frogproduction

oh, what a drag, how is it that the previous album is always better? I remember the critique of blow up at () just because it wasn't like Agetys... and even back then there were people saying that Sigur Rós had nothing more to say... The review has some good moments, and at least it doesn't just limit itself to the SELL-OUTS! or AGED comments: Sigur Rós were a novelty back then, and revolutionizing their style and direction happened every two or three albums for King Crimson and every two or three songs for the Beatles. The point is, are the songs good or not? No: bad album. Yes: good album. Questioning how much Sigur Rós do Sigur Rós seems stupid to me: they are the only ones who have the right to do it.

I forgot to vote for the album.

It seems to me that the reviewer misses Bowie’s genius, which was to take a niche genre and produce an album that manages, without being a mere imitation (you yourself, Caccon, repeatedly say that the music of Heroes is derived from that of Neu! and their non-singing companions, but even you can't say that it's not music of excellent quality, at a level very close to that of the "father groups"), to be a perfectly mainstream album, listened to by millions of people around the world. Bowie has always been a great absorber of styles and inspirations that are not his own, but it’s the end product that makes the difference, not the fact that you've more or less replicated pre-existing recipes. One last thing: your criticism of Bowie interests me very little (that is, hardly at all), but you've treated Eno and, above all, Fripp like two somewhat eccentric English gentlemen willing to copy the most original Germans just to please Bowie. Do you realize? Fripp? FRIPP? Oh well.

No, sorry, but where did you get the idea that the film is "based on The Waste Land by Eliot"? Because it seems difficult to me, it's like saying it's based on the Cuttlefish of Calamari by Montale...

To me, it seems like a fantastic album. This thing that everyone says they're overrated... why? Mr. White plays beautifully, the girl is functional, and the tracks are awesome. I would give a lot to be able to write pieces like that; it doesn’t seem like there are many around at this level. And anyway, the latest QOTSA album is really disappointing. And Rag'n'Bone is one of my favorite songs of the year. There you go.

I'm listening to the record now and I'm holding off on giving a judgment (it doesn't seem bad, though, despite the male voice...). One note, the "particular" ideology behind the record and the emphasis you put into it made me read the entire review with the voice of the EIAR from the fascist era in my head...

beautiful. I especially love the fact that they are love songs (like in hotel tivoli) where the word love is hardly ever spoken (I believe two or three times in total across the two albums, once in reference to the sexual act and the others in a non-conventional way): I find it an admirable exercise in style.

No, sorry, not this: putting on the same line a minor track from a completely forgettable Michael Jackson album and Imagine by John Lennon should be banned by law.

I've just started listening to it now... I'm not even at the end of race and I already know how much it deserves... great!

Dear Azzo, to be honest, my review seems way too positive to me. They’re a group for dancing and shaking your ass. The lyrics are what they are, even if at a certain age they can still become generational anthems. Imagine, at fourteen I was obsessed with Guns N' Roses and at fifteen with Metallica; it’s not like the literary quality of the lyrics ever mattered that much to me. The fact that music magazines treat them well (oh my, they give them at least a seven! So what? I even gave them a six!) is not ipso facto a sign of quality; otherwise, you and I would agree that Evanescence is original and deep, and that Nickelback are the only true heirs of Nirvana, or something like that: bringing up Laura Pausini or saying that you can only criticize if you’ve produced a better piece is a false syllogism that says: (major premise) only those who can do better can criticize - meaning evaluate, say whether they like something or not and why, more or less argued, whether from the head or the gut; (minor premise) you can’t do better; (conclusion) therefore you can’t criticize anything. So I can’t say that Agnesi pasta is better than Barilla because I can’t produce it, or that Paul Celan wrote better poems than Giovanni Pascoli (and, I assure you, even though I haven’t written poetry in years, I believe I could do it). Criticism, you know, works with intellect and taste, with analysis and sometimes even with disdain, disgust, and mockery: my review, partial and personal as the site requires (maybe you didn’t notice that reviews here are pretty much all like that, that we hardly ever just report), is nonetheless a bit from the gut (after all, I do like some pieces too), a little from the head (the lyrics are frankly nothing special, actually, and even the pseudo-ballad isn’t like the whole album is at the level of your favorite song, nor mine), a bit random and mocking. What surprises me is that you don’t grasp the mockery that ultimately vindicates you because it says, well, they’re having fun, they’re twenty, they want to screw around and have a good time, they know how to play and they’ve made a decent album, which is quite a lot these days. So three out of five because for now they’re fun. I give an eight to whoever makes an album I like more than 70 percent of the time, and more only to those who seem to say something important, in a new way or at least EXTRAORDINARILY well. Which I don’t think Arctic Monkeys do. You seem to believe they do, so why don’t you write about it?