Reviews reporting thread

Easy Livin wrote: The review seems fine to me. Feel free to discuss in the Reviews Disucssion thread though.

The initial report was fine and in the right place. 

Edited by Easy Livin - September 14 2008 at 11:03

There's another 2 star review for the album further down the page, might be the same guy me thinks. And I'm not overly familiar with Hogarth, but when has he ever used Falsetto?

Noted FnH. The reviewer is entitled to respond here. Any further discussion in the Reviews discussion please.

I'll change it shortly. PM sent to the reviewer.

I've quoted your comments in the reviews reporting thread so others can disucss your comments.

I was under the impression that I'm reading a schyzophrenic review in which the reviewer delivers a detailed praise to the album for the first long part, then suddenly rips it off as disastrous. Then again, I checked (with the word search) other reviews on this album, and black_jester here, during the first part, is just copying other statements from other reviews, which I think is a complete fraud.

Here's the review, the first long paragraph belongs mostly, I think, to Cesar Inca, except the first two sentences who belong to a Senior Member, then fuxi.

Oh wait, the hate part is actually written by Clarke2001!!!

So this reviewer completely copied several reviews of DSOTM.

Please check all his reviews, to see if there's such a general fraud taking place.

PINK FLOYD — Dark Side Of The Moon
Review by black jester

This album is truly a masterpiece. The songs all have a great concept, and are full of great jazz chords and atmospherics.This is the emblematic album for Pink Floyd’s entrance into the stylization and refurbishment of their psychedelic rock standard, in this way, leaning a bit closer to the paradigm of art-in-rock that settles and affirms the core ideology of prog rock. Looking through various bootlegs previous to this studio effort’s release but with the whole musical concept already written and presented to audiences, Pink Floyd was still convincingly focused on its blues-infected, spacey-oriented psychedelic art-rock, and even the earlier versions of the ‘On the Run’ section was basically a heavily lysergic bluesy jam that precisely echoed the Floydian aspect of most krautrock bands (Amon Duul II or Agitation Free) – really, that’s how that sounds to me. Anyway, once the concept was translated into the studio environment, this piece’s definitive version was reinstated as a cosmic multi-synthesizer journey of loops and layers on VCS3, plus multiple sounds effects eventually leading to the final crash. This mention is meant to indicate how strong were the band members’ convictions to redefine its own progression and not repeat the formulas of “Meddle” or “Obscured by Clouds”: with “Meddle”, the band had reached a certain creative peak, and during the time that the band was writing the second soundtrack of its career (the first being “More”), the urge to renovate the Floydian rock was in the air. The pulsating heartbeat-like bass drumming by Mason that conforms ‘Speak to Me’ (those conversations, that helicopter, that manic weed-induced laughter, a pure classic album intro) gets things started for the introspective mood of ‘Breathe’, whose concept will be further explored and augmented by the more cynical manifestation of moral disappointment in the majestic ‘Time’. The installment of the synthesized ‘On the Run’ serves as a proper intermission between the introspection and the cynicism. Once the last sung lines of ‘Time’ state a portrait of sad, resigned calmness, the stage is clear for ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’: led by the piano and ornamented by a soaring slide guitar and a dynamic set of organ harmonies, it is Clare Torry’s vocalizations emulating an energetic jazz horn section that steal the limelight, even adding an actual creative input despite the fact that she had only been hired to sing some improvised backing vocals according to the piano chords progressions. Her impromptu decision to do something more impressive has meant a lot to the world of prog rock and the crowds of prog lovers through the years… cheers Clare! The album’s last section starts with the catchy ‘Money’ (half-jazzy, half-bluesy in its basic rock scheme) and the moving ‘Us and Them’: guest sax player Dick Parry brings pertinent colors to both tracks, especially the latter. The sequence of tracks 8-10 brings the album the epic finale it deserves. The constraint instrumental explorations comprised in ‘Any Colour You Like’ exemplify perfectly a transitional symbolization between the current PF and the 69-71 one: the synth leads are awesomely evocative, while Gilmour gives us some more of his trademark style. ‘Brain Damage’ has a mood very connected to the aforesaid instrumental, and as fine as it is, I wish it had included some guitar lead shining in the spotlight (a documentary shows that Gilmour had a few good ides for it, but they didn’t make it to the album). No complaints at all about the reflective coda ‘Eclipse’, which completes the album’s concept and sonic strategy marvelously. While I don’t find this album as accomplished as “Animals” (my all-time Floyd item), “Dark Side of the Moon” must be considered as a prog masterpiece. The best tribute that PF could pay to the good work done up to the “Meddle” album was to look beyond it.. and in this album, the band really did it. I hesitated a little before I awarded this album a full five stars. Let's confess the truth: it's so terribly well-known! You wouldn't tell the world that THRILLER or even AQUALUNG was one of your favourite albums, would you? As a critic, you ought to sound a LITTLE sophisticated...

