The Album Review Club - End of Round #9 Break (page 1904)

[mancity2012_eamo]

Whew.

First, kudos to @Saddleworth2 for choosing this and for a magnificent, beautiful, thoughtful and personal write-up — I’m betting no one will create a better one.

But it’s hard to translate a multi-media experience into an aural-only one. It’s also sometimes hard to translate one person’s emotional meaning into another one’s own. In both cases, the music has to be of such spectacular quality that it can bridge the gap. This is not that.

And not being a particular fan of “song suites” (with — here’s that record again — Quadrophenia being a very notable exception), I was truly disappointed that two of these three acts (save the encore) were lengthy concept pieces, and while I pick up the profundity, the music is without much in the way of tempo changes or power. The found-sound story links are a struggle, which they absolutely cannot be (cf. Dazzle Ships by OMD, where they make the record). I completely agree with the idea that these are partial musicals so I need to think about them differently, but even then, I didn’t struggle with the messages — it was the music I found leaden. As such, I found it difficult to make a pleasurable connection with any of act 2 and most all of act 3. It’s accompaniment for something else I’m blind to.

As a lyricist/singer/performer, Gabriel was like this early on too, and it was a blessing when he left, both to Genesis (now freed of his pretensions, though still groaning under the weight of those of the remaining members) and to him when he stopped with that costume crap and started producing songs with social and emotional depth. (You may have gathered that I don’t care for early Genesis).

But act 1 is a different animal. These are great art rock songs (and I’ve enjoyed Hakim and Rhodes’ contributions on a number of other records). “Lily” is a groove; “Hounds of Love” soaring; “Top of the City” beautiful; “Running Up That Hill” a classic; “King of the Mountain” full of Laurie Anderson-y quirks but potent. But we only return to that energy at the very end on “Cloudbusting”, a terrific closer and one of her best songs.

I appreciate the courage to offer up this record despite its user-unfriendliness. And if the intent is to get me to explore more of Kate Bush’s catalog, then job done. For me, the first 40 minutes and “Cloudbusting” stripped out is a live record worth a 7 or even an 8. But taken as a whole package, 5/10 is the best I can do.

Ok.
You’ve probably saved me load of typing but no……
In fairness to @Saddleworth2 I ought to at least try and put what was going on in my head down in print while listening to this.
Firstly, I’m coming from a position of liking this girl and what I already recognise, while at the same time not really ever having studied her too deeply. To me she was the more acceptable side of cerebral pop rather than anything that really spoke to me socially.
Like Foggy, I thought the whole project got off to a good start in what Saddleworth describes as the first act.
But there in itself is a problem. We , or I am listening to a Spotify playlist. I’m not listening to a live concert interpretation. Having said that, my criticism of the playlist probably highlights some of the problems with this for anyone who was not privileged to witness the real event.
In short, it drags in the middle without the visuals and then further drags without context into the final third.
Musically there is nothing in here I don’t like. I had it on in the background while preparing dinner and it suited the mood perfectly, but in all honesty, none of the context that Saddleworth gets so excited about hit me at all.
Musicslly she is beautiful and so is her band, but as a collection of songs I would have preferred a better best of, than the mono paced songs that dominated the middle of this performance.
Incidentally, while I think of it, the Irish jig bit, while performed gracefully, has been done better by others and might I dare to say herself, on songs such as ‘The Sensual World’.
This choice of recording is a paradox for me. I like it and want to score it high, but in comparison to what we’ve already critiqued where does it fit in. JCM was safe music to me and I scored it safely without really being invested in it.

Foggy’s offering although much of it not to my taste, was probably the most interesting experience. Something totally new and I gained a lot of new interest out of it.

So how do I score this. Expected a lot from the build up and expectation from my own best of playlist, put together for my missus. I’m somewhere between a 7 and an 8.
I would say the playlist I listened to is a 7.
The proper experience of the concert is most likely a higher score.

 

[OB1]

I started another play through and completed Acts I & II. I will aim to do Act III again tomorrow but your summing up that Act I plus cloud busting would be a terrific live album is where I am heading. Act I is very good and "Cloudbusting" hit the spot first time through too.

