From: owner-oppositeview-digest@smoe.org (oppositeview-digest) To: oppositeview-digest@smoe.org Subject: oppositeview-digest V4 #245 Reply-To: oppositeview@smoe.org Sender: owner-oppositeview-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-oppositeview-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk oppositeview-digest Sunday, September 29 2002 Volume 04 : Number 245 Today's Subjects: ----------------- OV: =?utf-8?Q?CYDMG_at_=C2=A35_in_HMV?= ["warrington" ] OV: Re: oppositeview-digest V4 #244 ["Peter Stanley" Subject: OV: =?utf-8?Q?CYDMG_at_=C2=A35_in_HMV?= My local HMV in Glasgow has CYDMG at only =C2=A35. For a cd so recently = released that's pretty much unheard of - it must have bombed badly. Robert Warrington warrington@ntlworld.com [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type image/gif which had a name of bart1.gif] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2002 12:13:38 -0400 From: "William Kates" Subject: OV: Chris Rea (No Dels Content) Jane - Thanks for mentioning Chris Rea. I too have enjoyed Rea's music from the earliest, and I would agree that after God's Great Banana Skin he really seemed to run out of new ideas for songs and just started rewriting his existing songs (he had already been doing that to a lesser degree with various songs that sounded like Let's Dance), and releasing multiple best of compilations (four at last count). In spite of it all, I still really enjoyed the recent King of the Beach, even as derivative as it was. It was recorded during a recuperation after a bout of serious illness, a few years ago. Now comes his new record, again recorded after yet another period of serious illness (cancer). I really feel for the guy, having all these physical problems and using music to pull him through. Well, the new album, Dancing Down the Stony Road is described as the blues album Chris always wanted to make and he promised himself that if he pulled through his latest illness, he'd do it. Seeing a great price on cdwow.com for the double disc special edition british release ($16.76 including shipping to USA), I ordered it. On first listen, there may be a few more slide guitar leads than on recent releases, but unfortunately with maybe only one or two exceptions, this new record consists of something like 17 variations on the same song! Most have the same singsong style vocal with virtually no melodic development. I am saddened by this and I am left to wonder if he has really already written all of the great songs that he ever will. I still love the guy and his deep, sometimes gravelly voice, but hope is fading quickly for any new material reaching the songwriting heights that he had earlier established for himself. At this point, I'd just settle for a new and different sounding tune. Cheers. - - William Kates Jane Armstrong wrote: I have to agree Dave. I used to be a big fan of Chris Rea - but after Road To Hell his songs didn't seem to evolve for a while (his latest album is an exception). I found that he started regurgitating lyrics and themes and changing them only slightly, and I could predict exactly how the songs were going to go and what riffs he would use. This then devalued his earlier (pre Road To Hell) work - which is what I originally fell in love with. OK, granted, the majority of casual fans would never have heard Deltics or Wired To The Moon, but for those of us who stuck by him for years before R2H there was no excitement and the music was boring and formulaic. "Time for me to go" I thought, and I then stopped buying the albums. _________________________________________________________________ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2002 22:27:49 -0500 From: "Peter Stanley" Subject: OV: Re: oppositeview-digest V4 #244 Hi gang- I've always felt that SOSP was a great album song-wise, but it suffered from a crappy mix. It has that "squash everything through through a vintage compressor" sound that was the rage for so many alt-bands in the mid nineties, problem was it came out a couple of years past that trend. Go ahead and do it for two or three songs on the album for effect, then back to business. Same sort of deal with CYDMG; I love the songs and really dig the kilt wearing neo-white boy soul vibe, but it's the "whee, we've got Pro Tools" album- lots of drum loops and D.J. backspin sounds that other groups had flogged mercilessly a few years prior. I love the band and will buy just about anything they do, but I don't think they're trendsetters- rather, they're great songwriters who production-wise resort to putting a set of clothes on that years body of songs. I've just always felt that their clothes tend to be last years fashions. Yeah you can chalk some of that up to timing: record company politics and the inevitable delays that come with it, but still..... A lot of members of this list seem to really love Change Everything; it's funny, for me personally I know the songs are really good (I don't think they've ever done a bad song, just differing degrees of excellence), but I just don't listen to it that much, the sound of the record is too somnambulant and sterile for my taste- too produced and generally dead sounding. I just need a little more grit and balls (technical term, that) in my audio galaxy. If THAT album had a SOSP mix, then it would have kicked ass, in my opinion. My .02, FWIW Peter Stanley Somewhere in Northern California ------------------------------ End of oppositeview-digest V4 #245 **********************************