Steven Wilson starts recording a new album: "The Future Bites" (29th January 2021)

By making 9-minute tracks?

 

Purple Rain is almost 9 minutes long, and I think that's a great pop album.
The Beatles also did long songs/medleys. Ulver also did a 9 minute pop song.

 

Perhaps. But Purple Rain the song is NOT a pop song. It's just about prog, especially with the rich orchestration at the end. Every tried to play the chords (with the 9th added?) It's tough.

 

I'm not sure Personal Shopper is edited to 9 minutes or extended to 19 minutes. how are extra 10 minutes like?

 

I agree with you to a degree. But there are tons of interviews from the To The Bone era where you could see what Steven's definition of pop is.
In his world (and mine), good pop music means The Beatles, ABBA, XTC or Prince. Pop doesn't mean Britney Spears, Green Day or Justin Bieber.
Point is, pop songs can be long, and sometimes can even be considered prog.

 

I would definitely call it pop! Pop-rock ballad. Absolute genius piece of work - in an album that is rock and pop and R&B all mixed together

I think ultimately, pop music can have those wonderfully embellished inversions and 9ths that Wendy added to the chord progression, as well as the song's orchestration - the song itself is more in the pop/rock/R&B world than it is the prog world. Because ultimately I feel like pop doesn't always have to mean short and simple chords (although the roman numeral analysis to Purple Rain is not prog-complex in the slightest)

Prince is my all time favorite musician, and as a guitarist I love playing those chords that Wendy brought to the table for that particular song - I don't consider anything on that album to be prog though even if the song has a long and brilliant journey

 

Who cares whether something by Steven Wilson is, or is not, pop. Shouldn't we instead be discussing whether or not it's good music?

 

As i am in lockdown i am working through my Porcupine Tree and SW collection. I have been on the journey with him since 96. My first rule with any of his products is dont under estimate. If you dont like something at first chances are it will grab you later.
Just listening to Grace album. Not a go to and ignored for years. Wow. What a miss. But i have said this so many times. Not to say i like everything the guy has ever done. Even his best albums have at least one track that leaves me cold. He has never done a perfect album for me. But his is the catalogue i would take to a desert island.

 

Let's hope it's not an extra 10 minutes of shopping list items.

 

Sometime in the 1980s I recall hearing a "song" - more a spoken word track with minimal musical accompaniment. It consisted of a female voice slowly and sensuously reciting a list of items one might find in a supermarket, in a tone not so much like someone reading their shopping list but more like an advertisement trying to induce people to purchase by making the items sound as tempting a possible. I don't know the name of the artist, but I do recall the title of the piece: "Sex". None of the items listed had anything to do with actual sex; I assume the point was to draw an analogy between the temptation of a seductress and the temptation of retail therapy.

 

I'd settle for that
I dont think I'll try searching for it though

 

I must be the odd man out. To me I love the journey of the artist. Being a huge Queen , Devin Townsend, Opeth, Vangelis and yes Steven Wilson fan ( among others of course) I never know what direction they may be going and to me that is awesome. Do I like every direction 100% ( ala The Miracle Queen ) no . But I respect the artist 100% for doing what they want not what the label or we want. It's a journey I go for the ride ( if those individuals who want the same thing from the artist over and over there are plenty them out there). So yes bring on change bring on diversity those are the artist who are interesting and continue to keep me interested.

 

I agree 100%. And I love HevyDevy too

 

All of the above...

 

Wow, I am 100% with you on what you said. I LOVE Ptree but his solo career except for hand.cannot.erase does not do much for me. Thought To the Bone had a few things I liked but like you after putting it away on the shelf over a year ago I have no inclination to listen to it again. And what many consider to be his masterpiece (Raven) that album just puts me to sleep.

 

Check out the live album Home Invasion, which I reviewed on another thread. Besides having quite a few PT songs, many of his solo songs are played with more energy than they are on the studio albums.

 

I've come to really like the title track on Raven and I can enjoy (without getting too excited by them) Pin Drop and Drive Home, but I have to skip the other three tracks entirely.

 

Thanks for posting this.

 

I kind of discovered everything by SW at once: after having ignored frequent glowing mentions of SW's name on the Marillion fan forum, right after Welcome To My DNA came out, I caved in and tested out (through YouTube) bits of PT, Blackfield, and Insurgentes (the only SW album at the time); I remember hearing Time Flies and Harmony Korine and being quite blown away by the fact they were both tremendous but in completely different ways.

I soon bought 4 albums: The Incident, Blackfield (I), DNA, and Insurgentes. Each was really good in its own way, but Insurgentes probably hit me the hardest, like a bucket of water in the face. As for the others, I thought Blackfield was accessible music that should be played on the radio, while being more interesting (lyrically, musically, emotionally) than anything I actually did hear on the radio; I thought The Incident was much more "regular rock" than the others, pretty middle of the road in spots, but quite good indeed in other spots.

Years later, having heard much more PT and SW solo, the properties remain the same for me: a SW solo album has much more interesting material, top to bottom, than any PT album, which at most (FOABP) is 50% notable content (as opposed to merely enjoyable content - I do like PT (I may sound like I don't) but much of it stops there, at "like."). If I were to compare the top third (according to my own enjoyment) of PT material and top third of SW material, the quality level is about even; it's that the rest of the SW solo albums continue to be interesting to me that sets them apart.

As good as Insurgentes seemed to me at that time, GFD, Raven, and HCE blew it away. I would say TTB is also better than Insurgentes, although Insurgentes feels more "Wilsony" to me than TTB (due to inclusion of more pedestrian things such as Same Asylum, Nowhere Now, Permanating, People Who Eat Darkness, which I enjoy, but don't go much beyond that).

For me, no PT album compares to any SW solo album. Isolated bits certainly do (much of Signify, and the first half of FOABP is outrageous), but no full albums.

 

An interesting post, and although I know many disagree with your opinion on SW vs PT, it's refreshing to read a contrary point of view.

 

Yes I agree. I do have that (the 2 CD+blu-ray) set. I keep picking up most of his solo stuff anyway despite not loving all of it. I am going to sample some of the new one b4 buying it though.

 

I think I figured out why this track leaves me cold.
The lack of Richard Barbieri, or any other musician (such as Bill Rieflin) who knows how to handle ambience, or silence, properly.
The breakdown part does remind me of Voyage 34, but it's V34 without Barbieri. The difference might be subtle but it's there.

 

V34 was always SW solo. I don't think Richard contributed to that album.

 

According to the credits on my CD copy, Richard Barbieri played synthesisers on Phase IV

 

It sounds like that Phase IV is a later remix that was included on future "complete trip" disks via this portion of the Wiki article:

It was released in two parts, as singles, as "Voyage 34 (Phase 1)" and "Voyage 34 (Phase 2)" in 1992. In 1993, Voyage 34: Remixes was released, containing two remixes of the originals. "Voyage 34 (Phase 3)" was a remix by the British electronic music group Astralasia, while "Voyage 34 (Phase 4)" was a remix by Wilson himself, along with future band member Richard Barbieri.