donjunio

A fun review, but 2 stars are really too many. The cover is just awful.

well done review, the album is not bad

On the claim that Adams is "the most complete songwriter of his generation," I have some doubts. You were probably too busy listening to Eros and missed out on people like Devendra Banhart or Stephen Merritt. Adams is rather the most prolific songwriter, considering he has released albums with the same frequency that Bruno Vespa spews out books. He is the right songwriter for a rather watered-down and politically correct scene: with his pretty face, after all, he fits perfectly on the cover of the New Musical Express. And then, we’re talking about someone who, in 2003, in the wake of the White Stripes and the Strokes, titles an album "rock and roll": as if in 1992 someone had named an album "grunge." What creativity, guys!
Coming to his musical proposal, it's truly verbose. Starting from country, he has tried to embrace a wide variety of genres. But with a really poor musical background, he has never managed to create an autonomous and effective stylistic signature. "Heartbreaker" had some interesting moments, like "Come pick me up." But even in this album—which sounds like an unlikely cross between Garth Brooks and solo Morrissey—the pretty Ryan lost it. The subsequent steps were nothing short of obscene.
As for comparisons with Dylan, it’s better to just leave it be. For those interested in football, it's a bit like comparing Ortega to Maradona. That’s how I see it. Bye.

This is Young's most touching work; he has managed to translate the anguish of his generation and its demons into Art. Only Dylan has occasionally reached such heights. It is also qualitatively astounding. Precisely because it is technically imperfect, it has a raw sound that makes it unimitable and widely copied. "Albuquerque," for example, is the first slow core piece, and it will boast numerous epigones. The only note I can make about the review concerns "roll another number." The country-rock sound is indeed there, but it is clearly a parody of that circus from which he wants to distance himself. The lyrics referencing Woodstock clearly demonstrate this.

All true, these were the real prodigies. Narayan and Climbatize on "the fat of the land" were great tracks, but the rest of the album, starting from the singles, was too pandering.

Of course, I take it with a laugh, given that these awards are always trivial and annoying. I can't even picture Neil on the Academy Awards stage!!!

Massimo, your passion for the Boss seems to have betrayed you. Purple Rain sold almost as much as Bruce's “the culo stars and stripes.” When it comes to the influence of the two works, I think you would agree that the most important works of the Boss were "the river" and "born to run," which you reviewed wonderfully. "Born in the USA," in some respects, trivialized his previous insights and made them more accessible: I remember my dad even listened to it in the car when I was a kid.
To put it bluntly: Badly Drawn Boy and Nick Hornby were shaped by listening to "Thunder Road." Ligabue by listening to "Born in the USA." I think I made myself clear.
"Purple Rain," on the other hand, was extremely important because rarely has such an innovative album sold over ten million copies. It reached countless people and at the same time opened up many avenues of syncretism for musicians from various backgrounds (just to name one: Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction).
The only point I can make about the Boss, as a devoted fan of Neil Young: I've never understood how he won the Oscar with such an honest and catchy song like "Streets of Philadelphia," for the same film in which Neil pulled a masterpiece like "Philadelphia" out of the hat. Mysteries of show business (or record companies).

very good

Yes Emanuel, technically you are right. But what gives a unique charm to "tonight's the night" is precisely its imperfection, the fact that they were playing and recording at night, with Neil completely drunk. That said, the version on Weld is also beautiful. On Live Rust, I've always gone crazy for "After the Gold Rush." Compared to the studio version, I find the harmonica part much more punchy than the horns. It's chilling when Neil sings "There was a band playing in my head / and I felt like getting high" and the crowd erupts with a cheer!

I wouldn't know what to say about the new generations. Out of curiosity, I went to the NME website to read reviews by readers on the flag bearers of the new rock, and I stumbled upon sentences like "Julian Casablancas is the Mozart of rock." It's evident that there's a lot of ignorance about what happened before 2000 in the music scene among the younger crowd. However, I don't want to sound like a pessimistic blowhard. Maybe some kid right now is discovering the great musicians who wrote the history of rock and will draw inspiration to forge an exciting, non-trivial formula, perhaps with some soul. Who knows.