Timewatching: The Divine Comedy Album-by-album thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by LivingForever, Nov 5, 2020.

  1. LivingForever

    LivingForever Forum Arachibutyrophobic Thread Starter

    Well, you can see that nobody agrees what’s the obvious best or worst track on this album, so we probably can’t help you very much I’m afraid!
     
    The Booklover and DaniMoonstar like this.
  2. The Turning Year

    The Turning Year Lowering average scores since 2021

    Location:
    London, UK
    Good to see you back and I'm glad you're feeling better, sorry you were ill - glad it's not covid.

    I just want to say, I scored one of those zeroes for LWYD, but I in no way 'hate' it. That's a very strong word, reserved for violence and the various huge inequalities in the world, not pop songs.

    I'm sorry for being responsible for any negativity in the discussion as a whole, it wasn't the intention. I stand by my score though, as I don't enjoy the music and it also took me back to a pretty miserable time in my early 20s when being told to love what I did by a successful pop star made me feel even more of a failure than the massive, self-created failure I was. So there is an emotional reason too. I didn't explain that in my post about the song...
    If it weren't for the negative association I probably would have scored it 1.5 or 2 rather than zero, but it's hard to be objective... :sigh:
     
  3. Hazey John II

    Hazey John II The lyrics are fine, there's no problem there

    This song is so odd - so many of us have said we barely remember it, and this too:
    It's like some kind of anti-music, completely inert. It makes me feel - not depressed exactly - but nothing. Empty. Not pleasant anyway. I've never liked these last songs but I'm really trying to hear them fresh, listening to all the versions, reading all the comments. But nothing's coming. It's just a void.

    Never really given the lyric much thought; a lot of it sounds like it could be for Orla (X + Y chromosomes = new life, "Angels or devils, I don't care, for in front of that door, there is you", marriage only just begun of course), but maybe it's the band, maybe it's the fans, maybe it's Doctor Who and companion... who knows. As with several other songs on the album, it almost sounds like Neil singing to himself, or his muse, especially the last verse - convincing himself to tell his critics they're wrong.

    But yes, pathos, turns out beginning was all it did. I absolutely love Mathieu Persan's new covers for the albums in the box set - they've got such a lovely, evocative, welcoming feel to them, adding to the character of the albums without taking away from the original art. But it's telling that for Regeneration, rather than something specific about the album, he went for the suit on a hanger. There just isn't much here; the form of something new, without the actual content; a negative.

    1.5/5

    (It did remind me of Curtis Mayfield's lovely We've Only Just Begun, which was nice to hear again.)
    It would be nice if it were, but I don't think it influenced the song - thanks for reminding me to post this, from the Victory For The Comic Muse liner notes:
    N: Album titles are hard things to decide upon... the best ones are those that appear early in the process. Like Casanova, Bang Goes The Knighthood, and Absent Friends. They actively help to crystallise your ideas; provide a scaffolding within which to build one's edifice. The less convincing titles are the last-minute jobs, finalised under the pressure of an artwork deadline. Victory For The Comic Muse and Regeneration fall into this category. It's not their fault. They are difficult records to sum up under one catchy banner headline.

    (Best wishes @The Booklover, hope you are feeling better. You have been missed!)
     
  4. LivingForever

    LivingForever Forum Arachibutyrophobic Thread Starter

    Ahh, thank you for that! Pesky Neil making references to things we might want to know, in the liner notes to things we haven’t got to yet... tsk!
     
    Hazey John II likes this.
  5. Vagabone

    Vagabone Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    I'm also glad to see the Booklover back and wish him a swift recovery, but I can't apologise to him for my low score for LWYD after he scored so many of my favourite songs - that actually have tunes and everything - so low. Including setting the 0/5 precedent!
     
