easycure

this review keeps hitting hard. The more I read it, the more I laugh (and I find it incredibly spot on).. thank goodness the latest comments made me rediscover it ;-)

I really liked it. In its typical Nolan-esque constant swings, it may be a bit self-indulgent, but it's a powerful film and far from trivial: I think it’s spot on even in its "scientific" references: reality becoming an illusion through science... it’s a nice paradox.

By autoreferentiality, I do not mean an artist expressing themselves. I mean that the purpose of musical creation should be to express (that is, to "say" something, and to whom that may be said doesn’t interest me) rather than to showcase themselves in meaningless exercises. This is the distinction, and it is the reason why for me the DTs are entirely devoid of meaning other than their unrestrained exhibitionism: you continue to speak in purely formal terms when you talk about the harmonic beauty of the passages; the harmonic beauty of the passages means nothing. The scales commonly used today in Western music have been codified in all their harmonic intervals for centuries. If one were to limit themselves to this, it would support the infamous claim, which I find dreadful, that there are only seven notes and no more variation can be made. What truly allows for distinction is, of course, the meaning that each individual attributes to a harmonic passage. Meaning not in the terms you seem to imply of pure narration of something (or the search for content, which is not a very clear definition), I mean meaning in purely musical terms (as I already hinted above): in this sense, "meaning" is exactly synonymous with sense, since it literally means "to equip the signifier with sense," which otherwise remains just that, the same in billions of identical harmonic passages from 1200 to today. It is meaning that makes the difference: and to make a difference, it must be unique, original, necessarily distinct from what already exists (which, however, does not necessarily mean innovative). From here we return to many comments made earlier: the reason for the expressive scarcity of the DTs lies exactly in their substantial lack of uniqueness. Their suites or long pieces are nothing unique other than quoting some stylistic element from some genre, their slow or more subdued pieces have nothing that truly configures as personal, characteristic, going beyond arrangements that reference everything from Pink Floyd to Brian May.

It's not that I'm making this perspective up, of course; it’s what is commonly referred to as "self-referentiality" or, even worse, "self-congratulation," usually two definitions that aren't exactly positive. Have you ever wondered why these two terms are commonly used in various types of criticism? Perhaps "the pleasure of listening" and "intuition" for their own sake are not enough to talk about art?

I have never said that music must necessarily contain a message; I spoke of MEANING, which is a very different matter. The pleasure of listening is merely the most basic and taken-for-granted of the concepts underlying musical expression. If it were a matter of "pleasure in listening," I don't see how one could distinguish Mozart from Britney Spears, since it is plausible (like any form of music) that both evoke "pleasure in listening" in those who experience it. Then you talk about "intuition": what does that mean? What is it? I certainly don't deny that a melody can be epic and baroque, but I seek, I repeat for the umpteenth time, the necessity or expressive causality in this. If someone plays baroque only to open the mouths of an obviously naive mass of hypothetical listeners, then that is a mere showman, not an artist. To return to the beginning, meaning is essential in any form of art. Since any form of art is expression, or should we deny this too? If any form of art implies "expressing oneself," then any device, any type of form must have meaning as an expression of something. THIS is what I meant. And I am certainly not talking about telling something with a possible text; I am talking about "telling" with pure musical essence, I am talking, indeed, about self-expression. If music were pure free rotation on itself, it would obviously have no significance, either historical or cultural; it would be a purely empty and frivolous pseudo-mathematical exercise, sterile and decadent. This is why I consider the lack of meaning, or, in other words, an absolutely inconsistent expressive component, as a huge aberration.

But Saputello, I brought up ballads as an example precisely because, being the most stripped-down in arrangement, they reveal the expressive poverty of the DT the best. If you want, we can talk about Metropolis, etc., etc. The core point (without citing specific pieces) is that the only reason for the vocal harmonies seems to be to trace a certain Pathos (whether it's melancholy or epic fervor of various natures) when the piece requires it: I see so much waste of rhetoric that good old Vasco Rossi seems like a novice in comparison. These harmonies don't tell a story; they only aim for the visual effect, for pure emotionality as such. There's no real language, no personal feeling is conveyed—it's just splashing around in patheticisms because that's how "a song is made." In fact, you yourself say: "I'm not in love with beautiful melodies in the sense of being catchy, but with sought-after and beautiful melodies in the sense of being intricate and baroque." Well, this fully confirms my argument; you too are making a purely self-referential point or a purely formal one; but I'm talking about meaning: what is the meaning of these melodies? What is their expressive reason? What is their necessity? From my point of view—and I repeat, many reviews are an example—there is no answer to this question and from my perspective, this is a terrifying aberration. Point 2: It doesn’t seem to me that I’ve neglected the arrangement factor; perhaps we have a different view of what this term means, but I certainly haven’t overlooked this discussion in the “paper” above; the fact remains that you continue to affirm that the DT are baroque in their arrangements: for me, baroque and "fireworks" are completely synonymous. And the usual question remains: what is the reason for such a waste of inflated baroque excesses? Point 3: Oh, do you judge a piece as NOT trivial just because it has a complex structure? Sorry, but what were Genesis or ELP doing thirty years ago? So to be "not trivial" one simply needs a non-linear structure, which progressive rock has already extensively used and codified in hundreds of cases? And above all, what nonsense is it to implicitly assert that if a piece has a regular structure, it is trivial? Who said that? When did that ever happen?

