easycure

What a shame that you can’t see the photo :-D ..this means that a band like the Stones doesn't make sense and hasn't made sense even 20 years ago. A band like Sonic Youth still has it, and will probably continue to have it as long as they’re alive: it was a way to emphasize that at least for some bands, certain things don't get lost. For others who become parodies of themselves, they do.

better this than Dark Side. perhaps the last truly experimental album by the Floyd, although not very ambitious. Worse than its predecessors, but better than the subsequent ones.

Flinstone, I didn't think I had written in Cyrillic actually.. :-D what's so difficult about it? ..meh..

Oh right, we are in '68. So do we want to talk about In a gadda da vida? No, because if we agree that metal passes through the Sabbath, then In a gadda da vida is worth 1000 times Helter Skelter as an influence on metal... not to say, but all this influence of Helter Skelter is a stretch, period. The dates speak clearly. Are we talking about hard rock? The Yardbirds and the already mentioned Electric Prunes are worth 100 times the Beatles as an influence. Are we talking about metal? There are at least a few dozen bands more influential than the Beatles. Why so stubborn? Because they sold two million copies in a week? Because they are mentioned at Sanremo? Because they were more famous than Jesus Christ? Because you listened to them when you were a kid? Why? I don't know.

well, the U2 did it too. It doesn't really seem like the best argument :-D

I quote Riccardo abbestia. It's strange to notice how one can slip into paranoia (like "if at this point criticism serves to indicate what is ugly and culturally irrelevant, I like to think I have ugly and culturally irrelevant tastes" ... "Then when there will be no one left to provide you with a counter-argument (because ugly and culturally irrelevant), you can bask in your objectivity") ... but what does that mean? And then, let's bask in "subjectivism" (which in absolute terms is not and will never be; cultural influence is an essential element of any human being). So maybe it will eventually come out that Britney Spears is a great artist, because after all, if there is even one person in the world who thinks so, it is legitimate in the name of subjectivism to think of her this way. Every subjective evaluation is obviously legitimate, but it is created while referring to more or less objective criteria. Consequently, a historical-cultural analysis is simply fundamental. This holds the only claim to objectivity. The supposed (and fake) subjectivity so widely touted is nothing more than a profoundly anti-cultural discourse, because it pretends to discourse relativized to pure taste (so what’s the point of criticism, it’s not even criticism), without considering historicity (which in itself would already constitute an objective criterion). All this is very, too close to banal populism.

Anyway, if that's the case, I don't see what’s metal in Helter Skelter, regardless of what others have done.. frankly, nothing. At most, it can be understood as proto-punk like, for a change, dozens and dozens of other things (from the Electric Prunes, 1965, to the contemporary Velvet Underground). Just to change things up (am I repeating myself?) it’s enough to listen. It seems to me that these days, fans of the Beatles regard Scaruffi more as a heretic to be avoided than detractors view him as an example :-D

pardon, it is the FIRST the fundamental aspect

As for Scaruffi, of course Enya doesn't have to be your cup of tea. Look, truth be told, I couldn't care less about Scaruffi :-D ... basically, I shamelessly exploit him to procure as many interesting albums as possible; the rest doesn't matter to me. And I think that’s the only right way to approach criticism. Because it's important to have a subjective point of view. However, the critic as such is also fundamental, but, in my opinion, it's crucial not as long as they tell you what is beautiful, but as long as they tell you what is ugly (or rather, what is not beautiful). I would much prefer a scathing review over a glowing one; it's far more interesting and often enlightening; the harsh critique highlights what I think is the most important thing to avoid on a cultural level before an artistic one: the obscenity of the banal. It's obvious that to determine what is ugly, it's also necessary to say what is beautiful... but the latter is the fundamental aspect. When I write a review, I enjoy writing a scathing critique much more (though, of course, I don’t always do it, in fact :-D).

x Flinstone: bleak because it is intrinsically uncritical, ahistorical, and therefore fundamentally representative of a subculture rather than a culture. Totally ahistorical because in celebrating the usual revivalist nonsense elevated to the latest revelation, it implicitly not only diminishes but even nullifies the existence and value of absolute masterpieces (which it cannot be unaware of as a critic). Thus, it creates a subculture instead of a culture, because it justifies movements (false) and mediocre groups solely based on their existence (doubtful even as such because often motivated by strictly economic issues), mediocre when compared to the absolute masterpieces mentioned above; not specifying their mediocrity at all, but rather glorifying them and elevating them to historical periods and trends. Therefore, it is a passive critique, because it does not provide a historical judgment based on a culture, but rather conforms to the mediocrity of the present contingency. As such, it cannot even truly be defined as criticism, but rather as low-level information worthy of Studio Aperto; which, not coincidentally, when criticizing uses increasingly futile arguments, justifying mediocrity in a mediocre way, like "nothing original, but at least entertaining" (the kind of phrase I have seen repeated multiple times and by at least 10 different "critics" in similar forms in various newspapers or websites). Thus, not only is it not even real criticism, but it is also intrinsically conditioning, because by hypocritically lowering the threshold of its judgments (thus nullifying any real historical factor), it does not admit anything other than what exists. It does not analyze it, does not interpret it, simply accepts it.