BimboBob
Well-Known Member
My review. I've toned it down a bit after a night of not much sleep and a lot of contemplation...plus another listen.
I always joke with my Wife that music died in 1985. This is obviously because of the appearance of A-ha in the charts and although slightly tongue in cheek it mirrors my feelings of the direction that popular synth music was taking.
In the 70's synths were big and unwieldy things that cost an arm and a leg unless you were perceived weirdos (or geniuses) who could make your own kit and then stand like showroom dummies in front of it. Well out of reach of your average bedroom musician but ideal for your multi record selling behemoth. But the price dropped. Synths became smaller, didn't need a country house's barn outbuilding to house and cost even less. Bedroom musicians of the world unite!
Synth bands popped up out of the ashes of punk bands everywhere. It was a whole new genre which a not at all spotty teenager and his mates grasped with grabbing hands. All manner of music was absorbed from Dalek I to Blancmange. Some chart, some not. Some good, some not. But all exciting to my late teen ears.
At the same time the home computer appeared and their music chips proving that you could make astonishing game music on the cheap. Game music that was the work of pioneering geniuses like Ben Dalglish, Allister Brimble, Barry Leitch, Jon Hare and my favourite Ron Hubbard (the other one). Pioneering geniuses that spent all their time crafting catchy but brilliant tunes and squeezing them into a tiny amount of memory. A ridiculously tiny amount of memory.
And then it all went wrong.
Along came the big music and film studios with more money and limitless memory to play with and what did they do? Made it for the most part bland, uninteresting and very, very dull. And cheap. Begone full orchestra. So long expensive singers. We can just employ a man and a computer to do it. But make the synth swirl. For all of the record. So a song in a popular movie like Beverly Hills Cop hits the top of the charts. With very little effort. And whilst I admire Harold Faltermeyer, especially for his connection with Giorgio Moroder, Axel F is repetitive and dull. It also has electronic drums in it. Quite horrendous.
This is then factored in with the absolute blandness of the music industry at the time. It was as though 1976 - 1982 hadn't happened. Sure there were anomalies like Madonna, Pet Shop Boys and the afore mention A-ha pushing their way to the top of the charts but there was also utter dross like King, Bonnie Tyler and John Parr. Music was getting very safe and very dull. Computer sound chips, once thought to herald the birth of a new musical religion, especially as synths became cheaper and cheaper, proved to be the near death of creative electronic music.
Luckily a few bands, such as Depeche Mode, I knew I could shoehorn them in somewhere, stayed away from the oncoming rush to swirl some synths with added sax and moved on whilst keeping the dream alive. Hello Mr Synclavier.
So we end up with The Midnight. Apparently influenced by old game music, GTA Vice City and film/tv soundtracks from the 80's. If only they had picked better references because what I'm getting, apart from one song, is modern pop with weedy vocals thrown over the top, badly accompanied by swirling 80's sounding synths.
This album is a smorgasbord of everything I've just mentioned above. It's bland, dull, devoid of anything regarding excitement and utterly unpleasing to my ears apart from the odd blip. The first two songs are very poppy and not my cup of tea at all. Generic and, here's that word again, dull. I was beginning to get annoyed.
Suddenly, looming like an aural saviour is the next song, Daytona. It reminds me of all that was good from the original computer game music scene. Unfortunately the next song is more mid 80's homage dirge, I was waiting for a piss poor saxophone to pop up and hey presto. So predictable.
Song after song now follow, some with horrendous sax noise, some without, reminding me of the rubbish that my ears were forced to listen to in the mid to late 80's. Special mention goes to Nighthawks. An abomination of a song. If you can call it that. I'll leave you to guess why. Finally, Memories. Which I like. It seems to be sensitively structured, layer after layer carefully deposited. Even the singing is pulled back a bit. A surprise ending.
So...score.
As someone else said it would probably sound mostly ok accompanying a TV show and I don't want to be harsh as I genuinely do like two of the songs but this is not the direction that my electronic music meanderings took. The music and era it pays homage to was the worst time in music for me. Even OMD, one of my early favourites, admitted to bringing out rubbish at that time just to chase the American market. An American market that was full of tired old songs with sax solos by people dragged out of semi retirement from bands I like to make another go of it on their own. Hello Mr Michael McDonald. Doobie Do Be Do...
If you want to pay homage to an 80's film soundtrack then Blade Runner is the one to get inspiration from. Vangelis produced a work of outstanding brilliance. It completely matches the mood of the film and doesn't feel bolted on because it's not some repetitive drivel released to promote the film.
Normally in an album you get nods to influences, a bit of another band here, a bit of someone else's style there. Unfortunately only one song here goes back to the proper origins and that's a great shame. The rest hark back to a music age I'd rather forget.
