September 26, 2005
Why it's better to not use words sometimes
I just picked up a new CD from the Cargo giveaway table, Bruce Cockburn's "Speechless", a collection of his guitar instrumentals (mostly collected from previous albums, but with some new recordings). The CD is very good indeed, but the actual reason I must blog about it is the sticker on the cover, which features this blurb:
"Cockburn's instrumentals are dazzling...compositionally and technically years ahead of their time."--Acoustic Guitar magazine
Now, remember, I like this album, but that seems a little oddly phrased to me. Bruce Cockburn uses proprietary instrumental-composing technology that is not available to the rest of the human race! He was writing 2005 instrumentals in 1996.
Posted by Francis at 12:19 PMWith a name like Cockburn, he's definitely better off not using words.
Posted by: Billy Joel at September 26, 2005 07:21 PMI'm not sure what you're objecting to here. Just the "years ahead of their time" part? They're hardly the first to use *that* phrase.
Posted by: blahedo at September 27, 2005 04:52 PMWell, then they should have learned from other people's mistakes.
Posted by: Francis at September 27, 2005 05:01 PMYou're right. They should stick to blurbing "they're out of this world."
Posted by: Orange at September 27, 2005 06:55 PMAnyway, to be less glib, saying someone was years ahead of their time makes sense when they are, oh, a visionary scientist or something. When the phrase is used to refer to a guitarist who is playing instrumentals that are excellent examples of their form, but fall squarely within idioms that were well established at the times of the recordings, it seems kind of risible.
Posted by: Francis at September 29, 2005 02:04 AMWell, why didn't you say that in the first place?
Posted by: Orange at October 4, 2005 05:38 PMSheer laziness.
Posted by: Francis at October 4, 2005 06:01 PMTsk.
Posted by: Orange at October 4, 2005 08:00 PMRight. One Got to have these particular awesome wow items! Concerning a large number of sets of these my own self; in addition to theyre just about all perrfectt. Me personally plus my buddies lovee thesee. When i totallyy reccommend :G
Posted by: wow items at October 22, 2013 11:56 PM