easycure

Christian, christian, we’re not on the same page. First point: "you just say a bunch of nonsense," this, if I’m wrong correct me, you said in one of your comments and it's not exactly a compliment.. Moreover, it’s not a critique (critique?? strong word!) of my review or my comment, it’s an insult directed at me. So what are you mumbling about? What are you rambling on? You’ve offended me alright, take responsibility for your actions and brace yourself for my response, and I’ll set the tone. Second point, you dismantle the review. But I said much more in the comments (compared to a review I wrote two years ago, which was the second one I ever wrote), but you don’t consider them at all.. why? Too much harder to "dismantle"? hehehe :-D Third point: I couldn't care less about your humble musical knowledge.. you keep saying nothing on the subject, the only thing you demonstrate is that you can’t even talk about the issue in civil terms.. you don’t expose yourself, you don’t show your opinion.. until proven otherwise, you have zero knowledge. Fourth point: among the many childish a priori assumptions you filled your sterile comments with, you keep bringing up the idea that I wouldn’t have expertise in the musical field.. who said that? How do you know? Did you investigate? :-D ...you see, what you haven’t understood is that I don’t flaunt my expertise, unlike you. First, because I prefer to present and argue my points, something you are clearly incapable of, second, because it’s quite obvious that you don’t need to have studied at a conservatory to be a good critic. It’s neither a sufficient nor necessary condition, but this is so obvious that I truly marvel at how you could latch onto this argument.

"We were never metal"... well, in my opinion, a statement like that from someone who was part of Metallica shows a remarkable awareness of their own journey (even though Ulrich remains a fool, and we can agree on that :-D) ...but let's continue, we indeed still don’t understand each other: my reference in describing their style (as I understand it, of course) was precisely motivated to highlight their expressive aspect. Now, given what I've written to you, the idea that they had absolutely no awareness of what they were doing (that is, irrespective of purely personal issues of the individual musician, something that was VERY NEW and DIFFERENT in the metal scene from what had been expressed so far) means that they must have been absolute geniuses, incredibly talented monsters of music; because creating what they created without awareness, meaning without any cultural consciousness, without any real artistic aim, without minimal research, truly indicates having a brilliant creative mindset as they dismantled a genre they themselves played that had until then adhered to very precise canons. For this reason, I find it much more plausible that in reality they were quite aware, besides, their novelty is very precise, systematic, they aren’t random experiments thrown out there, but, and I think you would agree on this too, a style (even if only in execution) does exist.

Ah, I thank Arianna as well, of course.. I'm really glad to hear from you again.. as for the only note dedicated to music, namely Teto16's question, I'll answer: it's not a matter of "not doing something new".. the issue is one of personality, style, and poetics.. which are matters A PRIORI compared to originality or modernity.. it’s their poetics that is insipid, because it has nothing unique, personal, or truly expressive.. (if not citations or pure formalism).. and I didn’t say that "they make music just to sell".. they might have far greater ambitions, given their pretentiousness, but in fact all their value and all their success is due to cleverly rehashing a sound that is already known.. which reduces it all to a shabby little show for MTV, as can be clearly seen lately, since they occasionally pop up with "starlight" between the new Take That and the Scissor Sisters heheheh :-D

Finally, I thank "uno sveglio" for revealing your insipid mediocrity (although it wasn't hard to spot it :-D) ..and by the way, I'm sorry to disappoint you, dear babbei, but "uno sveglio" is not me.. since yesterday at lunchtime, I was in Rome playing, I can prove it to you if you want.. your little game doesn’t work, you fools ;-D

oh oh oh, I suspect :-D my detractors (or MY detractor) resort to shabby tricks given their obvious inability to respond.. ahahaheheh, what a sadness... well, besides obviously not having said a damn thing, I was especially amused by a comment signed "christian," the one where he says: "I speak to you as a musician who has been in the field of classical music and rock for a lifetime," ahahah, please, keep making me laugh, tell me a little more precisely about your credentials.. so we can all have a good laugh :-D and then even more comically later: "Mika" is a musicologist and understands 10 times more than you" damn! And to be a musicologist he writes stuff like what he wrote above? He really has wasted time in life, I hope you said something stupid (among the many things you've said it's definitely likely) eheheheihihi :-D but then, further suspicion: could Christian/Jannus also be Mika, mysteriously disappeared without a trace? because there are too many details that would coincide.. maybe the good Mika couldn't resist flaunting his overflowing ego, despite the anonymity.. who knows, who knows ;-D anyway, I want to point out, dear fools, that regarding Muse you haven't said a damn thing.. I don't know if you've noticed, but that was what we were talking about ;-) ..I'm eagerly awaiting your brilliant criticisms, assuming you are capable of understanding what the term "critique" means eheheheh :-D

