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In fact, I spoke about the song form as structure, not as the production of the album. Of course, the phrase "it's a classic rock 'only' produced with a different sound" raises a series of questions like "what is this different sound" or "what should HLAH have to not be classic rock" or "are you sure it's that classic rock?". These considerations would fall into the subjective realm in this case, with each person responding differently. What is certain is that albums, in my opinion, should be judged as soon as they are released, not after 20 years, to avoid falling into revisionism... otherwise even VU&NICO today would just be a good album and nothing more. Speaking of Depeche Mode, your phrase here is enlightening: "they pay a lot of attention to formal elegance"... right! Then "their icy-romantic melodies rarely clash with the content," I admit I didn't quite understand the meaning of this sentence (do you mean the musical content?) Surely this is also subject to personal interpretation, depending on who perceives the content and who perceives it less (or not at all) and especially why. But as you said, it's an opinion that can be debated (like many of mine and pretty much all opinions in the world, except in rare cases). Finally, regarding the sound, well, you might not like NIN, but they have still created a distinctly defined sound (regardless of the artistic value one might assign to it). On the other hand, DT also has an unmistakable sound... (unfortunately).

What an irresistible album...great recommendation!

I had missed the gem of this poor soul up here... poor thing, what do I care about how many copies they sold? And how many concerts they performed? Is that how you judge the value of a band with your atrophied mind? Ehhh, damn democracy, that allows worthless and incompetent beings like you to speak. You don’t need to be know-it-alls to understand that this band is insignificant; you just need to have a bit of ear for it. And you don’t even have that.

Yes, the argument you're making is essentially about metabolizing the album through an empathetic process. However, we need to agree on something: such reasoning should be applied to all albums, or none at all... I don't see why it should only be done for the Joy Division! Personally, I choose not to do this for any album (if I want to approach it in the most detached way possible, thus avoiding excessively subjective improper inferences) because that would lead to a misleading attachment to the work concerning a supposed "objective value" of it (assuming that hypothetically, more or less, it exists). So for me, even after the first listens, a sort of judgment can already be given quite well. Froid is also fine, especially when seeing how this work of mourning is concretely proposed in music. All of this is if one decides to overthink an album, because, otherwise, if they like it, they listen to it and don’t worry about the "delusions" of others ;-)

Right, the DDs have no artistic pretensions. Regarding "God Money," one can express opposition to it even with synth pop that isn’t necessarily cerebral and rhetorical, but rather with a direct and immediate piece, as is Trent's style. Now, what you find reminiscent of 883 is, for me, real anger, expressed through softer influences combined with industrial. Closer, consider that it’s the most "radio-friendly" of TDS. As for Trent's voice, it’s well-known that he technically can’t sing, but "being able to sing" is not at all essential for creating "rock that matters." How many off-key, awkward voices, formally untrained, have still been (and perhaps precisely for that reason) original and personal in rock history? Countless (Mascis comes to mind now). Meanwhile, how many, despite having optimal technical training, have fallen into total artistic mediocrity? (Who mentioned Labrie, Mercury with his 80s Queen, Matthew Bellamy, Bono, LAURA PAUSINI?) Now, Trent can sing no more, no less than I can (zero), but his screams and whispers are entirely functional to the music he plays, becoming communicative of a precise way of being; there, technical competence no longer matters, and everything becomes a form of art. Alienation must be Trent's product, and indeed, alienation can be heard in his voice. As a composer... well, he was the first to compose industrial songs in the strictest sense; for me, he has exceptional aesthetic taste. I don’t want to repeat myself, but before, industrial was understood as more or less pure experimentation (especially of an esoteric attitude); "noise" in itself was an evident protagonist. We needed someone to encapsulate these instances into a container, without distorting it, but changing course towards an exacerbated, dramatic nihilism. The danceable meeting between Foetus and Ministry was a less obvious passage than one might think. Today it seems obvious, but it hasn’t always been that way. Bye!

The Romans are more beautiful, X-D Anyway, it seems to me that everything is pretty much written, Inter, alas, is going to win again this year, there isn't much prey for the cats, especially with a Roma that's so wasteful and distracted... and Vucinic who misses open goals with ridiculous lobs.

I talk about prog metal because I know it, I limit myself to criticizing it and criticizing the Dt for specific reasons that I have reported in the review and in the comments above. I certainly think I understand it no less than you, don’t worry. I have listened to way too much better than SC. Enjoy the Phish, without thinking too much about whether they are "bad" or not.

Picking up from the last sentence you wrote, there can certainly exist groups that, despite not innovating practically anything (e.g., Faith No More), manage to take rock standards and adapt them to their own personal liking, effectively creating their own style (and indeed it’s quite hard to say that there isn’t a Faith No More sound, while emphasizing that they haven’t invented anything new). Obviously, if we were to consider only innovative records as generally valid, we could limit ourselves to listening to a hundred albums and that’s it, out of the billions that exist on Earth... which seems quite reductive to me. As for Pretty Hate Machine, the album, while absolutely valid for me (more than Fragile), is nonetheless the most derivative of NIN (it is the first...), and fresh is the most accurate adjective you could find. Trent tackled industrial music head-on and contextualized it in song form (which isn’t a bad word and doesn’t mean commercial!) in a way that had never been so clear and defined before (even Ministry didn’t do as much, since often their songs were "sketches" of industrial metal, with repetitive songs and the same recycled riffs for 7 minutes). Now you're talking to me about EBM, but do you really want me to believe that you consider the early Duran Duran albums better than NIN?!? Or also... what do Depeche Mode have that is superior to Trent's potential?? I mean, it’s true that Trent also plays with synth-pop (especially in this album... but what’s wrong with that?), but that dark verse of "Head Like a Hole" is an anthem of revenge just as much as the refrain; as a first attempt at a danceable industrial song (for Trent) it’s excellent... sure, if a song like that came out today we’d say "So what?", without considering that it still has a significant amount of dark and alienated expressiveness, which for me is what really matters. And let’s not forget that the album dates back to ’89 (not exactly yesterday anymore). And above all... let’s leave Further Down The Spiral (an optional in the NIN discography) behind and dive into the real Spiral, where Trent plays with industrial and shapes it like modeling clay. If the combo of "I Do Not Want This - Big Man With a Gun - A Warm Place - Eraser" all in one breath doesn’t blow your mind... well, I’m forced to believe that Trent has stolen your girlfriend! X-D Maybe listen to it with headphones...

Anyway, the early Oasis are much better than those pathetic Muse.

But what the hell does "I'm not prog metal" mean?? I suggested to you without a shadow of a doubt more artistically interesting progressive albums than SC; if you want, you can listen to them, otherwise, enjoy yourself, keep drugging your ears with this musical rubbish called DT. Let's broaden our horizons a bit, come on. Then, of course, I won't recommend Pain of Salvation to you, they're nothing special (better than DT, yes, but still nothing special). Prog metal sucks, get that through your head. The bands all sound alike, with those keyboard and guitar solos produced on an industrial scale and lacking creativity, and if there are differences, they're only formal, never substantial.