TubularBelle
Group: Members
Posts: 1487
Joined: April 2004 |
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Posted: Dec. 18 2004, 21:23 |
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| Quote | I love both his guitar playing, the vocals, the piano & orchestry. And also love the mix of single, short instrumentals & long instrumentals.
I wonder why Mike stopped using this format. |
I think the most basic simple reason for this could be the introduction of cds which are one long play and not two seperate sides, although as I said in another post I read that when Mike recorded TBIII he did one whole side as a dance track but later decided against this, so it shows he was still thinking in that side 1, side 2, format.
I always preferred the early long instrumental albums to the half long instrumental, half songs or short instrumentals, but it would be boring if all his albums were like that. I think Mike personally prefers the long instrumentals himself and only changed the format to try and be more commercial and lift his profile to reach a wider audience. I don't think Mike is a prolific song writer, as someone else said, others can write better songs, it's his instrumental work that makes him unique, and the words are often childlike and too simple. It's only the guitar solos that make the songs credible,(but having said all that, I adore the song 'Far Country'.) I always wanted to put together my own album of all Mikes short instrumental tracks and I recently did this and discovered that they almost completely stopped after Legend from Elements in '85. My cd list: Argiers '76, Phaecian Games '76, First Excursion '76, Guilty '79, The Path '79, Woodhenge '79, Punkadiddle '79, Taurus I '80, Taurus II '82, Taurus III '83, The Peak '82, Mount Teidi '82, Jungle Gardenia '83, Crises '83, Afghan '84, Tricks of the Light (instrumental version) '84, and Legend '85. It's amazing how well these tracks all blend together and sound like a professionally produced album.
I think it is important to look at Mikes first four albums when he was completely true to himself and everything after Heavens Open when he was released from his binding contract with Virgin. Because it appears to me that since then he has wanted to return to his roots of the long instrumental but struggles with the desire to be seen as young and hip and appeal to a wider audience. How would you describe The Millennium Bell? All the albums from say Platinum to Heavens Open were affected by pressure from the record company to be more commercial and this IMHO makes them not his best work and not his true calling, God only knows how the unique and unusual Amarok snuck in there.
Of course I love all of Mikes work but have increasingly been more excited about new releases since he left Virgin as I feel he has more control now over artistic license, we forget that Mike doesn't have his own record label so even he has to answer to the big wigs who won't release if it they don't like it.
Thanks,
Tracy.
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I hate getting up early. I didn't even realise there were two 6 o'clocks in one day!
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...and Tim Cross on keyboards....but maybe i'm asking too much ). 
Bleh!
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