    The Booklover and LivingForever like this.
  6. A Tea-Loving Dave

    A Tea-Loving Dave Forum Resident

    Location:
    Northumberland, UK
    Not a bad track, but incredibly forgettable as others have noted upthread. It probably deserves slightly more than this, but I just can't be bothered to work out what :p so it's going to have to be a perfect middle-of-the-road vote:

    2.5/5

    I think you'll find you were roundly mocked for (inadvertently) suggesting that Queen didn't really count as any more "rock" than Bad Ambassador does :p
     
  7. Radiophonic_

    Radiophonic_ Electrosonic

    Location:
    Royal Oak MI
    "Regeneration": Like its preceding track yesterday, I feel like if this had an injection of tempo, or some kind of life, maybe it would be more interesting. As it is, I'm kind of with it up to the end of the "sheltering sky" line, and then doesn't really take off or do much else. I just kind of tune out as it goes on. 1.75/5
     
    LivingForever likes this.
  8. LivingForever

    LivingForever Forum Arachibutyrophobic Thread Starter

    “Regeneration” scored 47.9999939* from 18 votes, for a preliminary score of:

    2.67

    *
    I ran out of decimal places in my iPhone calculator so had to do a bit of rounding on @happysunshine ’s score ;)
     
  9. LivingForever

    LivingForever Forum Arachibutyrophobic Thread Starter

    Today’s song is:

    The Beauty Regime

    The final track on “Regeneration”, and if, as suggested by @jon-senior , the title track was this album’s “Long and Sleepless Night”, then this must be its “theme from Casanova” or “Dogs and the Horses”?

    Here’s what they said about it in 2001:

    Neil: I took the title from a "Lifestyle" magazine that I read in the loo one day. And I was amazed at how they think they can direct people's lives, telling them what was in bad taste and what was not. It's about those people telling you how you should be: what clothes to wear, how not to be selfish, blah blah ... and it makes me really sick. I thought I should write a song to just yell "s**t, just be what you are"! (laughs).

    Musically, it's a very simple song because it gets straight to the point. It sounded good right from the second studio take. (Newcomer, March 2001)

    —-

    Anon. asked: Hi Neil, Re: The Beauty Regime. How do you 'beat stress' and who is your favourite movie star? Cheers,

    The Divine Comedy replied:
    Not quite what the song is about but anyway...I beat stress by taking the dog for a walk and not reading Lifestyle magazines. My favourite film star is Audrey Hepburn. (Webchat, March 2001)
    ——

    Miggy: I like 'Beauty Regime' because it's got a lovely rhythm - it's got a Percy Sledge style backing track. (BBC Webchat, March 2001)

    Here’s the song, then!

     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2021
  10. LivingForever

    LivingForever Forum Arachibutyrophobic Thread Starter

    And there are zero officially released alternate versions of the song, but here’s a live version from Paris in February 2001, where the band webcast their show live as it happened (quite a rarity at that time!)

    The Beauty Regime was the final song of the night, right at the end of the encores.

     
  11. christian42

    christian42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Lund, Sweden
    The Beauty Regime

    The album ends on somewhat of a high, at least. While the track starts out very slow and feeble, the melody is just about strong enough to carry the track forward. And then the song starts to build a bit with Neil's singing becoming more forceful. What's up with the traffic sounds at the end?

    3.9
     
  12. Vagabone

    Vagabone Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Forgot to reply to this last night. I basically agree with you but in grudging fairness to Godrich, I believe the quote was he didn't like how the earlier albums sounded. So his criticism could have been of the mixing or mastering rather than production. He also mixed Absent Friends so that might be his idea of what a more regular-style Divine Comedy record should sound like.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2021
  13. A Tea-Loving Dave

    A Tea-Loving Dave Forum Resident

    Location:
    Northumberland, UK
    Between this track and the immediately-preceding one, I feel the album ends not with a bang but something of a whimper. This is definitely a step up from the title track, mind you, but it is almost as forgettable - at least initially - and goes on almost as long. It's not a *bad* song, however, and certainly better than the actively-bad and middling tracks elsewhere on the album, so:

    3/5
     
  14. Vagabone

    Vagabone Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    The Beauty Regime.

    A very beautiful song and a very good lyric. This completes the acoustic-guitar-protest-song trilogy of "Dumb it Down", "Mastermind" and this. The latter two songs in particular meld together in the mind and it's sometimes hard to recall which scrap of lyric is in which song. They both are very strongly anti-bullying, anti-meddling idiots, pro-self-esteem. The world is out to belittle you, don't let it.

    5/5
     
  15. jon-senior

    jon-senior Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eastleigh
    Dogs and the Horses, but I might be in the minority in seeing a link!

    I do see a parallel, though. Regeneration is the bold, noisy track that wraps up the themes of the album (such as they are). The Beauty Regime is quieter, and thematically it steers off in a different direction.

    If you haven't got much from the album so far, I can see that the final track isn't going to change your mind: it's a little slow, it's too similar musically to what you've already heard. To me, though, it's another highlight of the album.

