Top 10+ Music, Movies, and Visual Art of the Week (2023) - Music Diaries

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

Moreover...

Fyi, I do want to cover The Doors a bit more, likely a solid (maybe more extensive) analysis/review of their debut, in due time and hopefully in the near future. But I have to be inspired when I do so (including really thinking about Rock music, and not focused elsewhere) and I am far too consumed in the works of Michelangelo at the moment and do not want to sell The Doors short (hence why I don't want to say just a short piece about it right this second). My replies here are usually in haste and haphazard compared to a more considered version of what I would want to say about their masterpiece and one of the greatest masterpieces in the history of music.

RE: Michelangelo ... My excitement about this once in a millennium artist is at an all time high right now and I would like to report anew that Michelangelo's genius is utterly mind-blowing and I am in a state of suspended awe and disbelief after very thoroughly going through the Last Judgment section of his work in the Sistine Chapel over the last several days (and before that polishing up observations/evaluations of his work in the Pauline Chapel). Now onto the Ceiling (gulp)... Even though 90% of this has been review, there were further profundities and elements discovered/learned (especially compositional) that exceeded even my expectations (which were already extremely high and I already considered him probably the greatest compositional genius in art history) and at this point I am just beside myself with how this could've possibly been conceived then accomplished by a human being (even more impossible given he was both the composer and the one who did the work). Hopefully, I can find the vocabulary to share these insights/evaluations at some point, while certainly resting on the shoulders of many analysts before me and of course Michelangelo himself, perhaps the greatest artistic genius who ever lived.
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Last edited by AfterHours on 12/10/2021 01:43; edited 1 time in total

TiggaTrigga

Well I'm tempted to ask how you would describe Are You Experienced, but I don't want to distract you too much from the Sistine Chapel analysis

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

TiggaTrigga wrote:

Well I'm tempted to ask how you would describe Are You Experienced, but I don't want to distract you too much from the Sistine Chapel analysis

I appreciate that. Over the last 2 days, I've spent about 5-7 hours studying and analyzing "just" The Deluge (approx 4% of the Ceiling space) and some general compositional details on some of the other "Genesis" frescos (meaning the 9 frescoes that make up it's mid section narrative), and some of the external compositional elements along the sides (but most of that towards The Deluge because that seems to have been the "least analyzed" by most art historians historically and prior to this, by myself as well). So it's a pretty major project to go through this work. If, altogether, that amounts to maybe 10% of the Ceiling, then, well... You get the idea if you do the math.

In terms of Are You Exp? it might help to know what it is you're struggling with, or even better, if there is a specific point or points in Scaruffi's Hendrix profile that you're not sure of in relation to the music (etc)
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TiggaTrigga

AfterHours wrote:

In terms of Are You Exp? it might help to know what it is you're struggling with, or even better, if there is a specific point or points in Scaruffi's Hendrix profile that you're not sure of in relation to the music (etc)

It's not that I'm struggling with it much. I just like to read your descriptions of certain albums, as it helps me better "get" what a certain album is trying to do or what it accomplished.

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

TiggaTrigga wrote:

It's not that I'm struggling with it much. I just like to read your descriptions of certain albums, as it helps me better "get" what a certain album is trying to do or what it accomplished.

Ah, okay, well I'm not going to go into it much at this time, but a key to the work is certainly in how Hendrix conveys emotion through not just his vocals: which vary between bluesy lamentation, allusions to depression, highly charged eroticism, ferocity, wrestling with demons -- and so on -- but of course his stunning guitar work, which walks a very fine line between violence, exhilarated (but also dangerous/precarious) excursions into psychedelic trips, sexual ferocity and the edge of death or even a dance with death (conflating the excursion or trip into psychedelia with an appetite or precarious fling with each); liberation or even (practically) an "exorcism" of mind-bending emotional outpouring (especially in the most charged solos). The rhythm section too should not be ignored, constantly following him down the same path (perhaps peaking on the precarious "syncopated" tumbling cyclic spiral of Manic Depression).

