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Topic: What's wrong with Magic Touch?< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
Alan D Offline




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Posted: Oct. 14 2007, 05:28

Quote (Ugo @ Oct. 13 2007, 23:38)
I'd also like to state that IMHO there's nothing despicable about Bonnie Tyler, and that I absolutely love that song.

I don't think there's anything despicable about any of that 'pop music' side of MO, and as with all pop music, there's no accounting for what each of us likes or dislikes.

My particular problem is that I pottered through the 80s hoping that he'd abandon that pop music aspect of his writing/performing and get back to writing major work (of which Wind Chimes was a tantalising glimpse of what might have been). At that time I regarded him as a truly great composer, exploring a whole new kind of music which was the best of its kind because it was the first of its kind. But instead of seeing that grow and develop, I was buying albums at least half-full of pop songs that mostly weren't as good as other people's pop songs, and falling massively short of the great work that had preceded them. It was very frustrating, so I don't regard the songs of that period with any nostalgic affection.
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Ugo Offline




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Posted: Oct. 14 2007, 07:17

Going off-topic again, sorry... :)

I think that maybe, in the 80s, Mike filled his albums with pop songs because that's what people (Branson? Virgin?) told him to do. Someone must've somehow convinced him that pop songs are what sells - what gets him on the radio, what makes him 'popular' etc. etc. (indeed, a pop song - Moonlight Shadow - is what gave him his first, and still biggest, 'hit'...) and that he could still have his side-long instrumentals in the albums, if he wanted - indeed, all of his 80s albums have one, except for QE2, TKF and Earth Moving [which, again in the opinion of various people in here, is considered a bad album... I don't agree... :D]. He returned to his 'full form' only with Amarok, which just happened to be his very last album with Virgin. So don't you think that the record industry is almost certainly the only one to blame for Mike's 'poppyness' ? :) "Man in the Rain", which is IMHO a great song, was included in TBIII at the insistence of Warner/WEA, as far as I know - they wanted a single. :D

Forgive me for using the term 'despicable'. I just meant to say that Bonnie Tyler's performance of "Islands" can be hated with a passion, and sometimes it is... ;)


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Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian
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Tubularman Offline




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Posted: Oct. 14 2007, 09:06

well then i have to thank Virgin for force mike to make vocal songs. I love all of them. Magic touch however, i think it can be too massive. But the video is so great. It is one of these songs you love to see on the TV.

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Alan D Offline




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Posted: Oct. 14 2007, 09:16

Quote (Ugo @ Oct. 14 2007, 12:17)
So don't you think that the record industry is almost certainly the only one to blame for Mike's 'poppyness' ? :)

I don't really want to apportion 'blame' here Ugo - he did what he did, and that's what artists do. I suppose I'm not even saying it was a bad thing, necessarily, in the long term. The ways in which an artist develops his or her creativity are pretty much a mystery to me, and it may be that without those 80s excursions into pop, we wouldn't have had some of the magnificent work (well, magnificent in my view) that was to come later: TB2, TSODE etc. We'll never know.
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Sir Mustapha Offline




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Posted: Oct. 14 2007, 10:12

That's a good point, there. Who knows if Earth Moving was one thing that truly triggered the urge to write Amarok? That'd be one reason to respect the album. Not that I'd listen to it just because of that, of course. :)

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Check out http://ferniecanto.com.br for all my music, including my latest albums: Don't Stay in the City, Making Amends and Builders of Worlds.
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Ratty Offline




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Posted: Oct. 14 2007, 11:00

I think Magic Touch was also one of the best commercial tracks that Mike wrote. For me there are two stand out tracks on Islands, Magic Touch and Flying Start. Im not keen on the other tracks.

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Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
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Ugo Offline




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Posted: Oct. 14 2007, 18:07

Again, 'blame' is a strong term from me, but I still think that the discographic enviromnent he was in at the time may be, in some way, responsible for the kind of output coming from Mike O. in that period - although the only one who was really responsible for the quality of the output is, of course, Mike O. himself. :)

@ Sir M.: l I kinda agree with you about EM being a possible trigger for Amarok. I don't think that EM, which is composed entirely of songs [no long instrumentals!] was the kind of album that Mike O. wanted to make... and I also think that, by the time he made it, he was pretty much fed up of his relationship with Virgin. And the results of being fed up were, of course, the two very uncommercial outbursts of his: Amarok and Music from the Balcony. :)


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Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian
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trcanberra Offline




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Posted: Jan. 24 2008, 17:04

Quote (LivingForever @ Oct. 28 2005, 10:35)
I've always loved this song! Granted I was 9 years old when I first heard it which may have something to do with that, but even so, I think it's one of Mike's best pop songs.

Nice chorus, quite emotional, and a blistering guitar solo near the end - awesome.

So lay off it!

:(   :D

One of my favourite songs from Mike - all the family love it as well.  The clip also holds up.
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trcanberra Offline




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Posted: Jan. 26 2008, 06:56

Sorry for talking to myself - but just got the Islands CD after having had the DVD Wind Chimes for years.  Hadn't realised the song was at a different tempo on each (different singer even?).  I like the one on the DVD better than the one on the CD (which is still not too bad).
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dazzler Offline




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Posted: June 27 2009, 11:05

I never loved Magic Touch.
It's one big AOR cliche in my point of view.
Not much more than a guitar riff with power rock vocals.

Magic Touch and The Time Has Come
are two minor tracks inmho, the ones that reveal
the absence of a decent drummer (called Simon Phillips).
(take a listen to the original mix of TTHC)

Patching synth drum sound ... I don't like it.
What if Simon would have drummed on this one?
I'm sure he could have saved it.
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Balbulus Offline




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Posted: Sep. 12 2009, 17:32

Awful song, but fantastic guitar solo at the end. I wore out my tennis racket to this one when I was young! :laugh:
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nightspore Offline




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Posted: Sep. 12 2009, 20:49

The one problem with the magic touch is that only true lovers have it - and that's not fair! :D
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larstangmark Offline




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Posted: Sep. 13 2009, 06:36

Quote (nightspore @ Sep. 12 2009, 20:49)
The one problem with the magic touch is that only true lovers have it - and that's not fair! :D

Yesh, TRUE lovers have it. As opposed to the FAKE ones. Does this song have the most pointless lyrics ever? I can appreciate really bad lyrics because at least you can laugh at them. But lyrics like these...

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"There are twelve people in the world, the rest are paste"
Mark E Smith
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nightspore Offline




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Posted: Sep. 13 2009, 19:45

It reminds me of a Monty Python dialogue, which went along the following lines:

"So in love, a feeling of involvement and commitment is necessary?"
"Yes, or at least a reasonable pretence at it, with whoever it is you happen to be poking at the time"

:D
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qjamesfloyd Offline




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Posted: Aug. 27 2011, 19:17

Ok, it may or may not be one of Mikes better songs, but I have to listen to it often just to hear one of Mike's greatest ever solo's, he's on fire with the guitar, and in the video, he makes it look so easy, by his own admission he is not good at lyrics, but he is AMAZING at playing the guitar :)
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nightspore Offline




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Posted: May 13 2018, 22:16

Somewhere on this forum - or it may have been in a private communication with a member -it was remarked that a problem with "Magic Touch" is that the line "and to take you so much" doesn't make sense. True, but "Two take you so much" makes quite a bit of sense!
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