I did play Act III again and the outcome was as expected.

No change to my score.

 

[Saddleworth2]

So, what to say?

I'm glad I'm a City fan and quite used to seeing the object of my passion eviscerated in public :-)

Firstly thanks to all that took the time to listen, review and score the choice. Also thanks for the positive feedback on my review. I did take time and care on it so it was nice to have that recognised. In hindsight it was over optimistic of me to choose that recording as 1) its not available as a free stream and 2) much of the music is part of song cycles or concepts and you either get them or you don't. and 3) it is a very long listen. Whatever, the album meant a great deal to me which is why I chose it and some of you got at least some enjoyment out of it.

I suspect, Kate is a little like one of my other passions, fly fishing. You need to start young and you fall in love with the artistry of it. Come to it late and its is just an expensive way of thrashing water and all a little pointless.

Having gone through the process, I have also sharpened my critical facilities, on reflection I have been far, far too generous in scoring so far ;-)

 

[Saddleworth2]

My copy of Before The Dawn arrived today and I have played it once, admittedly while doing some work - albeit rather undemanding tasks. I doubt I will have time to play the whole thing again before scores are due.

This is a (triple and then some) live album so it gets marked as a live album. Now I love a good live album; plenty of people don't. First impression is that this is a very polished perfomance and the crowd are obviously in raptures but it doesn't have the excitement that I demand from a great live album.

I don't if I would have succeeded if I had tried for tickets to the shows this covers - my track record is pretty good on that front - but I decided at the time I couldn't justify going and left it to the Bushwhackers.

I have seen a lot of live perfomences - easily over 1,000 - and I have a lot of live albums in my collection. So whilst this one may well grow on me, it will never be near the top of my list of great live albums.

Also, a triple live cd is pushing it. The classic double live album of the vinyl era is the correct default for a live album. Yes managed to pull of a triple live album - so good that I have the 14 cd version (7 concerts so it's not necessary to listen to them all at one sitting) - but that's only a double cd.

I can't say that I am a big fan of Kate Bush: I only have three of her studio albums but, here's the thing, one of them (bought I think on the recommendation of a former Blue Moon poster) is Hounds of Love, which features heavily here. However, I didn't really recognise much of the material, which is a real problem. I couldn't say how many times I played Hounds; probably not too many, which in itself is not necessarily a measure of that album but my memory for music is pretty good. Coincidentally, I am just playing another live album that also arrived today: Roger Waters (and band, including a keyboard player from Bush's album) performing The Wall. Now the first time I heard most of The Wall was actually lying on the grass at Knebworth, somewhat tired, after a sleepless night, on the morning of Led Zep's first Knebworth show, having been stupid enough to enter the "arena" in the early hours of the morning. I wasn't much of a Floyd fan at the time and The Wall isn't in my top 5 of their albums but, even in my sleep deprived state, the music I heard was etched in my brain. I did see Waters play The Wall live show, and enjoyed it enough to go again when they extended the tour.

I farily recently bought The Red Shoes by Kate Bush, which I have only played once to date but I was impressed on first listen and will be interested to see how familiar it sounds when I play it again. Pity there's not more of that on the live album.

I get the criticism some have made about it sounding a bit like a musical. I don't have a problem with musicals although I think West Side Story is the only one in my collection and I certainly like rock & pop artists that put on a show because I go to concerts to be entertained. I'm sure I would have enjoyed this show if I had attended but I don't feel as if I missed out.

So how to score this one, knowing one listen is not enough? I think I've been too generous on my scoring of albums recently and this may suffer from me reconsidering how to score them. This though has to lose marks for being too long (this may seem ironic next week) and for me not recognising as many songs as I would normally expect given that I own the studio album at the centre of the whole thing. So it's going to be:

6/10

at least for now.

Thanks for listening more than once mate.