"Associating two different genres, even just in terms of sound, I consider it a novelty." Okay, but: 1) if you consider it a novelty in terms of approach, then it's not really a novelty: as I’ve already mentioned, various bands have been experimenting in this way (in the rock scene) for at least ten years. 2) if you see it as a novelty regarding the genres presented, then I repeat that Rush were around 20 years before DT. Perhaps the Rush equation was Hard rock + prog instead of Metal + prog, and maybe DT, quite predictably, draw from many more genres and bands, being 20 years later. The same goes for calling them "avant-garde," which makes me smile even more.

You take my speech in exactly the opposite way I take it: I’m not saying that if something is virtuous it is soulless, I’m saying they do things that are completely devoid of sense and purpose that only have the singular feature of sounding virtuous. The fact that a piece is "soulless" means everything and nothing. In fact, I try to avoid this definition: in their case, I find a lack of meaning, a lack of expressiveness, a lack of originality, and I find that their "soul" (which I do not deny could exist, after all you and the reviewer yourself say that it moves you) is obsolete and ridiculous, superficial and empty, because their way of understanding harmony is classicist and predictable: as I said before, they never surpass absolutely banal harmonies to which they impose a sly "elevation" through the rather obvious device of virtuosity, which is rather a posteriori, and not a priori a really mediocre composition. My provocative comparison with Ramazzotti was motivated precisely by this: I don’t understand how one can consider the melody of "another day" or "the spirit carries on..." worth noting… they are pop of the most banal kind, pathetic clichés pumped up with inflated and pompous "hormonal" arrangements. You say: "but it’s a beautiful melody"... why would you ever say that a piece by Elisa inherently has a bad melody? The comparison with any of our miserable pop artists is not a matter of form: it’s a matter of sharing a total and absolute lack of sense; these pieces are so obsolete that they say nothing but their existence, nothing but the superficial effect of the "beautiful melody" that moves you: the same process as Ramazzotti etc. For this reason, I do not find it at all coincidental that almost all the reviews of DT are filled with expressions like those I posted above. It seems to me that the band says precisely this; the problem is that it effectively says nothing else but this. Then there is a difference with Ramazzotti: his fans are satisfied with the "beautiful melody", while the DT, who are metal, obviously to maintain their status fill everything with hypertrophic musical fireworks.

The idea that images and words represent a novelty for me is complete nonsense, total nonsense, regardless of qualitative reasons: in the '90s there were MANY true avant-gardes; to say that an album you yourself define as "prog-metal"—that is, the combination of two old genres at best 15 years old—seems to me an insult to the true avant-gardes. It is certainly not a novelty to blend two such distant genres, considering that in the '80s groups like Bad Brains, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane's Addiction, Suicidal Tendencies, and even Metallica in the metal scene had already thought of crossovering stuff galaxies away. All this without even counting the most obvious factor: that is, in the '70s there was a band called "Rush." And if the difference is supposed to be double bass, greater speed, and a more inflated sound, I can’t help but laugh at how avant-gardistic this album has been :-D

X know-it-all: "What you have is a misunderstanding of a musical language that you can't stand: the prog mixed with metal clearly causes you severe gastric distress." As far as I'm concerned, I think I "understand" both metal and prog. I absolutely love the early Metallica and, why not, the early Iron Maiden, I adored Pantera and certain Sepultura, I tried, with no success, to approach Blind Guardian, and they made me nauseous. The difference lies here: you consider my stance a priori prejudice against a way of playing, because it obviously suits you to believe so, but mine is a rejection of a certain type of approach, NOT of a genre or a certain way of understanding harmony. And this I have always spoken about. To return to where we started, although I don't appreciate the underlying "philosophy" of progressive, which I find rather pretentious without really adding anything substantial compared to what has already been created in the psychedelic realm, I still love the early King Crimson or the early Genesis, a lot of Magma or Area or Can, and I certainly don't disdain Colosseum or Banco, and naturally I grew up with Pink Floyd. So if I "understand" both metal and prog (or let's say: I don't seem to disdain them a priori), I don't understand why I should a priori disdain metal+prog. Especially since I don't really have anything to say about Rush, whom I certainly don't listen to every day but toward whom I would never speak out as I do about DT. What you don't want to understand is that it’s specifically HOW DT SOUND that I think is off, just like many of the bands that followed DT. But not because they inherently do Prog+Metal, but because I believe it is precisely their approach that fundamentally and substantively lacks. I am crazy about Shoegazer music, but if Flim School and Amusement Parks on Fire suck, they suck; I wouldn’t change my mind just because they belong to a genre I like. And vice versa, it’s DT that doesn’t work, not the equation prog+metal in itself. But I repeat, of course I understand, it suits you to believe it.