Shine

It's the first time I've seen a review of a bootleg here on Debaser. This opens the floodgates to a wave of reviews on historical bands, fantastic! The review got me really excited, I invoke Serie A!

The beloved and hated Castelvetrano Selinunte keeps me away from such beautiful concerts. For a fan of Fossati's songs like me, who has never seen him live, it's an unpleasant contradiction. I adore Fossati's "sad" period, but I understand his need to find more light and life. Sometimes it seems like a wonderful, contagious serenity, other times it feels a bit forced. Am I the one who's an irredeemable melancholic? Primiballi, on the other hand, is, as usual, top-notch.

To Saputello: I apologize because I underestimated your knowledge on the topic of Barrett (it feels a bit strange for me to use these words, but when you love something...) and I don’t want to come across as presumptuous. There has been a lot of discussion about the character, and much depends on what one has read and how one interprets it. Probably Syd had problems before, but he was still in shape to perform live. After that, it was never the same. Unfortunately.

Let's talk about sources and their reliability. None of us lived in London in the sixties, so we can only rely on memories and reconstructions from those who experienced that period and those events. We can be skeptical of those stories, but they are the only sources we have. Of course, aside from Jim, who claims, "the biographies you buy at Ricordi are worth less than half a penny." He’s certainly in direct phone contact with Waters and conducts seances to reach Syd's soul. If he then talks to me about the world of the internet, I can only tell him that, at the very least, this information has the same credibility issues as books (indeed, but this is a personal opinion, books generally provide better guarantees, but that's a long discussion). The Floyd (all five of them) have spoken about the "musical barbarism of record labels," which were only interested in making money, and if they brought Norman Smith on board, it was not for artistic reasons but to try to make the album as commercially appealing as possible. This led to endless battles between producer and band. If you tell me that Smith had little impact, I remind you of his method used on Pow r. Toc. H.: he cut the tape into two parts, removed all the central section, and rejoined it only considering the time length. Not exactly an artistic method! Then Tom is absolutely right in saying that the Barrett after Piper had changed profoundly compared to before. His mental health was completely different: before he was pure energy, after he was dazed and confused. The martial rhythms of Ramadan would be created only later. I don't want to be polemical, but these things are either known or unknown. And then, regardless of the news, it’s enough to make a comparative analysis between the Floyd Barrett and the solo one.

I’ve never been able to find it in any store; by the way, I’m very curious to listen to something. The only time I heard Adrian sing was in Reach Out, the b-side of a single from Somewhere in Time: for the first and only time in a song played by Iron, it wasn't the lead singer singing. And I thought his voice was really good. AOR isn’t my favorite genre, but I’m equally curious. Can someone post some samples?

Well, I don't think that the piper at the gates of dawn is a commercial album, so I don't agree with Tom's first statement. However, Tom goes on to make some very sensible points: this album faced significant pressures from a Norman Smith who not only limited Syd's compositions to the expected timeframes, but also heavily influenced the artistic result by trying (UNSUCCESSFULLY) to normalize a boundless imagination. Without an EMI producer, they would have certainly produced a different album. This is also why they later refused outside producers for several albums. They would have likely shortened their jams too, but those would have been cuts decided by them and not by a stranger. Despite this, the album is not commercial, and the tracks you've mentioned prove that. Tom is right to argue that the music from that time should be viewed through the lens of that era. Then, not to play devil's advocate for Gilmour, but in 1995 during a concert he performed Astronomy Domine, in 2002 Dominoes and Terrapin, and in 2006 Dark Globe, Arnold Layne, and Astronomy Domine: so it’s not true that he avoided Barrett's work!

Every day a gazelle wakes up and knows it must run faster than the lion. Every day a lion wakes up and knows it must run faster than the gazelle. It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle, what matters is that (in a whisper) you don't go against Chuck Norris!!!!

Maybe someone will shoot us if we continue this discussion. Even The Piper at the Gates is commercial; in fact, over the years, it has sold quite a bit (like everything that carries the Pink Floyd brand). There are also bands that generally enjoy great respect (Led Zeppelin, Who, Doors, Cream, etc.) that are commercial. In any case, selling and being commercial is not necessarily a limitation: a lot of beautiful music is sold every day (unfortunately, too much beautiful music is ignored every day); a lot of bad music is sold every day (thankfully, a lot of bad music is ignored every day). P.S. to some ill-intentioned person: I am absolutely heterosexual!

Hey, look, in the last messages I took the liberty of joking around...

I don't mind this album at all. The only issue is Bayley's voice, which is great in the low and atmospheric parts but lacks power in the heavier sections. On the other hand, the album's production didn't help: in fact, the backing vocals are absent, which could have partly compensated for the soloist's lack of power. The songwriting is excellent and evolving compared to previous albums. The review seems a bit weak, poorly argued, and too biased.