Also, a triple live cd is pushing it. The classic double live album of the vinyl era is the correct default for a live album. Yes managed to pull of a triple live album - so good that I have the 14 cd version (7 concerts so it's not necessary to listen to them all at one sitting) - but that's only a double cd.

Are you talking about Yessongs? Hard to compare the two and I do prefer Yes live than studio. My memory is that Yessongs did suffer from some muddy production albeit the track list is all that you could ask for from classic yes.

Your comment regarding not recognising the 9th Wave from Hounds of Love did puzzle me a little as the live version follows the studio version almost exactly and of course the first side of Hounds of Love are mostly present through RUTH, Cloudbusting and Hounds of Love. Think Mother stands for comfort is the only track missing.

 

[Saddleworth2]

Whew.

First, kudos to @Saddleworth2 for choosing this and for a magnificent, beautiful, thoughtful and personal write-up — I’m betting no one will create a better one.

But it’s hard to translate a multi-media experience into an aural-only one. It’s also sometimes hard to translate one person’s emotional meaning into another one’s own. In both cases, the music has to be of such spectacular quality that it can bridge the gap. This is not that.

And not being a particular fan of “song suites” (with — here’s that record again — Quadrophenia being a very notable exception), I was truly disappointed that two of these three acts (save the encore) were lengthy concept pieces, and while I pick up the profundity, the music is without much in the way of tempo changes or power. The found-sound story links are a struggle, which they absolutely cannot be (cf. Dazzle Ships by OMD, where they make the record). I completely agree with the idea that these are partial musicals so I need to think about them differently, but even then, I didn’t struggle with the messages — it was the music I found leaden. As such, I found it difficult to make a pleasurable connection with any of act 2 and most all of act 3. It’s accompaniment for something else I’m blind to.

As a lyricist/singer/performer, Gabriel was like this early on too, and it was a blessing when he left, both to Genesis (now freed of his pretensions, though still groaning under the weight of those of the remaining members) and to him when he stopped with that costume crap and started producing songs with social and emotional depth. (You may have gathered that I don’t care for early Genesis).

But act 1 is a different animal. These are great art rock songs (and I’ve enjoyed Hakim and Rhodes’ contributions on a number of other records). “Lily” is a groove; “Hounds of Love” soaring; “Top of the City” beautiful; “Running Up That Hill” a classic; “King of the Mountain” full of Laurie Anderson-y quirks but potent. But we only return to that energy at the very end on “Cloudbusting”, a terrific closer and one of her best songs.

I appreciate the courage to offer up this record despite its user-unfriendliness. And if the intent is to get me to explore more of Kate Bush’s catalog, then job done. For me, the first 40 minutes and “Cloudbusting” stripped out is a live record worth a 7 or even an 8. But taken as a whole package, 5/10 is the best I can do.

Thanks for the review. We seem to be quite different in taste as I like early genesis and dislike the later version. Peter Gabriels solo music started promisingly but deteriorated after a couple of albums. I saw him in Glasgow a few years ago where he played all of So and to say he was going through the motions would be kind to him.

 

[Onholiday(somemightsay)]

So, what to say?

I'm glad I'm a City fan and quite used to seeing the object of my passion eviscerated in public :-)

Firstly thanks to all that took the time to listen, review and score the choice. Also thanks for the positive feedback on my review. I did take time and care on it so it was nice to have that recognised. In hindsight it was over optimistic of me to choose that recording as 1) its not available as a free stream and 2) much of the music is part of song cycles or concepts and you either get them or you don't. and 3) it is a very long listen. Whatever, the album meant a great deal to me which is why I chose it and some of you got at least some enjoyment out of it.

I suspect, Kate is a little like one of my other passions, fly fishing. You need to start young and you fall in love with the artistry of it. Come to it late and its is just an expensive way of thrashing water and all a little pointless.

Having gone through the process, I have also sharpened my critical facilities, on reflection I have been far, far too generous in scoring so far ;-)

Fair play to you @Saddleworth2 and apologies that I haven't been able to participate and provide a score.

I still intend to give it a listen at some point though............

 

[RobMCFC]

So, what to say?