2/10 (a point each for the songs I like and that's generous)
I always joke with my Wife that music died in 1985. This is obviously because of the appearance of A-ha in the charts and although slightly tongue in cheek it mirrors my feelings of the direction that popular synth music was taking.
In the 70's synths were big and unwieldy things that cost an arm and a leg unless you were perceived weirdos (or geniuses) who could make your own kit and then stand like showroom dummies in front of it. Well out of reach of your average bedroom musician but ideal for your multi record selling behemoth. But the price dropped. Synths became smaller, didn't need a country house's barn outbuilding to house and cost even less. Bedroom musicians of the world unite!
Synth bands popped up out of the ashes of punk bands everywhere. It was a whole new genre which a not at all spotty teenager and his mates grasped with grabbing hands. All manner of music was absorbed from Dalek I to Blancmange. Some chart, some not. Some good, some not. But all exciting to my late teen ears.
At the same time the home computer appeared and their music chips proving that you could make astonishing game music on the cheap. Game music that was the work of pioneering geniuses like Ben Dalglish, Allister Brimble, Barry Leitch, Jon Hare and my favourite Ron Hubbard (the other one). Pioneering geniuses that spent all their time crafting catchy but brilliant tunes and squeezing them into a tiny amount of memory. A ridiculously tiny amount of memory.
And then it all went wrong.
Along came the big music and film studios with more money and limitless memory to play with and what did they do? Made it for the most part bland, uninteresting and very, very dull. And cheap. Begone full orchestra. So long expensive singers. We can just employ a man and a computer to do it. But make the synth swirl. For all of the record. So a song in a popular movie like Beverly Hills Cop hits the top of the charts. With very little effort. And whilst I admire Harold Faltermeyer, especially for his connection with Giorgio Moroder, Axel F is repetitive and dull. It also has electronic drums in it. Quite horrendous.
This is then factored in with the absolute blandness of the music industry at the time. It was as though 1976 - 1982 hadn't happened. Sure there were anomalies like Madonna, Pet Shop Boys and the afore mention A-ha pushing their way to the top of the charts but there was also utter dross like King, Bonnie Tyler and John Parr. Music was getting very safe and very dull. Computer sound chips, once thought to herald the birth of a new musical religion, especially as synths became cheaper and cheaper, proved to be the near death of creative electronic music.
Luckily a few bands, such as Depeche Mode, I knew I could shoehorn them in somewhere, stayed away from the oncoming rush to swirl some synths with added sax and moved on whilst keeping the dream alive. Hello Mr Synclavier.
So we end up with The Midnight. Apparently influenced by old game music, GTA Vice City and film/tv soundtracks from the 80's. If only they had picked better references because what I'm getting, apart from one song, is modern pop with weedy vocals thrown over the top, badly accompanied by swirling 80's sounding synths.
This album is a smorgasbord of everything I've just mentioned above. It's bland, dull, devoid of anything regarding excitement and utterly unpleasing to my ears apart from the odd blip. The first two songs are very poppy and not my cup of tea at all. Generic and, here's that word again, dull. I was beginning to get annoyed.
Suddenly, looming like an aural saviour is the next song, Daytona. It reminds me of all that was good from the original computer game music scene. Unfortunately the next song is more mid 80's homage dirge, I was waiting for a piss poor saxophone to pop up and hey presto. So predictable.
Song after song now follow, some with horrendous sax noise, some without, reminding me of the rubbish that my ears were forced to listen to in the mid to late 80's. Special mention goes to Nighthawks. An abomination of a song. If you can call it that. I'll leave you to guess why. Finally, Memories. Which I like. It seems to be sensitively structured, layer after layer carefully deposited. Even the singing is pulled back a bit. A surprise ending.
So...score.
As someone else said it would probably sound mostly ok accompanying a TV show and I don't want to be harsh as I genuinely do like two of the songs but this is not the direction that my electronic music meanderings took. The music and era it pays homage to was the worst time in music for me. Even OMD, one of my early favourites, admitted to bringing out rubbish at that time just to chase the American market. An American market that was full of tired old songs with sax solos by people dragged out of semi retirement from bands I like to make another go of it on their own. Hello Mr Michael McDonald. Doobie Do Be Do...
If you want to pay homage to an 80's film soundtrack then Blade Runner is the one to get inspiration from. Vangelis produced a work of outstanding brilliance. It completely matches the mood of the film and doesn't feel bolted on because it's not some repetitive drivel released to promote the film.
Normally in an album you get nods to influences, a bit of another band here, a bit of someone else's style there. Unfortunately only one song here goes back to the proper origins and that's a great shame. The rest hark back to a music age I'd rather forget.
2/10 (a point each for the songs I like and that's generous)