Festwca

Yes, the critical eye is good and right. A different matter is PLAYING at being professional critics: cataloging, analyzing, contextualizing, in short, depriving music of its passion. An album is beautiful if we like it, not if it manages to pass the test of the dissection surgeon of the moment.

@pret: to read and write interesting things and to discover and share new albums and bands. Not necessarily to play the role of music critics.

I bought it on eBay, American version, with English subtitles. Anyway, among the comments on my review, they tell me that it can also be found in Italy. I couldn't tell you if it's in Italian or not.

Alright about everything, pretazzo. However, sometimes there’s too much intellectualizing, too much contextualizing, too much trying to understand, forgetting that music should first of all be "listened to." Anyway, it’s true that the difference between hardcore and punk is definitely quite evident.

I don’t want to be a nitpicky pain in the ass, but for example, I wouldn't consider the Minutemen hardcore. They have the speed, but they seriously lack the violent charge. Post-punk, post-hardcore, or even new-wave are terms that better fit their style. Anyway, the Minutemen from the EP Project Mersh and the last album 3Way-Tie were making three-minute songs and were basically a classic rock band. In any case, these are just bullshit classifications; I agree with iride on this :)

Tangerine Dream are a group that has never really impressed me, in a scene (the krautrock scene) that I absolutely adore. First, there was the indigestible brick of an album, Electronic Meditation, then the extensive cosmic digressions, such a bore! How can you compare them to Klaus Schulze’s Irrlicht and Cyborg? Or the B-sides of various Ash Ra Tempel, Cosmic Jokers, and so on? Those guys really knew how to make the vast expanses of sleepy synthesizers interesting. However, I don’t know their more "romantic" period (from Phaedra onwards, I believe), so I must definitely dive deeper and catch up. // As for the discussion on the initiation of the masses into electronics, for me, it was Kraftwerk. Tangerine Dream are earlier in absolute terms (by a small margin: 1969 versus 1970 for the K, and there were already others making electronic music before both) but they only found success years later, when Autobahn (1974) paved the way for electronics to become popular.

After reading several enthusiastic reviews, I gave it a listen too. What can I say, it’s definitely overwhelming and impactful, but I doubt I'll feel inclined to give it another listen. Anyway, I still need to digest the Second Annual Report, so I’m not the best judge.

Hey peeggiopunx, did you know that the Minutemen made two albums of "normal" three-minute songs? What's so wrong with that?

With these 4 albums, in my opinion, you can get a pretty representative idea: 1) Faust IV 2) Neu! 2 3) Can - Ege Bamyası 4) Ash Ra Tempel - Schwingungen. These are four of the most accessible records of Kosmische Musik and they, in my view, encompass pretty much everything that has been (psychadelia, electronic digressions, rhythm experimentation, space rock, experimental cut and paste, freeform freakout).

I don't know the Damned (and neither do I know Sham 69), that's exactly what I was asking you...