Collaborator/experts reviews

It would be nice if people had the humility to consider that when they listen to an acknowledged classic album and think it's terrible their opinion might not represent the absolute truth, but I think the blowhards are entitled to express their views too...as long as they write enough to constitute some sort of review of what is on the plastic.

Reviews are something that is not exactly necessary for anything, except it is someone's opinion.

The history of reviews in film and even music, and much of the arts, has always been a spotty affair ... you know how many people made fun of Andy Warhol? Well, I don't have to tell you that he ended up being bigger than all of us combined, even with bad reviews. Same thing for Picasso, who once asked if the review was on a piece of _____________ (manners Moriarty, manners!) ... and somewhere along the way, for you to find your own VIEW and IDEA of what you really think, you need to formulate it on your own.

As an example, I read some film reviews, only AFTER the film, never before. In the earlier days, I did not need to have someone tell me about Bunuel, Godard, Russell, Truffaut, Fellini ... because I knew that I was more familiar with these folks than most reviewers, who often (just like here) did not even sit through the whole film.

I have no bone with someone saying that 2001 is a piece of over rated pretty picture crap ... which happened, and that was a time when film was changing into a very BIG visual meaning, that became very important for several years (same thing in the early progressive music!), until many folks got tired of it, and even said and wrote that LAWRENCE OF ARABIA was an hour too long, and that 2001 was made for a stoned audience and had no meaningful thoughts or ideas ... it was just a series of vignettes, with a story that really did not add up.

Music reviews here, are OK with me, but when looking at one album that has too many of them, my feeling is that the addition of reviews on it should be CLOSED, and the only "reviews" added to it would have to be approved by a group of Admins. This probably would happen once or twice a week, maybe even month ... we don't need another review of ITCOTCK, but I would welcome a really well written one to the listing, which has too many reviews and many of them probably are not quite ... a review.

I would caution one thing, though ... a review written 50 years later, and many times it is not researched and the person reviewing it, has no idea what he/she is saying. I saw someone comment on CTTE and it said ... it had no beat to tap to, and the lyrics stunk. That is NOT a review, and should not be listed as a review, and it's the same thing as anyone today trying to review THE RITE OF SPRING, or CARMINA BURANA, and just write that one is a mess, and the other is a copy of Magma ... c'mon, it doesn't matter who you are at PA ... that is not appropriate and should not be shown, thus the idea/thought that all reviews need to be double checked by some admins on PA.

The problem? Volunteers. Which sometimes tells you that it means I only do this or that and I ignore the rest! Not my cup of tea. And that would mean, without proper "supervision" that a lot of sections end up left behind and have no attention paid to them whatsoever ... thus, it is a lot easier (and lazy!) to speak of free speech and let everything be posted as a review, than make a call on the quality of the reviews and what they should represent.

We need to help make "progressive music" better and more appealing. That does not mean that a review that does not like it, but is well written can not pass the mustard and custard. It will ... but in the end, that review is not attracting more listeners ... it's helping people not have an open mind when listening to the piece of music, and the same thing happened to film for many years. It has stopped now, because no one knows John Who, from Jane What?, and their reviews are not as valuable or important, since most of them do the same film ... so you want another review of AVATAR? After the 247 of them? What for? NO ONE IS GOING TO READ THESE AT ALL!

I really can not say how to improve it, other than making the art look better and more important. The wide open spaces for "bad reviews", for me, is the part that tend to bring down the work, and this happened in my lifetime a lot ... I saw it on Picasso, I saw it on Rudolf Nureyev, I saw it on Misha (you can that dance?), I saw it on Bob Fosse when someone said sex has no place in dance, I saw it on Fellini, I saw it Kubrick, I saw it on David Lean (way too long, and I'm tired of Julie Christie!), I saw it on Bergman (specially! How can anyone like that boring crap!) ... and its endless and later I got to see first hand how our loved music was ignored and disrespected by folks that had no taste in music, and above all, did not care about anything except getting some free dope and picking up yet another girl at the station!

Somewhere along the way, history is going to show this stuff up ... and folks ... progressive music has stood up and was noticed, and here we are ... and ITS TIME WE STOP BEING LAZY ABOUT IT, AND IMPROVE ITS STATUS FOR HISTORY'S SAKES. 

Just remember how many artistic communities and such went by wayside down the river to nothing ... 

I especially loved the responses to M27Barney's first post! Tapfret and SillyPuppy probably could still be going on about that one! 

It is both. Rock can (and does) progress towards many different directions, but not all of them are Prog Rock, in fact most of them are not.