Gaming World Forums
General Category => Entertainment and Media => Topic started by: Carrion Crow on November 11, 2008, 08:29:29 am
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Got a lot of PT fans on GW and some Blackfield fans dotted around. If you know how to use the internet or maintain some sort of interest in the pursuits of Steven Wilson crew then you've probably heard all about this already.
SW is releasing his first solo effort this month which is pretty exciting if you're a fan of this melancholy shit (as I am) and it does SOUND great but the associated media and political meanings are total bullcrap! Give http://www.insurgentes.org/ a visit and http://www.insurgentes.org/the-movie.aspx too or you could go "ah well it's porcupine tree lol" cause I love you GW.
Insurgentes is also about music and the album as art form, and applying the same aesthetic vision through the writing, performance, production, artwork, lyrics, videos and beyond. The film looks into the issues of creating, packaging and marketing music in an era when iPods, Mp3's and download culture are changing and eroding perceptions of exactly what an album is supposed to sound and look like.
"My fear is that the current generation of kids who're being born into this information revolution, growing up with the Internet, cell phones, iPods, this download culture, 'American Idol,' reality TV, prescription drugs, PlayStations — all of these things kind of distract people from what's important about life, which is to develop a sense of curiosity about what's out there.” (Steven Wilson, MTV News)
I am unsure what to think. I will be getting this when it comes out anyway but the above quote is laughable. I mean how can he POSSIBLY be annoyed at iPods, MP3s and "Download Culture" when they would not have the success they have somehow finally achieved since the internet going mainstream in the last 10 years. It does seem as if he is making an argument for the material creation of albums (e.g. packaging, artwork posters etc) - which IS cool and everyone has the materialistic guy inside them who is profusely rubbing his hands together when they walk into a record store - but isn't it a bit sellouty for the artist to complain about this?
Silly.
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man wilson has talked so much about this whole internet thing and download culture and alienating thing that i don't even know where to start. you should try to look up some interviews from 2007/2008 because he has talked about it a lot and he's fully aware that it's because of the internet that porcupine tree is as popular as they are today. his gripe really isn't with downloading but with that he doesn't want people to listen to their music in inferior quality since it affects the music's subtlety and sw's music generally relies on complex production. packaging is another thing like you said and although this depends on the artist, he believes albums are an entirety and should be listened that way as well. i think he has valid arguments and although i don't really agree with how nitpicky he can be about some things, he probably sees things in different way as being the artist. i can definitely understand his argument about the quality of the music because even today i still discover new elements of some songs i have already heard dozens and dozens of times. the whole sound quality and production deal is a pretty big thing for pt and wilson! they are also one of the forerunners in bringing music to 5.1 format.
about the whole information revolution, internet, reality tv, blah blah alienating thing, i'll skip on that (for now at least) because there is seriously so much material about that. just go watch some interviews, they can be genuinely interesting.
anyway i have been looking forward to this album for ages. it's supposed to be really eclectic so i'm definitely looking forward to hearing what all it has to offer. i'm sure it's true because if you just look at sw's different projects you have everything from rock to metal to psychedelic to ambient to electronica to noise to krautrock to pop and so on. i especially like the second insurgentes trailer, it took some time for the song to grow on me but it's fucking good, especially the noisy bit near the end. i really like the piano and the vocals too.
anyway im expecting it to take considerable amount of listens for some of the songs to grow on me while others i will surely like right away.
btw fucking sucks when i finally got money to buy the special edition it sold out earlier on the same day. :( i need to get the documentary from somewhere but i doubt it will be hard to find. still a bit disappointed.
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i have to admit its pretty hilarious when sw is shooting ipod in that trailer though
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wilson is such a luddite child. I say this story all the time but when he was interviewing in the studio everyone else was RAPT WITH ATTENTION and I kept having to hold back from scoffing. I have never scoffed in my life but when someone is seriously arguing that technology made iPods which is destroying human interaction *ignores the entire fucking internet* while making their album full of synths and music videos done by computers, it's fucking impossible to take them seriously.
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ahh, just like the old music forum :)
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I posted some rant on my Facebook earlier about the whole shooting the iPod thing. If you compare the environmental impact of the number of CDs you can fit on an iPod to just the iPod it's an entirely ridiculous argument. The argument that downloading mp3s masks the "subtlety" that is in their music is another laugh given that 99% of people don't own a stereo capable of playing in 5.1 surround sound, in fact if you've got a run-of-the-mill HP laptop in your university room (like Mr Ed here) you can't tell the difference between 192Kbps mp3 and FLAC with studio headphones on!
He is pretty much doing one of those rants that old people do when they start with "IN MY DAY..." <insert obselete argument about technology that is moderately cringeful>
Yes I am fucking cynical, but I WILL be buying this.
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prescription drugs? what?
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He means antidepressants I think
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during the concert during one of the songs they had a music video for the song and it was a windows visualization but instead of squiggle lines they were pills, I'm not making this up, I laughed so hard and the guy next to me mistook it as HES HAVING A GOOD TIME and was like YEAAAAAAAAA nerds are dumb.
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On the subject of PT onscreen stuff during shows - the way out of here video is possibly the most depressing thing I have seen a band play onstage.
I found myself surrounded by motionless, saddened individuals of all ages.
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ahahaha i was like oh god he better not be linking that stupid train video. dude were you seriously moved by this heavy handed shit? I had tears from laughing so hard during the concert when this came on.
