Posted By: Paul - Tue Mar 03, 2020 -
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Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Costumes and Masks, Death, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Pranks and Revenge, Theater and Stage, Homages, Pastiches, Tributes and Borrowings, Pop Art, Foreign Customs, Seventeenth Century, Sixteenth Century, Brain Damage, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Posted By: Alex - Mon Feb 17, 2020 -
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Category: Science, 1960s, Alcohol, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Speaking before the September premiere of his new commission, Gaddafi: A Living Myth, English National Opera artistic director John Berry averred that it could "redefine opera".
The piece, written by members of Asian Dub Foundation, was billed in advance as a venture of extraordinary audacity, addressing contemporary politics in music that would set our old friend the Classical Music Establishment by its ears.
Some of us had doubts long before the premiere. In December 2005, writing in this paper about the state of affairs at English National Opera, I said: "A commissioned opera from Asian Dub Foundation has had to be put off - and it's not hard to guess why."
When it was finally unveiled, there was not much pleasure to be had from seeing this gloomy prognostication confirmed.
The critics did their worst: "Cliche and bombast ... "repetitive and incoherent ... laughably wooden" ... "as cynical as Simon Cowell" ... "embarrassingly redolent of sixth-form earnestness" ... "long stretches of jaw-dropping banality" ... "risible moments that look and sound like a Middle Eastern version of Springtime For Hitler". Worst of all, almost every review used the word "brave".
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 23, 2020 -
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Category: Bombast, Bloviation and Pretentiousness, Crowds, Groups, Mobs and Other Mass Movements, Dictators, Tyrants and Other Harsh Rulers, Music, Avant Garde, Twentieth Century, Twenty-first Century, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 09, 2020 -
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Category: Antisocial Activities, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Music, Avant Garde, 1970s, 1980s, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jan 07, 2020 -
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Category: Music, 1990s, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Posted By: Paul - Sun Jan 05, 2020 -
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Category: Body, Bodybuilding, Music, 1960s, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Posted By: Paul - Mon Nov 25, 2019 -
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Category: Anthropomorphism, Excess, Overkill, Hyperbole and Too Much Is Not Enough, Music, Television, Pop Art, Surrealism, 1970s, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Posted By: Alex - Tue Nov 19, 2019 -
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Category: Motor Vehicles, Cars, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Posted By: Paul - Sun Nov 17, 2019 -
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Category: Foreign Customs, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Posted By: Paul - Wed Oct 30, 2019 -
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Category: Antiques, Anachronisms and Throwbacks, Authorities and Experts, Cult Figures and Artifacts, Humor, Music, Foreign Customs, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Who We Are |
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Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |