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Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM) - Photos Of Ghosts CD (album) cover

PHOTOS OF GHOSTS

Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM)

 

Rock Progressivo Italiano

4.03 | 622 ratings

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Walkscore
3 stars Get the Italian version (Per Un Amico) Instead.

Greg Lake liked PFM and signed them to his Manticore label. Their first album for Manticore is their album 'Per Un Amico' but with new English lyrics written by Peter Sinfield, as well as a new instrumental ("Old Rain") and "Celebration" which is just "E Festa" from their first album but with new English lyrics (also written by Sinfield). There are three problems with this. First of all, the singing of the new English lyrics is not as good as the vocals for the original Italian lyrics. It is not (just) that this required Italian singers to sing in English, but the musicality of the singing is far inferior here, compared to the original Italian. Second, I don't like most of the English lyrics, which in most cases carry different meanings than their original Italian (Sinfield did not bother trying to re-write the original Italian lyrics, but instead substituted his own poetry). Third, and for me the worst part - they put lyrics on much more of the music here than on the originals, including some excellent instrumental sections. So, instead of being able to listen to the great musicality of those sections, one has to try to listen through these (inferior) lyrics. (They left "Il Banchetto" though, thankfully, so at least that song remains untouched!). Despite having some great music underneath the problematic lyrics/singing, I can only give this 6.1 out of 10 on my 10-point scale. To my mind, the only reason to pick this up is for the new instrumental, "Old Rain", which has a very nice flute solo. Otherwise, definitely stick to the original Italian version ("Per Un Amico").

Walkscore | 3/5 |

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