Tried to sleep. Dozed off for 2 hours, tried to sleep again, resulting in me counting to 1000 (first time I ever tried that to fall asleep) which failed when I got really bored and not sleepy at 500. So I'm back a little less broken, and shocked to see 16 replies.
I'll try to make my point.
I planned to make a huge amount of different posts, but seeing how ridiculous that would look, I decided to put all my questions and notes in this one post.
1-
The "Era" thing
I wanted to divide the Sisters songs I know in different periods. My choice of parameter came down to the "sound" of the music of the era, not the artists playing then.
Very roughly, my division was:
First Years(Damage Done until Reptile House EP)
FALAA era(TOL '83 until FALAA)
Floodland era(Gift until and including the Lucretia My Reflection single)
Vision Thing Era(More until Under the Gun)
Recent Years(SSV??? and the new stuff like Come Together)
I really could tell the "sound" of the band changed majorly between these periods, but I always had a hard time with and never really decideded about the TOL '83 single. Its sound is undoubtably FALAA-style, there with songs like Body and Soul, On the Wire etc. , an not nearly as much like the early years with Floorshow and Alice like songs. But the problem was that TOL '83 was recorded
with Ben(did Ben also do Heartland and Gimme Shelter?), which would put it in the Early Years section. My guess is that the sisters kept using that 24track studio from TOL on, which allowed the much richer and a litle more synth-like sound of the FALAA era(especially Body and Soul and Heartland use synth more). And there was my
wish for TOL to belong to the FALAA era since then, each era would have its staple; Early Years with Alice as a staple and the FALAA era with Temple of Love as a big hit.
When I'd have to refine the "eras", I'd be like this:
Very early (Damage done single)
Mid-early(Body Electric until Alice EP)
Reptile era(Reptile House EP)
Pre-FALAA era(TOL '83 until No Time to Cry single)(which I think is
reinforced by my opinion that Walk Away and No Time to Cry really
don't sound as much in place as the other FALAA songs)
FALAA era(FALAA)
Gift Era(Gift until the This Corrosion single, of which Torch and Andy's
Colours sound like Gift era songs, This Corrosion more Floodland)
Floodland Era(Floodland and the inherent singles, including Emma, Untitled
, Sandstorm, and Ozymandias)
Vision Thing era(More until Under the Gun, including TOL '92 and You
Could Be the One)
(SSV era maybe?(SSV) I'm still very confused about whether SSV is really
Andy's creation or just his vocals on some techno CD by someone
else)
Recent Years(the new songs, of which Summer will be the first)
2-
the Marian/ SKOS issue
I always liked Marian best out of FALAA. When I was just a sisters noob( a "sissy"?
) I never guessed it was included on FALAA; Marian nearly made it to my nr.1 hits list(which TOL 92, Driven Like the Snow and Flood II did make), because it has such a strong beat, and most importantly, a very
fullmusic. Many different lines intwined with eachother. I was a bit awkward about the song at first because of Andy's extremely low voice on this one, but soon liked it, especially the mystical high voice and flute mixed with the heavy beats and Andy's low voice.
SKOS, on the other hand, I had always thought of as a mediocre song until I heard Heartland opinions about it, that it was incredible and very strong. I have tried to appreciate it time and time again, but failed. I find it a too simple song musically, with the small beat , the guitar and Andy's voice adding up to only 3 lines and the music not really sounding brilliantly composed to me. It only leaves the conclusion to me that the lyrics must be very touching to many people, but I've failed to understand it all.
3-
a First and Last and Always review!
I listened to First and Last and Always a lot of times during my 3-week vacation, this time listening through headphones rather than my PC speaker. It really opened my eyes to FALAA's style. So I made a review.
Personally, I think FALAA is a far stronger
album than Floodland. While (in my opinion atleast) any song on Floodland is better than any song on FALAA (except maybe 1959), the musical coherence of FALAA is so much stronger than Floodland although in Floodland the songs flow over into eachother. FALAA sounds much more like an album to me, Floodland now seems more of a compilation of great songs. I think FALAA is the most Sisters-ish record the Sisters have ever made; maybe not the best, but certainly the most like what the Sisters really are.
Although FALAA opens with Black Planet and ends with SKOS, I have always and still will always prefer a reversed album; I think First and Last and Always is simple the perfect opener for anything, be it a playlist, a gig or an album. And Marian ends with such a heavy, long, drawn-out spectacle that I really think of it as a more fitting finisher than SKOS. I tried to listen to the record in my preferred order, :
FALAA-Possession-9w9-Logic-SKOS-Black Planet-Walk Away- NTTC-A Rock and a Hard Place- Marian.
