donjunio

By now it's superfluous to waste adjectives on you, Bartleboom: five!!!

very good

Dave, look, technique isn’t everything: the message of punk from a musical standpoint (neglecting the social context) was to bring rock back to its original essence, that of street music, a form of art that has always favored youthful urgency. Prog rock at a certain point in the mid-70s was evolving into something excessively baroque and pompous, as evidenced by certain pharaonic and hypertrophic live ceremonies. One of the merits of punk was to bring rock back down to earth, and with new wave, to set it off again. Take a band like XTC: they were technically outstanding (all graduated from music schools), they were born in the punk era to create complex music but not baroque, within the rules of pop grammar. In short, Dave, the invitation I extend to you is always the same. Be less black-and-white. I can understand that sometimes it might get you angry when you hear punk exegetes trashing progressive and punk (and a good part of the Italian specialized press has had this approach), but try not to fall into a specular mistake.

Dave, your stance honestly seems like a pose of decadence, enclosed in a limbo where you contemplate the original purity, finding today refuge in the formal perfection of prog-metal. A clear, coherent position, but I must say that I think you’re wrong to denigrate everything that doesn’t align with your aesthetic. You have mythologized this golden age of 68-71, which you rightly consider as unrepeatable. But every era is intrinsically unrepeatable, because it shapes with particular alchemies the movements it produces. The period you admire so much was historically the time of great utopias, of Woodstock, of the struggles for civil rights and against war. You talk about a unique and original revolutionary ideology, but you forget the historical context. After 70-71, there was the restoration of the 70s, the failures of that generation, leading to the abyss of the 80s and all the social devastations that occurred. Don’t you think that even during this period there were artists capable of expressing the spirit of those times, or that the unfortunate circumstance of not living in a golden age completely deprives them of dignity? It’s as if you only appreciated artists active during the French Revolution and ignored a genius like Stendhal simply because he wrote novels set in the grim Restoration.

"Let's assume that if you're convinced that any Kobain is better than Allen, it's pointless to respond to you. "...you were the one who started all this. I think you're really obsessed!"

But nobody took it out on Pink Floyd, Dave. (You recognized that Echoes was a pointless show-off too), but in general, with this type of operation, Lesto wrote a light review like a glass of soda in his usual style... I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Specifically, nobody has questioned the intrinsic value of Pulse.

"pointless social distortions," this definition seems out of place to me, because 1) we are talking about prog metal here: why do you always bring up your usual sermon about punk and grunge whenever you are criticized, especially when you receive critiques from users who clearly demonstrate knowledge and appreciation for your favorite genre, even if this time they disagree with you? 2) I believe I explained to you elsewhere, in the review of bleach, that those phenomena were far from pointless, that they may certainly not be to everyone's taste, but they cannot be dismissed superficially as you do.

Sure, Dave, you’re right too: however, if someone makes a joke about these operations, in a light-hearted way like Lesto did and without going on long rants about the cynicism of the majors, they should be free to do so, right?!

john, I think you’re the one who has grasped the spirit of the review... this is certainly not a critique of the live performance but rather of the usual, greedy diminishment of the art of Pink Floyd.... with the calm approval of the ineffable and pompous Gilmour, clearly..... although, deep down, it’s normal for this kind of operation to be pushed: the fans of Pink Floyd are primarily in the 30-50 age range, the key demographic for the record market. They are all professionals, having replaced the youthful passions of yesteryear with ambition, bourgeois boredom, and careerism.... in short, this is a perfect intersection of supply and demand. Then sure: a big fuck you to art...

I just noticed that there was also this one, lost among the many compilations in the database... otherwise I wouldn’t have duplicated it: we have the same tastes and similar conclusions after all… nice.