Piero Scaruffi

Wicked223

He bugs me.

For those who don't know, Piero Scaruffi is a music critic and historian, with some views that could be described as... somewhat pretentious.

I like his writing style, and his book A History of Rock Music covers a whole lot of artists whose names I never would have heard otherwise, and I give him credit for having the only "Greatest Artists" list that doesn't have The Beatles at the very top, but still.

GLORIOUSLeader

He's a little pretentious, but then again all critics with something worthwhile to say are. At least a little.

Who did he name the greatest artist?

Wicked223

Captain Beefheart. He also named Trout Mask Replica the greatest rock album of all time(s).

Which, given his great preference for avant-garde music, makes a lot of sense.

GLORIOUSLeader

what

Wicked223

Possibly the greatest rock musician of all times, and certainly one of the most original and influential geniuses of the 20th century, Don Van Vliet, also known as Captain Beefheart, completely erased all musical dogmas and simply reinvented music on his own terms. Formally, his style blends Delta blues, free-jazz, cacophonous avantgarde and rock and roll, but what is unique about Van Vliet's music is the oblique, skewed, manic, unpredictable and demented structure of his compositions. The desert (where he grew up) could be a better key to understand his art than any of the influences that one can hear on his albums. Along the way, Van Vliet also created one of the most original styles of singing ever, one that, again, revolutionized centuries of vocal music. The gruff, abrasive, werewolf-grade, warbling of Van Vliet beat the bluesmen at their own game: it did more than express a state of mind, it redefined what a state of mind is. Van Vliet's singing is a force of nature. 

Van Vliet, who had already cut a record with Frank Zappa in 1959, formed the Magic Band in 1964. Safe As Milk (1967) presented their dadaistic take on the blues, but Mirror Man (1971), recorded in november 1967, is a better (albeit rawer) testament of the band in its prime, jamming aimlessly around a few trivial blues chords. After Strictly Personal (1968), a more "acid" album that was ruined by the producer, Van Vliet composed what is arguably rock music's main contribution to the history of music, Trout Mask Replica (1969). This masterpiece, that straddles the border between blues, jazz, rock and classical music, is a post-Cage-an study on tonality. He was also one of the wildest eccentrics of his time, and his music may simply be a one-to-one reflection of what was going on inside his blessedly deranged mind. 

Unfortunately, Captain Beefheart and the music industry did not get along too well. Later, he managed to record at least two brilliant albums, Shiny Beast (1978) and Ice Cream For Crow (1982), but eventually disappeared from the music scenes and turned to painting. And the similarities between his songs and the art of painting became more obvious. The distance between Captain Beefheart and the rest of rock music is the same distance that there was between Beethoven and the symphonists of his time.

GLORIOUSLeader

Okay, fine, I'll add him to my list of artists that I'll never get around to listening to.