(as a note, to a certain degree his technique has been much imitated/matched, and in superficial ways "surpassed", but few guitarists can match the strength and ferocity his particular intonation conveys upon the notes, and perhaps even fewer his variety of imagination and interpretive brilliance, and even fewer seem to wield the instrument as such a direct, communicative extension of the self, personal anxieties, nightmares, psychology, etc. So, if someone tells you superficial details such as "Van Halen surpassed Hendrix in speed of intonation" or whatever, what makes Hendrix special is far more than "technique" alone and much more in his creativity, singular interpretations, the sheer variety of expression and emotion he can emit from the instrument ... not just the "notes" themselves but the "strength of his hands/fingers and how they sound upon the notes"...)

For instance, just some brief, general examples: Purple Haze opens with "suspenseful" (as if an alarm) guitar announcements. Its figures that follow throughout are tortured, agonized and ferocious. Foxey Lady's ferocious guitar swings/thrusts are acting out the approaching male, thrust and lusty urge and erotic come-on of sex, along with his lascivious, super-charged appetite of the vocals. The title track is a dreamy/nightmarish wallow into sex and eroticism, conflated with the hallucinated experience, vocals teetering on the edge and imbalance of reality/sur-reality (but also the bluesy lamentation and loss of consciousness, conflates it with almost a near-death experience, or teetering towards this), the solo losing itself in this same atmosphere.
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AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

Me, exhaustively dedicating countless hours over the years to studying, evaluating and interpreting Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel as the greatest work of art in human history:

Anticipating Scaruffi's response: https://e.snmc.io/i/fullres/w/5bd267b9c...1a/4905127
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Last edited by AfterHours on 12/15/2021 22:04; edited 2 times in total

Skinny
birdman_handrub.gif

Re: The Doors - they're fun and they have some good tunes, but people take them super seriously because they take themselves super seriously. This is not - in and of itself - a bad thing. This does not make The Doors - who are a good band - unworthy of serious critical appraisal. But it does make them an object of ridicule, because overt earnestness and ambition is inherently hilarious. Thinking - and saying - that you are important invites ridicule, and that's fine. It should.

Also, to add to all of this, The Doors are incredibly "LA", which is just about the most shallow city you can actually be representative of. Nobody should aim to be "LA" - it's the reason (apart from all the terrible, penis-referencing funk-rock) that everybody hates the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and the reason that Haim aren't easier to love (even though they should be super easy to love). LA is, in the minds of everybody with a soul who wasn't born there, a wretched (plastic) place full of people just desperate to be famous. The only reason that Arthur Lee's Love endure is that they seemed to relish in (and be extremely aware of) its reputation, writing songs that directly alluded to the pull and push of LA's pop culture conveyor belt. In fairness, The Doors did exactly the same thing, but there's a level of self-importance involved in, say, covering Brecht that sort of implies that they weren't really ever self-aware enough.

I like The Doors a lot. I think that both their debut album and LA Woman are masterpieces. But they're super hard to love publicly. Aligning yourself with The Doors means aligning yourself with the kind of cunt who thinks that Jim Morrison is actually (quote unquote) cool, which is obviously very silly. Jim Morrison is not cool. Jim Morrison is a failed poet, a half-decent singer, a frontman's frontman if you're favourite bands are INXS and Soundgarden. He is not a bad person (though, actually, he probably is), and he's not a bad singer (though, actually, he probably is), but he is a bad influence; not in a 'Nancy Reagan says "drugs are bad"' sort of way, but in a 'I am a sex god, and my words matter' sort of way. And it's impossible to separate the music of The Doors from Jim Morrison as a personality and as a picture that future sociopaths have on their walls at university, because that's basically all that separates The Doors from a thousand other similar bands (Them spring to mind immediately).

So, by all means, critique The Doors from a post-Scaruffi standpoint of, "oh my god, these gutter art school kids were making perverse proto garage rock in LA in the sixties whilst The Beatles were posing for photos to be shown in tabloids and magazines for twelve-year-old girls", but remember that they really aren't that important. The only people who started bands because of The Doors are people you actually hate. They made two (maybe more) great albums, and they're a lot of fun. The keyboards are fun. The vocals are fun. The sheer sense of scumbag self-importance is fun. But, really, they're nothing. They're nothing, and they're nothing aimed specifically at cunts.

