The city I once knew as home is teetering on the edge of radioactive oblivion
Continuing my trip up #album-of-the-day...
21.02.16 : GUNSHIP - Gunship (2015)
Never heard of album or band (unsurprisingly given the eponymous title) and had no expectations from the name either. And whatever I was expecting, I wasn't expecting to be transported back to the 80s - it was a fine homage, but it did get a bit tiresome after the 30 minute mark for me. Although reading up about synthwave (and the various sub-sub-genres) on Wikipedia did manage to pass a bit more time - there's a whole load of detailed (and utterly pointless) information in there. It reminded me of Hurts, but not as enjoyable for me, I'm afraid. That album cover has got to be peak-synthwave though, surely?
The channel gave this two fires, five thumbs up and a lot of positive comments for both the album and synthwave in general. Wikipedia has nothing on the album and not an awful lot on the group, other than noting that they have a large collection of synthesizers - no shit, Sherlock.
"Customers also listened to" Lazerhawk, Timecop1983 and Zombie Hyperdrive - do you think they might be synthwave bands as well? I didn't hate this, but I wouldn't seek it out again either.
21.02.17 : The Glow, Pt 2 - The Microphones (2001)
Yup - no idea about this one either. And well - I wasn't expecting what I got either. It's quite lo-fi - not quite enough to annoy me though because the songs are generally pretty well constructed. So they might have gotten away with it, if the whole thing (and especially the vocals) hadn't been so understated as to hardly be there. I mean, I'm not a huge fan of bombast but this goes too far the other way - I know some people will praise the beautiful, ethereal nature of it all but I do like to be able to actually hear what's going on. This just all frustratingly blurred into a nothingness for me, I'm afraid - tempting glimpses of beauty but nothing more. And I really didn't need 66 minutes of it either - but I do like the album cover, so I'll give them that. One further thing is that I was somewhat surprised about is that there was only a clean version of this available on Amazon - I struggle to imagine the explicit version is all that explicit, so I'm intrigued as to what's going on.
The channel gave this one eyes and two thumbs up. The nominator bravely asked for comments and was rewarded with a single "it feels a lot longer than an hour". It did tempt two new joiners to the channel though. Wikipedia has a surprising amount on the album (212 milliPeppers) all of which basically tells me I'm wrong and I should listen to it again and be struck by the awesomeness of it all. Well, maybe I'll do that (just to be clear - I won't). It also tells me there was no Part 1 - and things like that just annoy me.
"Customers also listened to" Neutral Milk Hotel and it did not surprise me in the slightest to see them on the list. And both them and this are so close to being right up my street, but just take a wrong turn somewhere for me.
21.02.18 : Metropolis, Pt 2: Scenes From A Memory - Dream Theater (1999)
And we've got the clean sweep of ignorance on my part for this round - and again I'm lacking in expectations from the name. And when it starts with someone trying to hypnotise me, I'm very confused indeed. But it soon settles down into something pretty proggy which sounds skilfully done but does take itself somewhat too seriously for me - it's definitely trying to tell me a story, but I just didn't care enough to try and work out what it was saying. Additionally, large parts of it reminded me of either Rufus or Lood-wig Von Beat-hoven's solos in Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure, which I'm not sure was exactly the sound they were looking for. And there are 77 minutes of it as well so it definitely outstayed its welcome for me.
The channel gave this three thumbs, one party-parrot, a couple of very appreciative comments, one "strangely enjoyable" and one new joiner - the full smorgasbord of channel action. Once again, Wikipedia tells me I'm wrong and lots of people consider this to be the best prog rock album ever - which did somewhat surprise me, so maybe I should listen to it again and be struck be the awesomeness of it all. It also gives me a synopsis of the album explaining all the stuff that I missed whilst listening to it - and believe me, I missed a LOT! This album did bother the charts, but only just - #65 in the US and #131 in the UK.
"Customers also listened to" Symphony X, Liquid Tension Experiment and Circus Maximus - my suspicion is that they too may be slightly proggy. But this just didn't do it for me, I'm afraid.
So the round has to go to Gunship - which wasn't what I was expecting when I'd finished listening to it, but it's the only one I can see myself not turning off if I found myself in its presence ever again.
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