniques to kill them, a torture I would never want to endure again. That you don't like ZA's texts is indifferent to me, but don't talk about banality because it's objectively foolish, unless you can find me another hardcore concept album that tackles the same themes as the Huskers, possibly without falling into ridiculous sXe groups of dubious quality.

But how the hell can you say that the lyrics of Zen Arcade are "pretty banal"? The Huskers don’t produce and will never produce poetry of any kind; they pour the stylistic elements of hardcore at an inner level, for an audience that on the surface had very little inner depth, but deep down probably experienced the contradictions of the era much more than anyone else. Is "Pink turns to blue" banal? Who has ever addressed heroin like that, without explicitly talking about it or pathetically crying over it? "No more rope and too much dope," for me, just this line is worth the album.
In fact, no record has ever come close to the "everything and nothing" of those years, to the "wrong" growth that we all went through; the only ones who managed to do so were Husker Du, and they succeeded because they also lived in the contradiction between who you wanted to be and who you could be.

The album is very ugly, so I’m re-stamping it since B&S have been a passion of mine for several years.

Look, as far as I'm concerned, they could even host Sanremo and I'd just listen to the album; for this reason, comparing them to Coldplay doesn't change the fact that the record clearly shows a lack of ideas, especially in terms of writing, which certainly can't be said about their previous works. It's normal, they made 5/6 stunning albums, with the penultimate they lowered the quality, and with this one they've lost it.

Nice review, great album. What does "today with 'Dark' we get a completely wrong idea!" mean?

From intimate folk to radio pop, great Belle & Sebastian!

I liked it a lot too.

Fidia, besides the fact that in my opinion you’re practically understanding nothing of the conversation, I haven’t said anything at all; I commented on the review and the album, and then you attacked me for no apparent reason. To be honest, it seems to me that you continue with your praises towards anyone who doesn’t love the DT, interspersing it all with rather childish complaints about the fact that no one writes what you want to read, or that I call you an idiot (which only you know). I simply wouldn’t participate in a discussion among "know-it-alls" and would avoid making 15 posts complaining about cosmic nothingness (it’s pretty implicit: the discussion doesn’t interest me, I won’t participate), especially if I weren’t a fan of the aforementioned: you obviously do as you please, in any case, I’m fine with it.