coolermaster

Every time I listen to Wagner, I feel like invading Poland...
^^

There have been composers who are enormously overrated and composers who are enormously underrated. Chopin belongs to the latter... Only Beethoven, for me, has done similar things with the piano... Overrated, for example, have been Led Zeppelin, while Black Sabbath were decades ahead... Chopin's Nocturnes are immortal works, just like three quarters of Bach's production; even here, not all of it, because after listening to the Goldberg Variations or The Well-Tempered Clavier for three hours (obviously played on harpsichords or at most fortepianos) I get quite bored... Instead, Chopin, not only the nocturnes, but also the waltzes, études, and preludes, I could listen to endlessly without getting tired... I recommend listening to Pollini's études recorded for DG in the '70s... Extraordinary...

In the series of how to interpret the same work in ridiculously opposite ways... There’s Piras, sublime for the "nocturne" before getting busy (but also during and after), who took inspiration from Rubinstein; then there's Ashkenazy with his precise and tranquil nocturne; and finally Pollini: in the series of how I interpret the Nocturne in a cybernetic, perhaps holistic way, but devoid of romantic lamentations, strictly speaking, obviously... His are cold, introspective, psychoanalytic Nocturnes that must be listened to while sitting on the couch (alone and therefore without bernarda), with a good red in hand... No, Pollini is not lacking enthusiasm, quite the opposite, it’s like acting. There’s the theatrical actor and the one who makes "Understatement" his interpretive style... The one who doesn’t shout, who doesn’t enchant... The same thing here, nocturnes that perhaps could be listened to on a hypothetical spaceship, on a course to other galaxies...

Pet Shop Boys, the ABC of late millennium Pop, the most complete demonstration that music is music, regardless of whether it’s made with a piano, a Gibson Les Paul, or keyboards... The proof that Creativity and sensitivity in a recording studio are today (as well as 20 years ago) more important than any instrumental virtuosity...
The turning point album for the Pet Shop Boys in the '90s, but also their weakest...
How could we overlook what made them great, namely the parallel compilations like DISCO or ALTERNATIVE, where many of their Hits sound decidedly better, especially Suburbia, forever etched in history in a Remix version, so much so that when I listened to the original (Please from 1985), I struggled to recognize it...
However, one must wonder why DB does not feature what I consider not only their masterpiece, still unmatched today, but also the best Pop album of the last 30 years... I'm talking about Actually, a milestone of electropop music... Here, tracks are presented that boast illustrious collaborations, even with Ennio Morricone... One of the few albums where, with the exception of 2 (not exceptional) tracks, the rest is made up of immortal masterpieces like: Heart, Rent, King’s Cross, I Want To Wake Up, It's a Sin, and It Couldn't Happen Here... An album (my first CD) that even today remains unscathed by time...
Best wishes

One of the cornerstones of the '90s... One of the albums with which Rock was reborn after the electropop drift of the '80s... A song "What'up" and an album that, among other things, remind me of one of the happiest periods of my life... An attic in London, a beautiful girl dressed only in a pair of white panties and a white tank top... She rolls a joint, hands it to me, we smoke... Under the notes of "What's up," "Superfly"... etc... etc... She told me: now, every time you listen to this record, you will remember me... God, how young and beautiful she was!!!! Damn, it's been almost 20 years...

@reverse

Oh, why throw a canaan into the sea just because she has ugly feet? Besides being a fetishist, you sound stupid... I care about the voice... Joplin was a mess and at 23 her tits were already reaching her ankles, yet she was a legend... Nina Simone, even worse... To name some "similar" singers...
Then please, enough with the comparisons... So let's move on to the Pop Bellones who don't imitate anyone but themselves, they're hot, and they make music with samplers, editing software, drum machines, etc... etc... But come on? It's modern music...
I feel like I'm hearing the same criticisms when Krall arrived in the '90s... She seems like an imitation of Sarah Vaughan and Julie London... But what the hell does that mean??? Krall chose the path of '50s jazz, a bit crooner-like... Winehouse chose the path of R'n'B... the real one though... not the stuff from today...

Here, this is the beauty of Rock, because Mrs. Winehouse certainly doesn't do Pop, like (almost) everyone else, but that dirty, raw R'n'B that since the 1950s has given soul and substance to popular music... A done, high as a kite, who vomits at concerts, who does all sorts of things, who puts all those polished Pop Stars in their place, who, no matter how talented, just don't connect on the same level... She does, English, sings, composes, and deconstructs the "black" music of the last 50 years... Because with her, gentlemen, we are not in the realm of Mariah Carey or Celine Dion, nor even of Krall or Jones... We are in the territory of Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Joplin, and Patti Smith... Best regards.

Milan: a typical autumn day, thick with humidity, as the city prepares for Christmas. The austere grayness of the central buildings, filled with that bourgeois charm that Milan has always expressed... A woman, elegant, wrapped in her trench coat, a tall, slender woman, a lady of Milan’s upper class, a lady from another era... She stands still, waiting for someone, something, her man, who knows.... And around her, the thousand lights of the evening flicker, thousands of busy legs rushing everywhere... Cars, trams, and traffic... Who knows if the lady is heading to the cinema or out to dinner at a restaurant... Perhaps a restaurant in Old Brera, elegant, discreet, almost understated... The last workers linger, savoring the warmth of their homes... It is 1972... Many men wear coats and "Borsalino" hats, discreet and dignified... The austere elegance of those bygone days. An electronics shop has left its lights on... Displaying the last televisions still in black and white that perhaps broadcast a variety show like "Studio 1"... I can almost see Corrado and Carrà, young and in sync... A blue Lancia Flavia speeds past the lady, who turns her gaze, revealing the chignon that gathers her light brown hair….
This all reminds me of: Umanamente Uomo: the dream...
Regards

Actually, the Pooh changed their name from Jaguars in 1966, not in 1969…
Best regards

The next time I hear "sound à la Xyz," insults will follow...
So, each of us drives cars à la Daimler, since they have the combustion engine; listens to music à la Frunhofer, since they hold the MP3 patent; plays pianos à la Steinway, since the "modern" piano was born in 1920 precisely with Steinway... Trumpet à la Siffredi, since he was the first to experiment on the big screen (oh dear, on tape, better) with all the positions of the Kamasutra, with 1, 2, 3, or 4 girls simultaneously... Plus every aspect that sex can offer with women, trans included...
Regards