IPODS...IF ONLY SHE TALKED TO MOM AND POP MORE...SHED STILL HAVE FRIENDS IF IT WEREN'T FOR IPOD.
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Nah I was actually moved by it, sorry steel.
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DAMN YOU IPODS! YOU KILLED A HYPOTHETICAL GIRL!
crumply you just keep digging holes with music huh.
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I'm just the anti-you. I'm white and I'm probably gonna die from cancer.
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DAMN YOU IPODS! YOU KILLED A HYPOTHETICAL GIRL!
actually funny you said this because the video and song is based on some actual event where some girl who was a pt fan was apparently run over by a train while listening to music on ipod (dunno if it was accident or suicide). i don't really think the music video is trying to BLAME IPOD though????? at least i didn't get it that way.
still, i think way out of here's music video is pretty bad, as is fear of a blank planet's. i thought they were nice live with the big screen but otherwise they don't really work for me at all.
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dude it clearly is blaming the ipod. wilson's been on this anti-technology kick and hell someone in this topic even mentioned his bizarre dislike of mp3 players. it may be based on a true incident but he's clearly shifting blame to the fact that the ipod has isolated her from reality and now shes...all alone...
also man if you're right i respect them even less. who does that to a dead fan? redepicts their death? christ!
pt has some pretty awful music vids. if I remember right lazarus was an okay one that was just images at a lake.
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I like pt but I take their stuff with a grain of salt. Steven's wilson's retarded technological isolation message is one I can tune out.
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yeah leslie holie, or whatever the fuck his name is, is probably the worst thing to happen to pt besides wilson needing to have a MESSAGE and pulling one of out his ass
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Looking forward to the album, but this message Steven Wilson keeps throwing out needs to stop, he needs a new focus. Also, what last life said.
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its out b*tches
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expected fanboy answer but still
this album is amazing
more details after a few more listens feh
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You know when you hear the first track of a new album of an artist your really like and its like arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
That was SO good.
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it was ok.
sorry i have nothing else to say. :(
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jeez dude where'd you dig this up, what.cd doesn't even have it and neither do my other mp3 sites.
and they are usually prompt with this shit! maybe the leak is below the standards requirement.
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I think the 1st track is the best and the rest is like a bit like a cross between a funeral and a porcupine tree demo. It is, however, a grower.
I decline to say what I really think about it until I have listened to it 10 times or so.
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I've listened to the first track so far, and although it's too early to say it about the rest of the album, I'm really digging what I hear. It reminds me a LOT of Black Light Burns with Porcupine Tree style vocals, which is something that is way cool in my book.
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jeez dude where'd you dig this up, what.cd doesn't even have it and neither do my other mp3 sites.
and they are usually prompt with this shit! maybe the leak is below the standards requirement.
lets just say i have my contacts...
actually its up on what.cd too what you talking about, says its been up for 17 hours.
i have listened to it maybe 5-6 times so far and i'm probably digging salvaging, significant other, get all that you deserve and insurgentes the most so far. the bonus songs rock too, puncture wound is very similar to cover version 3 (a forest by the cure) and it's great to finally hear a polished version of collecting space. i'm really loving the noisy bits and the album is more melodic than i originally assumed it to be and it makes me excited because sw said next pt album is going to be less heavy and more melodic and this is v.good. like whole insurgentes song, just wow. or the opener. or the orchestral or w/e part in salvaging. anyway lovin' it.
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whats this dude need a solo album for anyway? he already writes and produces all of PTs records
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whats this dude need a solo album for anyway? he already writes and produces all of PTs records
He doesn't write all of PT's music anymore, hasn't for a while. He still writes the majority of PT's music but writing albums is really a band effort for them, they get together to come up with ideas and they co-write songs too. And besides, why not? SW has like what, 10 different solo projects? He feels that the things he wanted to do on Insurgentes wouldn't fit on a PT album. There are also lots of guest musicians (like 10?) and it would be kinda weird to do that with the whole band anyway.
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whats this dude need a solo album for anyway? he already writes and produces all of PTs records
dude this has been going on since time immemorial, the frontman often has other projects.
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I think the award for most disappointing and lame sideproject goes to claudio sanchez for the prizefighter inferno. That was the lamest most disappointing sideproject I have ever discovered.
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I think the award for most disappointing and lame sideproject goes to claudio sanchez for the prizefighter inferno. That was the lamest most disappointing sideproject I have ever discovered.
Definitely. It had about 2 or 3 good songs and the rest was junk.
As for Insurgentes, I got my copy in the mail yesterday. It is holy shit big black hardcover book with photos and the music is great. Very different too...a bit of Porcupine Tree with electronica and drones.
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I like Port Rubicon, and some parts of the other songs. Overall it's a bit melodramatic, and the production quality kinda is too "good"; there aren't any imperfect sounds let in and I think it's not as interesting because of that.
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Heh, I thought Port Rubicon was the weakest one. It's still decent though.
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I am so incredibly addicted to Harmony Korine it's not even funny
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Why did you think it was the weakest?
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With each listen, Insurgentes grows on me more...tracks that I dismissed before have started to shed their brilliance and open up more.
Favorites: Harmony Korine, Abandoner, Salvaging, No Twilight Within The Courts Of The Sun, Significant Other, Collecting Space
Very good: Port Rubicon, Insurgentes, Insurgentes/Mexico, Untitled
Good, not great: Venema Para Las Hadas, Only Child, Twilight Coda
Meh: Get All You Deserve, Puncture Wound