In my opinion, you’ve used very fitting terms for the Cure. This live has a great sound, it's true... but the setlist is not very well thought out. There are too many missing tracks from The Top and too much old stuff... more importance should have been given to wild tracks like Piggy in the mirror or bananafishbones ;-)

It's not a matter of "dishonesty" or not.. Do you really think I would need to resort to that? :-) I certainly had no difficulty countering it, as one can easily see, since my argument, however debatable in content like any opinion, is clearly on a different level of analysis compared to his.. If he particularly enjoys the finesse of the formal device, let him be.. but he shouldn't pass this off as a reason for the beauty of this album, though.. or even claim to reduce the entire critical discourse to a matter of chords used, dynamic devices that "undermine the tranquility (thank you, I say: if a distorted guitar comes in on a previously calm piece, that's the effect, very predictably...), good execution and other similar trivialities, insisting that this is the ONLY possible critique.

Moreover, just to clarify... Mika doesn't explain anything... and he doesn't connect the form to the content at all... he DESCRIBES the form and separately describes what the pieces communicate... but there's no connection, which is the most important thing that a review, of any kind, should grasp... it’s not enough to say "they do this and that, they do it with these chords and these sounds... and they want to express this and that" because such a format captures superficiality... in method it's no different if I were to say: "the Backstreet Boys sing with great technique and finely produced and arranged pieces express melancholy and sadness" there’s no difference in method, just as, much more importantly, the real differences in content are not grasped... the only less superficial digressions are when, at the very least, a functionality is attributed to the formal expedients... like when he says: "One ends up almost tending towards the tragic. But one has arrived here in an unexpected way: through tranquility. A tranquility that has evidently been disturbed." but once again this is nothing more than a description, albeit at least tending to grasp an expressive aspect, of an effect, of an expedient... Mika does nothing more than list the various points of the piece... where does he capture the poetics? Where does he capture the meaning? Where does he capture the sense?

Dear Larrok, once again I reiterate that my reference to Scaruffi's rating was motivated by a very specific purpose: to explain to Matt a concept that he stubbornly and unnecessarily rejects :-) Besides that, Surfer Rosa does NOT have the same rating as Images and Words.. Surfer Rosa 8.5 - Images and Words 8.. and in a ten-point rating, the half point matters. Moreover, Images and Words scores higher than any other DT album, while no other DT album reaches 7.5, the rating that Doolittle by the Pixies gets ;-D

Dear sir, by reinterpreting a cover one can indeed achieve, in a manner even more explicit, "uniqueness of expressive form." Thank you for articulating a topic that has made the explanation of my concept even easier... for the rest, I don’t want, for heaven's sake, to start a debate about Metallica as well... certainly, you define Kill'em All as "ugly," a very bold statement and, above all, explained in a rather questionable manner (the only motivation that seems to emerge for the ugliness of the album appears to be that Metallica is crude and unaware)... regarding the "motivations" of Metallica, I don’t know what concrete evidence you have on your side; it seems literally foolish to suppose that just because someone is rough and wants to "break the world," they cannot have innovative ideas... don’t you think, dear sir, that precisely because they wanted to "break the world," they probably consciously wanted to surpass what had been done so far in the metal realm? And can an album like Kill'em All, which interprets the metal track with a COMPLETELY different structure compared to the past, be resolved in a "faster" manner? (that is to say, a more stripped-down piece, with drumming much closer to the punk expression of urgency, rather than the theatrical tribalism typical of NWOBHM, with guitars that are sharper and more acidic, even in the solos, and less "dramatic" in their progression within the piece)? Come on, these are differences that cannot be overlooked ;-)