Thinking - and saying - that you are important invites ridicule, and that's fine. It should. Even implying it is funny. Like, for example, refusing to give your opinions on The Doors because you’re soooooo tied up in the works of Michelangelo. Lol. Again, thinking, saying, implying that you are important invites ridicule, and that's fine. It should.
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AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

Skinny wrote:

Re: The Doors - they're fun and they have some good tunes, but people take them super seriously because they take themselves super seriously. This is not - in and of itself - a bad thing. This does not make The Doors - who are a good band - unworthy of serious critical appraisal. But it does make them an object of ridicule, because overt earnestness and ambition is inherently hilarious. Thinking - and saying - that you are important invites ridicule, and that's fine. It should.

Also, to add to all of this, The Doors are incredibly "LA", which is just about the most shallow city you can actually be representative of. Nobody should aim to be "LA" - it's the reason (apart from all the terrible, penis-referencing funk-rock) that everybody hates the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and the reason that Haim aren't easier to love (even though they should be super easy to love). LA is, in the minds of everybody with a soul who wasn't born there, a wretched (plastic) place full of people just desperate to be famous. The only reason that Arthur Lee's Love endure is that they seemed to relish in (and be extremely aware of) its reputation, writing songs that directly alluded to the pull and push of LA's pop culture conveyor belt. In fairness, The Doors did exactly the same thing, but there's a level of self-importance involved in, say, covering Brecht that sort of implies that they weren't really ever self-aware enough.

I like The Doors a lot. I think that both their debut album and LA Woman are masterpieces. But they're super hard to love publicly. Aligning yourself with The Doors means aligning yourself with the kind of cunt who thinks that Jim Morrison is actually (quote unquote) cool, which is obviously very silly. Jim Morrison is not cool. Jim Morrison is a failed poet, a half-decent singer, a frontman's frontman if you're favourite bands are INXS and Soundgarden. He is not a bad person (though, actually, he probably is), and he's not a bad singer (though, actually, he probably is), but he is a bad influence; not in a 'Nancy Reagan says "drugs are bad"' sort of way, but in a 'I am a sex god, and my words matter' sort of way. And it's impossible to separate the music of The Doors from Jim Morrison as a personality and as a picture that future sociopaths have on their walls at university, because that's basically all that separates The Doors from a thousand other similar bands (Them spring to mind immediately).

So, by all means, critique The Doors from a post-Scaruffi standpoint of, "oh my god, these gutter art school kids were making perverse proto garage rock in LA in the sixties whilst The Beatles were posing for photos to be shown in tabloids and magazines for twelve-year-old girls", but remember that they really aren't that important. The only people who started bands because of The Doors are people you actually hate. They made two (maybe more) great albums, and they're a lot of fun. The keyboards are fun. The vocals are fun. The sheer sense of scumbag self-importance is fun. But, really, they're nothing. They're nothing, and they're nothing aimed specifically at cunts.

Thinking - and saying - that you are important invites ridicule, and that's fine. It should. Even implying it is funny. Like, for example, refusing to give your opinions on The Doors because you’re soooooo tied up in the works of Michelangelo. Lol. Again, thinking, saying, implying that you are important invites ridicule, and that's fine. It should.

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TiggaTrigga

Would you say that Electric Ladyland has a similar effect as Are You Experienced, or is it something entirely different?

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

TiggaTrigga wrote:

Would you say that Electric Ladyland has a similar effect as Are You Experienced, or is it something entirely different?

It's more of a "trip", more spontaneous, less anchored to reality, less psychological, venturing into new horizons. A bit looser, more diverse and psychedelic, less straight blues-rock based. Could be argued that EL is somewhat less consistent (though by that I don't mean any of it is weak), though has the most extraordinary peaks (especially Voodoo Chile track 4, also 1983..., while Voodoo Child Slight Return is perhaps the most astounding example of the strength, verve and emotionality of his intonation; the heightened, mind-bending, scalding, monstrous effect on the notes). In a sense EL is a transitional album probably just before another culmination point; that is leaning towards a higher potential that is in the midst of being realized (but that was probably never fully realized due to his death), whereas AYE was somewhat less ambitious but a bit more perfected for what it is. It's also possible EL represents the final vestiges and exhaustion of his best ideas.
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