It really
did sound better. Although I had to get used to SKOS overflowing into Black planet:urff::lol:
(This is a review of the songs, not of the songs themselves but their role in the album):
Black Planet: a dark, empty, post-apocalyptic ballad. I had a PC version of the song which had different bass lines and weaker guitars, and it sucked compared to the FALAA version, so for a long time I thought Black Planet sucked. I now know better. I really, really love the way the Sisters used those
trinkling guitar strings here. Very nice. For the album it's a little out of place; it's very un-poppy, unlike the following Walk Away and NTTC.
Walk Away: Very poppy. A call for loyalty in troubled times. I really like the demo better, this version is simply too bland, too shallow. I used to like it, but after hearing the demo I don't anymore.
No Time to Cry: I never liked this, maybe because it's just too high-pitched(too few low notes), and the guitars sound too distorted to give an overall well-composed feeling. Rather poppy as well, for me it feels like a wrong mix between sad lyrics and happy rock.
A Rock and a Hard Place: A dark rock song. Also a complaint about uncertainty. It rocks away nicely although I don't like the start of the song on FALAA as well as the start of my PC version of ARAAHP.
Marian: What can I say? My FALAA staple. Very full musically, a bit folklore-ish with the flute and ghostlike highpitched voice in the background. Great beat, nice length. Its role is a dark call for help, maybe a call for defense against insanity?
First and Last and Always: Very happy! A very lively, sparkling song for a band like the Sisters. Nice catchtune, good music, a statue. A claim for eternity.
Possession: If songs had colours, Possession would be grey. Very scary, the atmosphere feels like insanity. A black-and-white asylum, coming down around your head. The music isn't as interesting or full as it could have been, but it is a very strong theme song. It carries a message.
Nine While Nine: Dramatic, sad. A strong emotional song, the guitar line sounds melancholic. A strong song.
If songs had colours, Nine While Nine would be Red.
Amphetamine Logic: Crazy logic it is. A view of the addict's weakness, and at the same time a cry for help. Rather goth, but I cannot place it as well in the album as most others.
If songs had colours, Amphetamine Logic would be Green.
Some Kind of Stranger: Melodramatic, but I really don't get the picture. My fault. To me it sounds too simple, too much talk and too little music.
If songs had colours, Some Kind of Stranger would be Violet.
4-
On the Wire image
I always found listening to On the Wire a bit hard because of its characteristic, jumpy synth line, which creates an atmosphere of madness. But recently I thought up a video clip for On the Wire and suddenly the song made sense musically:
A man is standing on a high building. Not a skyscraper but a boring, old, plastered office building. The skies are light grey, but it is near sunset. The wind howls. Between the office building and the other high buildings nearby are electricity wires, upon which a few crows sit. The camera moves up, over the man, creating a bird's view. The man starts to walk. On The Wire starts. The camera now faces him. His face is stern. He moves to the edge of the building and stops. One more look at his face, and the camera drops slowly... the man slowly tilts forward, begins to fall, and the beat of On the Wire drops in. What follows are mixed shots of the man falling in slowmotion, crows on the wires, the sunset, and flashes of the ground. The man falls slowly enough to let the song finish. During the final moments of the song, the images of the falling man begin to get shorter, while the first flashy images of a single, pitch-black crow on a wire get longer. As the song starts to end the guitar solo sets in and the crow begins to shudder and preparing to fly up. Finally we see only a flying crow, flying into the sunset. The song ends. The camera zooms out and we see a final shot of the office buildings with wires with crows upon them.
After that, On the Wire became a lot more enjoyable to me.
5-
The Nostalgic List As everyone, I learned of the Sisters song by song. So some songs, although released more recently, sound "older" to me because I heard them earlier than other songs. No Time to Cry, Walk away and Lucretia My Reflection were very early ones for me, while I have only recently discovered Giving Ground, War on Drugs and Long Train. So I had this idea of making a playlist on my PC in the exact order in which I heard the songs. I hope the mp3 files have "created" or "last changed" dates on them so I can order them in that way, and not having the remember when did I hear that first, when did I hear this first...
I think there will be more but I'll do that as soon as I remember that.
. BEAUTIFUL!!!!