But such objections are useless. No matter how I look at it, DARK SIDE is perhaps the most perfect masterpiece in prog history. Other albums, by different artists, may mean more to me, but I can think of no other sequence of songs in prog that is equally famous and yet so flawless and gripping. As any Floyd fan will tell you, this is the album the band had longed to make ever since Syd Barrett's early retirement. Not a second is wasted; all the VCS3 synths and funny sound effects are just right (back in the seventies, DARK SIDE must have demonstrated the virtues of hundreds of thousands of stereo systems); the lyrics are meaningful without being silly (in prog, a comparative rarity); Dave Gilmour's guitar solos are majestic (particularly the one on 'Time'); and those vocals - there's no need to list them all, since each and every one of them is a delight.

I doff my hat. Classics just don't come any more classical. Dark Side Of The Moon? No thanks, I prefer the side from where I can see my lovely little planet.

I'm struggling really hard to focus my review on those small particles of something I can attach my attention to: it's really difficult when you're surrounded with big black nothingness.

Is that too rude? Well, this record is offending me every time I hear it, hundreds of times I was slapped in the face with this look-we-are-artists attitude, while there's nothing interesting going on under the surface.

The sad thing is, these guys ARE artists, and they had great albums in their careers - before and after this one.

Clever guys, Waters & Co. This was a huge commercial success. But how on Earth it happened? It offers nothing. There are few things it offers actually, but no, thank you.

Listening carefully to Meddle, it's more then obvious this thing is borrowing a lot from its predecessor. Guitar is slightly more chorused. Then we have the most pathetic AOR songs and the sleaziest night club sax solo. Please give me Marvin Gaye instead anytime. Lot's of ambient sounds that will fit in the producers CV.

However dishonest it might be, this record is still a rock record. I can go that far and say this is mildly artsy fartsy rock...and that's the best I can say about it, and I tried really hard to appreciate it.

Why it exists? Bands were playing progressive rock at the time (Symphonic), or boogie, or glam, or space rock or AOR, or... This one fits nowhere. Perhaps it might fit into the same artsy/simplistic drawer where VELVET UNDERGROUND are, just with much better (or snobbish) production. This is really unique record, and that's because it's so horrible. On the other hand, I see listener either love or loathe this one, there's rarely gray area.

One things stands out though, and that's the reason why I'm giving an extra star to the record. It's called On The Run and it's perfect piece of electronic music, perhaps the best non-German piece of that genre from the 70's under the 4 minutes. I can go into deeper description of the piece because I'm disgusted by its surroundings, sorry.

I'm kindly asking all the folks ready to use you-just-don't-get-it phrase to dissolve into thin air instantly. Thank you.

Edited by Ricochet - September 20 2008 at 08:01

Cheers guys, under investigation.

Now a rating only

Aficionados are the first to rate/review; soon followed by the non-aficionados. These actions generally balance the numbers.