    Lyrically, it's very direct. I ws interested to read the quotes above - to me, it sound a little more personal than something inspired by a magazine. I could well believe Neil having a particular person in mind when he wrote this, though I appreciate it would be tasteless to speculate too much around this. I've said before - I love Neil at his most ironic, but his normal style make it all the more affecting when he sings something more direct and heartfelt. There's some real bleakness to these words which pay off wonderfully towards the end. When he substitutes 'perfect' for 'worthless' in the final line... we'll, it might be a bit obvious, but it's very effective. Combine that with the understated arranegement which allows the stringa to shine through increasingly as the song progresses - I often find I have something in my eye as it comes to an end. A final 5/5 from me to round the album off.
     
  16. LivingForever

    LivingForever Forum Arachibutyrophobic Thread Starter

    There’s some analysis on ashortsite speculating that the lyric is also referring to the changes that he made to his look and sound at this time and that perhaps this lyric refers to them being “suggested” by the record company - but then there are also quotes from various interviews stating that this was absolutely not the case, so who knows?

    I agree it maybe isn’t nice to speculate too much on personal stuff - but I am reminded again of the fact that he claims to have written the lyrics to most of these songs on his honeymoon.
     
  17. a paul

    a paul Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    I really like this song. I often think it follows on from Mastermind because they have a similar theme/message, plus I just can't really remember if there's a song between them.

    I enjoy the lyrics, but then I enjoyed the lyrics for LWYD. Simple, but just sort of click for me. I get to be a cynic for the first part and then almost hopeful for the second part of the song. Plus I like the guitar plucking at the end sounding similar to the start of Timestretched if you have the album on repeat, albeit with the traffic noise in between. But even that sounds sort of relaxing.

    4.6/5
     
  18. happysunshine

    happysunshine Tillverkningen av Salubrin startades 1893

    Location:
    Earth
    Mission of being a nuisance accomplished! :angel:
     
  19. jon-senior

    jon-senior Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eastleigh
    Hmmm. I'd be surprised if that were the case for a number of reasons. He was already sporting a more casual look by the time he was promoting A Secret History, and I can't imagine Parlaphone signing him and then pressuring him to adopt a style different to the one that made him recognisable and distinctive. Besides, the lyrics feel a bit deeper than that situation would have been.

    The thought had crossed my mind. Of course, even if it was written with someone in mind, it's not at all impossible that he exaggerated the situation while writing the lyrics - that would hardly be an unreasonable thing to do as a writer.
     
    LivingForever likes this.
  20. jon-senior

    jon-senior Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eastleigh
    Yes! I meant to mention the Timestretched connection - it's a very similar bit of plucking, a slightly odd set of notes with one standout high note in the mix.

    The ambient noise at the end also makes me think of Caroline No on Pet Sounds - another Beach Boys link.
     
  21. Hazey John II

    Hazey John II The lyrics are fine, there's no problem there

    Never noticed the title pun until today. Still not my cup of tea, sorry. I don't much like lifestyle magazines either, but I trust the people who do like them know what they're getting into when they buy them. I don't really recognise the naive straw person the song addresses, reverse-engineered from the magazine contents. Maybe there was someone specific in mind, who knows. But the advice rings hollow to me, especially given that the album completely suppresses the band's previous style because of a few bad reviews. And I miss it. 2/5
     
  22. LivingForever

    LivingForever Forum Arachibutyrophobic Thread Starter

    And I miss enthusiastic @Hazey John II - I hope he’s going to return with the next album... :)

    edit - maybe you can explain the pun to me because it’s gone right over my head!
     
  23. The Turning Year

    The Turning Year Lowering average scores since 2021

    Location:
    London, UK
    The Beauty Regime

    I agree with the above - good spot on the circular link with Timestretched.
    A couple of uni flatmates would leave these types of magazines lying around and seemed to live by them, so at that time I felt this song was quite fitting, and it still is. Elements of the media do sadly have a lot of undue influence over peoples' lives :shake:

    3.5/5.0
     
    The Booklover and LivingForever like this.
  24. Hazey John II

    Hazey John II The lyrics are fine, there's no problem there

    Before the next album!

    Beauty regime = daily makeup / military regime.
     
  25. DaniMoonstar

    DaniMoonstar Forum Resident

    Location:
    Staffordshire
    Oh, that’s very perceptive. Good point.
     
    Hazey John II and LivingForever like this.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine