Your opinion of George Starostin

Always been a big fan of good old George: he really got me into a lot of cool music. Say what you will, but he is really extensive on his site about all aspects of rock music and not just progressive rock. I got into Budgie, Caravan, Renaissance, the Left Bank, Procol Harum and PFM through his site. I also got very interested in Jethro Tull, Yes and Frank Zappa as a result of his reviews. The fact that I own every Jethro Tull, Yes and Frank Zappa album (give or take a few with Frank) shows how helpful he's been to my taste. I actually can't count the bands I've gotten into because of him. I don't always agree with him but I think he's always intelligent in what he says. And HE IS A HE and he's not dead but his father did die recently, one thing that kind of stopped his reviews from coming. Any man that speaks as many languages as him (read his bio again) has to have some intelligence going on upstairs. He's working on the Babel Project aka the language project that is attempting to find the ORIGINAL LANGUAGE from which all languages originated.

rogerthat wrote: ^^^ He's better than some other 'general' reviewers, especially Mark Prindle, and particularly in his approach to prog. I got the impression that he is actually a lot more sympathetic to the idea of making long rock songs with keyboards and jazz/classical influences than you'd expect people who are not hardcore into prog to be.  He's one of the few who has said that punk replacing prog was not a good thing in rock's development and I am not sure even I would agree with him about that.  Sure, his understanding of prog would not be as sharp or comprehensive as say yours, but I don't think he claims to be anything more than a casual prog fan.  The casual prog fan is a rare breed and we should be happy such a breed even exists, it's better than the usual love-hate circle jerk.

But would you really want someone who hated you to partake in that circle jerk?

Anyway. I like the guy's reviews. I could say he has influenced my reviews, somewhat. He and I have completely opposite feelings toward hard rock, though. I disagree with what he says quite often.

Although I do like reading his reviews, because they're possibly the most comprehensive on the 'net and you don't have to shuffle through tons of crappy, generic reader reviews, I really, really disagree with the guy on many points, especially prog. 

First, his definition of prog is EXTREMELY narrow.  Seriously, the guy really only acknowledges a handful of bands as actually being prog rock.  His most conspicuous absence is Pink Floyd, whom he categorizes as "art rock".  Now this in itself isn't bad, but he says they really only did ONE prog album (Atom Heart Mother), then focused on more simplictic song structures.  So, let's see....

-One Of These Days, a pure instrumental, building jam
-the 23-minutes, multi-part Echoes
-the Dark Side Of The Moon, originally conceived as one 40 minute piece
-the nearly half hour long Shine On You Crazy Diamond, with reoccuring themes and all
-the 3 song Animals album

... are apparently, to Mr. Starostin, simplistic and un-progressive.  Really? 

Second, as much as he wants to keep an open mind, he really has a stimga towards prog.  I mean, two of the five criteria he judges music on are resonance (which to him is emotional resonance, and that is purely subjective based on the person), and another category.... "adequacy".... and I really don't even know what the heck that means except every prog band seems to get a horrible score in that department. 

Third, he has a very pessimistic attitude towards music in general, basically saying rock has run it's course and that there is nothing left to do with it.  When it comes to prog, he feels that prog had given out everything it could give by.... wait for it.....

.......................1973!!!!!!!!!  Dude, 1973?  So several great Yes, King Crimson, and Pink Floyd albums are just thrown out, along with neo-prog, nu-prog, prog-metal, etc etc etc. 

Basically, he takes originality and puts such a ridiculously high value upon it that the natural process of bands influencing one another, which most accept, disqualifies him from even giving a chance to 95% of rock bands in existence. 

Overall, I like the site and his opinions are interesting at times, but the guy is too pessimistic, and overall, I don't care what he says, he doesn't GET prog and he never will. 

Oh, my mistake. I actually heard that he'd died.

Intruder wrote: Spent waaaay too long with his reviews.....say what you will, the guy really dug what he was doing. What I want to know:  Is the really dead?  Maybe by dead you meant not posting anymore, therefore as good as dead.  I really hope the guy hasn't really passed on.....probably my fault for cursing him to hell over his scorching review of Crimson's Islands.

I doubt dead, likely hesheit just got bored.

micky wrote: hahhahah... love his reviews... and forever a classic for this quote for the ages .... 'And yes, as long as bad taste exists in this world, there will always be Uriah Heep fans'

I think you mean that as long as there exists Uriah Heep Fans, there will always be bad taste in this world.






p.s. I'm just waiting for someone to jump to UH's defence and state that what I meant was that UH was a bulwark against bad taste. Then claim that what I just said was all bollocks. That came out of my buttocks. As clear as that is ... no sh*t Sherlocks.

zafreth wrote:   You know, if you read the personal info, she claim that have a baby and she are married with a guy?? any doubts again??

Don't want a full-scale derailment but it says "Married with children". Could mean anything to me.  I must note that the person in the pic looks more male-like than good ol' Geddy, which is not necessarily saying much. 

EDIT:  Turns out HE has an entry on wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Starostin
            Sorry to disappoint, zafreth. 



Edited by rogerthat - October 22 2008 at 08:02

You know that picture is a bit ambiguous. Also, I'm not all up in the Russian culture so I don't know whether georgiy is a m/f name. but that's an interesting revelation.

I don't agree with him most of the time and purely for a music lover looking for information about an album to guide him, his reviews are not very useful. Having said that, his style of writing is very enjoyable and he slips in some great insights in the midst of his "I wanna piss off all fanboys of this band"  ramblings. Oh, and I do enjoy it when people irk fanboys,  though only to the extent that it does not become an obsession.