True that. I’ve decided to give his lyrics a pass most of the time, otherwise I’d probably want to gouge my eyes out or something. He definitely is not the most uplifting lyricist.
Even though his lyrics touch on dark topics quite often, I never find them depressing. Heck, Raider II is about as dark a topic as you can imagine, it being about the BTK killer, but I find the lyrics fascinating, and the music fits the topic perfectly.
“Postcard” from Grace For Drowning has tobe the most unrelentingly depressing song of all time. There are some people of whom I think it would be advisable to never let them listen to that song.
Someone killed off that South Korean Boy Pop Band? Wow-there are going to be a lot of Angry Teen Girls.
Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. We honestly have no idea what Wilson will do. It’s always a game of speculation when talking about what his new album will sound like. Will he go back to his progressive rock roots? Will he incorporate more progressive pop on the album? Will he even sing on the new album aside from a few pieces? We simply don’t know.
I got into the band quite late, and have been discovering their back catalog. I have seen the band a couple of times in the past year and they are now among my favourite bands. If you have not heard any of their material then I would recommend Distant Satellites or The Optimist as two albums to listen to
Just listened again to Storm Corrosion today. I was struck at just how good this album is, might be the best of the decade. To me that LP represents an artistic peak for both SW & Mikael Akerfeldt. Why I Think Storm Corrosion Deserves More Praise
I could not agree more. Once I end up doing my favorite albums of the 10's list, Storm Corrosion will undoubtedly be in my top 5, maybe even top 3. Love it like crazy.
Update: No matter what music and artists come and go in my life and listening habits, one remains constant. There is a song on my next record which I thought of as my electro soul ballad in which I was somehow channelling Marvin Gaye (ok, stop laughing now). But everyone I play it to compares it only to the mighty Floyd. So it seems I just can’t get away from it, and why would I want to? They are in my DNA, my “Beatles”. Thanks to Lana T for the vintage t-shirt. Enjoy the Summer!
I've been a fan since 1994 and often noticed the same. Would even say that some of the "fear of technology" stuff permeating Signify in pretty cringe-inducing, even though he's probably at least partly in the right. This is probably a part of why No-Man is my favorite/his best project. Tim Bowness brings a lot more to the table lyrically and gets to emotions that I don't feel Steven can always do well. Steven gets the emotions out of the performances and the musical notes. "Raven" and "Pariah" might be his best for that to my ears.
For the last album, "To the Bone", Steven drip-fed us so many "previews" of the album, not so much a preview as a listening party, that by the time the album was officially released much of the fizz had gone out of it for me because I had already heard half of it. Even if I had abstained from listening, I could not have avoided reading everybody else's assessment of the songs. It begs the question of what "release date" means. I hope for the next album we get at most only one or two teasers. Then again, the strategy on the previous album seems to have worked for him commercially, so perhaps my hope is a forlorn one.
These days I find it easier simply to ignore promos and go back to the simple pleasure of buying an album over the counter, unwrapping it at home and listening to it completely unaware of what lies ahead. Perhaps it's because I have amassed so much music over 40 years, and am constantly inspired with rotating playlists, or revisiting old friends neglected for years, that I no longer feel the need to keep up. My only concession is trying to buy each new album on release day, but that's partly because my store stocks so few copies. Whatever Steven comes up with next year, I can only say I'll give it a fair hearing, and take it from there.
That's just how it works now. I agree, it's kinda lame. I don't really understand, in the modern/digital age, why an album is finished, mixed and mastered and then still not released for several months. Just release the thing when it's done. When Soundscan happened in 1991, the entire industry suddenly shifted to moving its entire focus to hyping first-week sales, and if your album didn't do big numbers right out of the gate, it was deemed a flop. For whatever reason, the industry is still in the mindset even though virtually everything has changed. Labels still want to promote an upcoming album, I get that, but spending months promoting an album people can't listen to seems kind of silly in this age. Make the videos, run the ads, kiss the hands, shake the babies, all of it, but why not do it concurrently with the album release and send potential new listeners to something they can actually hear, instead of something that isn't out for 2 months, by which point anyone not a dedicated fan will have forgotten already. This isn't a millenial "I want everything now" whine, it's "don't bother hyping an album to me that I can't actually listen to." Remember when Trent Reznor finished mixing The Slip and basically released it the next day? More of that. Especially from artists like SW with a dedicated fanbase.
Not quite the next day, but the tracklisting, artwork, mixing and mastering were all done in one week and the full album released the next week digitally (and for free! Pretty good album too, I have the Cd version). I would love more artists to have this level of independence and bravado, but you must consider that Wilson's incomes are most probably not enough to go full independent like Reznor did.
You obviously need a complete break from SH forum. I just buy the albums when they come out. Just need to know the release date. Makes any album a fresh experience as in Ye Olde pre internet days. Of course you risk paying for a few duds but that is hardly likely with SW.
No, this was on the old unofficial PT forum, before I joined this forum. "Taking a break" from that forum would have meant basically missing out on any PT-related news. The SHF is somewhat different, because I could avoid the SW-related threads if I chose (and had the willpower) and still find plenty of other music stuff to talk about.