Festwca

I'm referring you to the review Zion wrote about that album, it's quite explanatory: Spiderland - Slint - Recensione di ZiOn (remove the spaces and the 20%).

Percy, indeed it's a matter of taste, it may not please everyone. You don't like it, it drives me crazy. However, it is quite evident the role that album plays in the history of rock.

PS: sorry for the thousand comments

I understand: because you refer to "mass light music" as "recent art," so anything underground doesn't belong to that context. I, however, would consider another dichotomy: light music/rock. Where rock is seen as an art form while light music is not. This dichotomy seems more significant than the dance/rock one. Now the question is: do the Queen make rock or light music? :)

I would like to add: on the SubPop website (www.subpop.com), they have almost the entire discography of Earth, both on vinyl and CD. And while you're there, you can order Comets On Fire and AFrames :)

I’ll add to the mega-comment above: the bands I mentioned may or may not be to your liking (de gustibus, as always), but they are all bands that have contributed significantly to rock. The facts speak for themselves; there's no escaping that. Walter, I don’t understand why you keep speaking in terms of rankings…

Too bad, Percy :( The album is the only one they made. I really love High Tension House and High Time, they're truly amazing. Well, Roy Montgomery isn't your cup of tea, it's just a matter of taste.

Hey Walter, your examination of the various decades finds me in strong disagreement. The 80s were an incredible renaissance for rock, based on the so-called DIY ethos and the various independent labels that emerged during those years (SST, T&G, Dischord, etc.). Sure, if you look at the sales charts, you’ll find that horrendous pop-metal chart-topping stuff and all that low-quality dance music that was playing on MTV, but that's not where you should be looking :) Can I suggest a few names? Husker Du, Minutemen, Butthole Surfers, Gun Club, Pixies, Meat Puppets, Big Black, Bitch Magnet, Bongwater, Red Temple Spirits, Sonic Youth, Bad Brains, Cows, NoMeansNo, Foetus—these are all bands that have very little to envy from the more famous Zeppelins, Floyds, Purples, and so on. Anyway, electronic experimentation largely took place in the early 70s, not the 80s (see: the German scene called "kraut"). As for the 90s, same story: on the surface you find the usual revival of old styles done with little imagination, but if you look more closely, you see a ton of great stuff: Slint, Tortoise, Fugazi, Dadamah, Mercury Rev, Bardo Pond, My Bloody Valentine, and so on... You can’t escape objectivity, as you say ;)

Percy, have you listened to the Dadamah?

I'll tell you, Roy Montgomery worked a lot on sound (he had a really bad electric guitar and took full advantage of this fact), but the arrangements are as sparse as can be and the compositions are far from elaborate, rather they are flows of sounds that linger in the air, occasionally shaken by a gust of wind. Certainly, not straightforward stuff :)