francis

Just to stick with the Beatles, take "Wild Honey Pie" from the White Album, and it alone anticipated all the avant-garde antics that the Residents did on this record... you don't have to have lived in the '70s to understand it, you just need to have a bit of ear for music.

san-xo, you've really been annoying with this story about how I wasn't even born yet, blah blah blah, but how old are you, 200, old man? Getting back to the topic of the Residents, it's just my impression: over time, I've accumulated a lot of disillusionment towards the deconstruction of the song format; they really seem like artistic statements that are just self-serving... the Residents aimed to experiment with a certain irony, but all I got from it was a long yawn... I believe, and I hope someone shares this view, that it's much more challenging to write a piece using "conventional" criteria than to just tear down these criteria in a sort of self-indulgent experimentation, music for oneself. And then the Residents had it out for the Beatles, but I think it's much nobler to write a "A Day In The Life" than to drown pop standards in mud and shit like they did. It doesn't take much to be obscure and anti-commercial, just as it doesn't take anything to grab a marker and deface a painting.

3. I don't flatter myself, I'm sincere. And just as I am sincere, I am also capable of hurting myself when necessary, for example by stooping to low-level discussions like this one. There are quite a few reviews I would have liked to write differently and would almost change radically, like the one about the Prodigy for instance, but I don’t feel guilty towards anyone, nor towards myself. It can't be mistaken for vanity and pride that I defend myself against vile and gratuitous attacks, even at the cost of appearing unpleasant, because with interlocutors like you I CARE, I care a lot about being unpleasant.

San-xo 1. You’re the idiot. 2. I haven’t translated a damn thing, you fool; your reasoning makes no sense because it's obvious that when, for obvious demographic reasons, one cannot speak of a topic from direct experience, it's necessary to conduct personal research and develop a sensitivity that people like you don’t even know where to begin with. What’s this, can’t someone write a thesis or a treatise on Marx or Machiavelli just because they aren’t contemporaries? What the hell kind of argument is that? And do all those writing about the Pink Floyd, the Beatles, or Frank Zappa have to have lived during the period when these artists were releasing records? Your mental approach is the death of knowledge and research, and it deserves my spit and all my disgust.

Ashluke: "The record, however, does not come anywhere close to the various MBV, Slowdive, Swervedriver, Chapterhouse, Curve, and whoever else you want to mention. Either way, long live Ride and down with Oasis."
I think I've made it clear, the starting point of this album is a kind of compromise between dream pop, the baggy sound, and shoegaze, but the final result is something absolutely different and alien to these classifications...in my opinion, the association of Ride with those bands is purely generational.
I do not agree with the phrase "down with Oasis, long live Ride"...it's an unnecessary and ill-fitting comparison...Andy Bell regained artistic reputation precisely thanks to the chance offered by the Gallaghers, it is clear that these are two different groups. However, if you listen to "Turn Up The Sun" (written by Bell) it will give you the feeling of an evocation to the dreamy sound of the early Ride, especially in the initial arpeggio.

Antimo, your observation about the cover is very interesting, with that sort of reference to "Unknown Pleasures": it would indeed be nice to know Bell's opinion on whether there is any affinity between Ride and Joy Division.

Antimo, you tell me that you think I've set aside the subjective and emotional aspect to focus on the "practical" and technical part of this record, while Condorbars, on the other hand, hints at some passages of my review that, according to him, would be pretentiously poetic. Make up your minds!

But excuse me, what would I have to criticize myself about in the case of this review?!

Geenoo writes, "Sorry Francis, but are you joking or are you serious when you praise yourself by saying that the biography is well-written and that only you could make people remember Ride?"
I know it might come off as presumptuous on my part, but if there's one thing I've learned, it's to always be honest... it's not like I need to be stripped of something just because someone wants to criticize me (perhaps even rightly, although that's not the case with the ones mentioned above).

Antimo writes, "(just a note about the review: precise, I liked it, some nice images... however, it’s true that you’re drifting a bit into the professional, Francis... I almost miss the Francis from the review on 'Grace', who had the merit, by exaggerating and going big, to provoke thought and manage to stir things up...)"
Well, that review is completely detached from the others I've written... it was simply a joke that got out of hand, misunderstood... anyway, I don't think I'm going for the "professional" angle; I consider what a reader would want to know about an album and try to write it down. I never worry about whether I might impose reflections or not... also because every time I've tried to show a different approach to judging certain records (Jeff Buckley, Avril Lavigne, Oasis, Robbie Williams), the result has only been long pointless discussions.