Free Hand - a 1* album

I saw that I lowered the average rating by .02 of a star! 

Tubes wrote: @MustardSea I'm not complaining about it having a very 70's sound, but I do mention because some people might not like that. Oh, and guess what Close to the Edge is structured like a pop song. Before hearing that masterpiece, had you ever known such a long song that was truly worth every second of its duration? You better not answer that. Close to the Edge is based on a piece of religious fiction, at least - not some f**king Boy Scout rope-tying manual, or psychological text, however it works out to relate to R. D. Laing. My point is the Close to the Edge is infinitely more beautiful than that gut-wrenchingly disgusting POS Knots.

You sound like a real charming human being. I mean, seriously, you seem to hate Knots so much I wonder if you got raped by it?! Haha what's wrong with you?


Edited by MustardSea - April 07 2013 at 13:51

dennismoore wrote: In the coming decades when genetic science will allow mankind to eradicate inferior traits from the genome... We now have the subjects to eliminate the "stupidity" gene. This may seem harsh, but this is more than a simple case of opinion, it is reviewer incompetence. Example, I am not very keen on metal or singers that scream & growl, so I would certainly trash them in a review as that stuff truly causes me discomfort.  So the answer is:  Don't review the stuff that you really don't like.  It is pointless.  If you guys still don't get my point, think of it this way: Gentle Giant - Free Hand YES - CTTE ELP - Brain Salad Surgery Pink Floyd - DSOTM Yes, you can find people that speak negatively about these recordings(in fact here at PA) yet that would be a complete waste of time since the above recordings are genre leading masterpieces of prog. So I do think the reviewer was at best, ill-advised to lampoon Free Hand. His time telling us about music would have been better served writing about music that he was more qualified to speak of.

Edited by Easy Livin - April 07 2013 at 14:11

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@MustardSea Well, I hope that once I have re-posted the review for Octopus, it will have proven to be a helpful endeavor. If it discourages someone from buying the most expensive Gentle Giant studio album, which also happens to be their second shortest-running, then it will have accomplished at least part of its purpose.

kit-kat wrote: if I posted a review on either, would you tell me I have "stupidity gene" or whatever?

Tubes wrote: @KingCrInuYasha On Itunes, I bought this 34-minute, "masterpiece" for 12 bucks. I can get Acquiring the Taste for 7.

If you hate GG so much why on earth did you buy it

Tubes wrote: @dennismoore You realize that you're talking about eugenics, there, man? You know like man playing with himself, playing God. LOL Either way, that's a pretty offensive thing to say, ie. that I have a 'stupidity gene' (did you come up with that all by yourself? You are SO clever). I'm reporting you, period.

rogerthat wrote: ... it is rare for the consensus on classics to be challenged.

A very good point you've made right there. I think there are two questions you should ask yourself: what is the general consensus and why. Something to do before you write your own review - read other people's reviews on the album.

Edited by Dayvenkirq - April 09 2013 at 10:53

@Davenkirq

While both those points are well taken, I don't think the presence of a consensus necessarily acts as a barrier against a low rating.   What is a consensus on the PA database anyway other than the averaged out score of a no. of ratings?  Free Hand has 776 ratings and its average score of 4.25 is pretty impressive but SEBTP fetches 4.62 over 2376 ratings, so that's a much bigger sample.  A consensus opinion is also not set in stone; it can change as tastes change.   I find that I am not the only one on PA who dislikes Hotel California but not only was it was a big hit in its day, it was hailed as an all time guitar classic.  Maybe it will continue to be for some more time, but I smell hints that the tide is turning and eulogies in praise of this song are not quite as effusive as they used to be when I was growing up. 

In a nutshell, there is room for a contrary opinion on any album, even a highly rated one from the 70s like Free Hand.   I look forward to such reviews - especially when they are talked up so much like this one - to learn anything that I missed in my experience of the album (not matter how much I like it, as in this case).  In this review, I found an opinion...and that's all.  No reasons to make a case that maybe there was some aspect of the album that I had completely missed out over the last few years that I've had and listened to this album. 


Edited by rogerthat - April 09 2013 at 11:05