easycure

Lux, why do you insist on not understanding? Or not wanting to understand? I didn't compare the albums, for heaven's sake, it was all too clear! I criticized the WAY of reviewing, WAY, do you understand? I made a consideration about the REVIEWS, not the albums. If the focus of a review has to be the arrangements and the singing, then there wouldn’t be any difference for these reviewers between a Pausini and Ayreon, because the elements analyzed and praised are the exact same ones that could be found on a Pausini album. That's the point; that's why these reviews are truly laughable. :-D

Damn! Good job, Fabio, you really impressed me :-D ..I understand that you persistently try desperately to prove that the whole world considers the Ayreon album a masterpiece.. it doesn't affect me at all: I have already shown you that exceptions exist, and that's enough to dismantle the supposed universality of the praise for Ayreon. Moreover, you don't reply at all to the topic much more substantial than the total superficiality of the analyses of many of these reviews. Why is that? :-D ..but then, how sad.. you haven’t said a damn thing of your own; would you expect to attack me by relying on what others have written and the quantity of these opinions different from mine? Your continuous and increasingly glorified obsession really makes me laugh, eheheh :-D

more technical? More formal? Is it about criticism or description? Is it about elementary themes or analysis? A critique should aim to grasp the essence, it should go beyond form, capturing meaning, not just focusing on the signifier. The voice is beautiful and the arrangements are complex. Damn! So even Bocelli's and Pausini's albums were masterpieces, I never noticed it, ahahah :-D but come on, really?

I may have been academic, but you have certainly been inaccurate. “Empathy is NOT a matter of culture! It’s a matter of sensitivity.” Sure, and according to you, where does this sensitivity come from? From DNA? I’m sorry for you that you find it laughable to address the cultural aspects of emotions; you probably need to do some further reading. Sometimes a bit more academia is necessary… I would be more cautious with conclusions drawn from years and years of studies—not my own, obviously, but those I have provided you with a brief overview of. I absolutely do not claim to grasp anything better than anyone else; I just say that developing a certain sensitivity CAN lead you to consider a group like DT to be totally lacking in depth. This is my case, but certainly not just mine if you take a look at this review and others about DT.

Dear Orion, if you have arguments, please bring them out, very simply.. you play the Inquisition because, as you have always done, you continuously try to attack me on my way of assessing, overlooking the arguments. But that's not really the point: it's more about the fact that you seek, quite unnecessarily, to attack me on the SAME things we have already extensively discussed and on which I have already answered you at length (but you seem to not consider these responses at all). I don’t judge you as unfit at all; I simply find the third or fourth post, which without changing content still tries to attack me on my alleged "lack of evolution," to be sterile and rather pretentious.. I hope I have finally been clear enough on this for you. "You ignore many of my posts where I expressed my views" — I ignore? Incredible! Isn’t it you who keeps trying to criticize my position on the usual topics from a month ago? So what are you saying? What do you want to prove?

Dear Fabio, my statement is perfectly justified, and to understand the reasons, just read the sentences I posted :-D ..I'm sorry for making you angry, so much so that with your same little method I simply noticed how a masterpiece can be turned into a mediocre record (by sites that are just as metal-oriented as most of those you posted).. who is to blame in this case.. ;-)

Lux, less cultured, less snobbish? ahahah :-D ..sorry, but do you really call objectivity reviewing an album based on "the singing of great style and craftsmanship"? I call it a joke :-D it’s not a matter of supposed objectivity (which, by the way, what does it even mean? How would you know those reviews are more objective than others?) it's a matter of the WAY of judging: the fact of using arrangements or singing as a yardstick for an album seems absolutely ridiculous to me... but hey, you do you... ;-)

The prog is only stylistically constrained by certain stylistic forms. Of course: but where do the DTs move beyond these forms? In what ways do they go further? You've answered yourself, can't you see? What is it in the DTs that is something different from the execution style? It's clear that I don't feel any expressiveness when perhaps someone else might feel it; I actually expressed my opinion with my arguments in this regard (something I received from you only to a certain extent since we are continuing to discuss methodological issues, not substantive ones).. finally, if I were you, I would laugh less when talking about the cultural nature of emotions, perhaps speaking a bit presumptuously: :-) maybe you forget that there are emotions like shame, pride, remorse, etc. defined as secondary precisely because they are PRETTY much cultural, distinguishing them from primary emotions like fear, anger, etc. which are primarily evolutionary/genetic. Now, between the two categories, I think musical empathy logically fits much more in the first category than in the second, don’t you agree?

I never said that the expression must be conscious to the mind of the artist. But if an artist is indeed an artist, they express something. This is exactly the case with DT, which involves imposing an expression precisely because it is achieved through absolutely stylistic means of expression.

Sure, the expression often tends to be deliberately cold, but still: why? What does it mean? One thing is Nine Inch Nails, where the chill of the distorted electronic sounds is, precisely, the result of a vision... that is, the artist who sees and interprets reality in a certain way, according to their sensitivity, represents and constructs this through an artistic form. The "coldness" itself, as a pure sensory effect, remains, as per definition, pure surface.