TOBY
Group: Members
Posts: 1562
Joined: May 2002 |
|
Posted: Aug. 12 2005, 13:44 |
|
At this point I have to agree utterly with all the optimistic fans who say 'don't judge it until you hear it, it may just turn out to be really rather good'. However it is valid at this point to pass opinion over what we know, and have heard, and what we know doesn't sound great. Ok Mike has never been a great wordsmith so we'll excuse his lousy song descriptions HOWEVER I few things are beyond redemption IMHO. I think even the most hardened, optimistic and open minded fans would have to agree there is something incomparably naff about the idea of sampling a demo song that comes free with your music software. Not only is it naff but at far as someone with MO talent is concerned, highly worrying. You know there would have been a time when the people who wrote those little demo pieces would have blatantly plagiarised Mike and Mike would have said something like 'why can't you do it yourself?' And yet now Mike is now ripping them off!!!! Very, very worrying if you ask me.
Mike is also lifting a lot of music from Tres Lunas and Maestro, which is in itself not the end of the world, the Snow Cave sequence was indeed a great guitar solo and as was said at the time much deserved of an official release. But its the other tracks that he's chosen to lift that don't really inspire me with any confidence. That opening cactus sequence was hardly anything more than a throw away little melody yet he feels its worthy enough of developing?? Surely he can come up with something more original, or obviously not. And its the same for the Maestro music, that end game music was for me the single worse piece of music he has ever put his name to and yet again he thinks its worthy of inclusion in some form. Surely in three and a half years Mike can come up with SOMETHING better???? Though again obviously not.
On another subject what I find horribly, horribly ironic about Mike (and this may well in turn show how hopelessly and pathetically Mike is out of touch) seemingly binning all his wonderful traditional instruments and composing eletronica is that 70's style prog rock is making a huge come back at the moment and bringing with it a return to traditional musicianship. Pink Floyd have just make a glorious comeback, Q magazine's recent prog rock special edition has proved to be one of their most popular and entertaining editions, prog rock is almost, dare I say it, becoming cool again. Whereas dance music and general eletronica has never been more stagnated. Even the really good dance acts like the Chemical Brothers have said they're struggling to come up with anything original. I read a recent interview with Groove Armada where Andy Cato said he was embarrassed by how awful the chill out music scene had become. And yet our old Mike seems to think whatever he's doing is the way ahead. Who does he think exactly is listening? Who is he trying to appeal to? So had Mike made a '70's style' album he would have done gloriously well in every sense. He would have pleased the fans and he would have sold more records, I have no doubt about that in my mind. But of course doing a 70's style record would have meant actually PLAYING traditional instruments, something which obviously appauls Mike as its not 'the future of music', 'cutting edge' or 'forward thinking'.
|