easycure

I just read your second comment; in my opinion: 1) I agree with you, but it’s a shame that almost immediately in the UK this "evolution" easily transformed into a type of image that was just as stereotyped and even more "commercialized" (it’s around this time that MTV was born). 2) This is also very true. But the first to do it were Television, Talking Heads, and Pere Ubu. Apart from P.I.L., there was little to nothing in the UK that continued this experimentation. Let’s say it was exploited as a pre-existing fact to rely on for issues that were often more about fashion than anything else. Perhaps with the exception of Japan and the Cocteau Twins (who, in my opinion, already had a different awareness). And then who else? 3) See above, an American invention plundered more or less decently. I completely agree with you about prog. :-) There was little or nothing invented; for me, it’s clear how it was generally a formalistic offshoot of '60s themes (which had already been tackled and much more creatively). Let's thank the Ramones :-D

It’s precisely because I have listened a lot to the English New Wave, but also recently to a lot of New York music, that I find it enormously overrated. In fact, what is creative in New York becomes status in England, almost entirely and almost immediately. The best in the UK are undoubtedly the PIL; for the rest, there’s really very little exceptional and not much decent. The same Cure from the dark period are frankly predictable; for me, that’s now their worst period, solely dedicated, in all honesty, to being fashionable. The best remain Top and *Kiss Me*, it’s for those beautiful psychedelic “diforate” that they survived the '80s; otherwise, they would have ended up like those pathetic Bauhaus. The Joy Division, in my opinion, are exactly halfway: while *Unknown Pleasures* was the genuine English version of the New Wave (therefore a creative record that knows how to be a witness of its time), Closer was a terribly harmful record; saved by undeniable sincerity, but also tremendously debatable in its huge influence for how it marked the absolutely pillaged stereotype of typical romantic existentialism, far too easily exploited for reasons solely of status, form, and pathetic image issues. It’s in the genes of English rock that they never particularly succeed at being spontaneous; they always have to inject a bit of pretentiousness, but in this period, this intrinsic flaw becomes not only pathological but even arrogantly celebrated. In New York, the focus was on music (the New Wave was invented there and in Ohio, in fact), while in the UK, it’s about showing “how much one suffers inside.” Among the bands you mentioned, we need to make a careful distinction regarding the Cocteau Twins, who in their genuine experimentalism were a fairly obvious overcoming of the New Wave itself. And also for the Fall, who not by chance are much more explicitly influenced by American avant-gardes than others. For the rest...

I didn't even know him, even though the VV (the real ones) are one of my absolute favorite bands... this is to give you an idea of the credit I was giving to Yule. If then you tell me that not even one original member survived in this recording (it would have been enough for the drums from Tucker, for example, to make me believe that there was still something interesting), then it truly is a pointless album. Why keep that name? Even just for dignity, if I were Yule, I would have changed it.

I agree with the first sentence: compared to Unknown Pleasures, however, I find no comparison. This is the pinnacle of the strengths and weaknesses of the English New Wave; overrated as a whole, not really creative at all, and very, very superficial.

They have always fascinated me (the name is beautiful, in my opinion), but I have never had the "courage" to truly listen to them... they seem too unsettling.

I don't know, in fact "commercial" doesn't mean a damn thing... they were simply products of a multinational. Like, I don't know, RATM or Sonic Youth. I've seen the video for "Bulls on Parade" a ton of times on MTV, but that doesn't make SY a commercial band. But maybe emofiliaco means that the term commercial applies every time something plays on MTV, regardless of quality. That could be right; maybe you just didn't understand each other on the terms.

It seems to me that this record of "true music" is overflowing with it. The first time I listened to it, it didn't impress me much, but I changed my mind quickly. Under a hardcore shell that often is pure stereotype, this album instead hides a sincere schizophrenic unease. A great album.

I mean, from your review it seems more like a crossover album; my sentence wasn't very clear :-)

I don't see much grunge in it.. And it seems more like a crossover album than a modern work, which it actually is.. nice, though.

1) Who put them on a pedestal? 2) Who said they still listen to them? ..nonsense for nonsense, if you really have to shoot your mouth off, at least try to do it with some knowledge behind it :-D 3) If you want a more esteemed opinion than mine on Cobain's musical substance, then read "grunge" by Eddy Cilia, or the Scaruffi mentioned above, or Claudio Todesco or Federico Guglielmi.. at best, they are all people who have well passed their forties, they don’t really have the faces of teenagers.. :-D ..meh meh, why do you keep referring to this nonsense? :-)