I'm glad I'm a City fan and quite used to seeing the object of my passion eviscerated in public :-)

Firstly thanks to all that took the time to listen, review and score the choice. Also thanks for the positive feedback on my review. I did take time and care on it so it was nice to have that recognised. In hindsight it was over optimistic of me to choose that recording as 1) its not available as a free stream and 2) much of the music is part of song cycles or concepts and you either get them or you don't. and 3) it is a very long listen. Whatever, the album meant a great deal to me which is why I chose it and some of you got at least some enjoyment out of it.

I suspect, Kate is a little like one of my other passions, fly fishing. You need to start young and you fall in love with the artistry of it. Come to it late and its is just an expensive way of thrashing water and all a little pointless.

Having gone through the process, I have also sharpened my critical facilities, on reflection I have been far, far too generous in scoring so far ;-)

Although it wasn't to my taste, it was a perfectly reasonable choice of artist that many enjoyed. I do think that it was a mistake to select an album that wasn't generally available on Spotify or YouTube because we basically couldn't listen to your choice in it's intended format.

I can tell from your glowing intro that it means a lot to you, so I'm guessing the time you put into writing it felt like a labour of love that was worth it on your part. And you know what, on that basis alone it was a good choice. I've said several times on these threads that anybody can say they do or don't like something. But what I really appreciate is when people go into detail about WHY they do or don't like something. That way we can really dig into stuff and get a good discussion going.

Your introduction to Before The Dawn was exactly the kind of thing that I had in mind when I set this thread up, so thanks for "playing".

I'll be back later with a round up of the scores and an updated leaderboard. Just in case there are any stragglers, you've got until 15.00.

 

[BlueHammer85]

I didn't think I would be able to squeeze this in, but I have! well, most of it including the beautiful 'Endless Sky of Honey' at 42 mins long, 42 mins!! only slightly ruined by her cackle laugh at the end - but what can you say - it's really mesmerizing, the sound sounds amazing and her voice is just perfect.
'Hounds of Love' is a great album that I've heard many times before - so it was nice hearing some of these tracks in the mix of others that I never heard of before.
She's an amazing artist and probably one of my favorite ever female artists , the only issue here is that I can't listen to the actual live version, and I played the tracks on Spotify - so it just felt more of a best of - I can only imagine how all this sounded live and that's the only problem I have here - I have to imagine it.

7/10

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

So, what to say?

I'm glad I'm a City fan and quite used to seeing the object of my passion eviscerated in public :-)

Firstly thanks to all that took the time to listen, review and score the choice. Also thanks for the positive feedback on my review. I did take time and care on it so it was nice to have that recognised. In hindsight it was over optimistic of me to choose that recording as 1) its not available as a free stream and 2) much of the music is part of song cycles or concepts and you either get them or you don't. and 3) it is a very long listen. Whatever, the album meant a great deal to me which is why I chose it and some of you got at least some enjoyment out of it.

I suspect, Kate is a little like one of my other passions, fly fishing. You need to start young and you fall in love with the artistry of it. Come to it late and its is just an expensive way of thrashing water and all a little pointless.

Having gone through the process, I have also sharpened my critical facilities, on reflection I have been far, far too generous in scoring so far ;-)

I’ve had it on in the car and at home for my missus.
She loves Kate but to use just a couple of the words she came up with ‘Sad’ and ‘Morbid’, you have to admit it very much is a mood piece.
Now me being a sad and morbid auld git don’t have much problem with that.
I’d like to up my score to an 8 as I very much believe that the live version that I didn’t hear, would perhaps offer much more than the mere playlist.
Not that I have too much of a problem with the playlist, but I do think it is background relaxing music while I’m doing other things.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

Thanks for the review. We seem to be quite different in taste as I like early genesis and dislike the later version. Peter Gabriels solo music started promisingly but deteriorated after a couple of albums. I saw him in Glasgow a few years ago where he played all of So and to say he was going through the motions would be kind to him.

Oh I agree on So and later. I liked the first four (up through Security, which is what it was named in the States).