So I had this thought today - I had the thought that I kind of want to bring back this music diary in some form or another. It's been SIX years since anything was posted in here, isn't that wild? I mean that's nuts. I can't believe I've been on this site that long (and what's crazy is I've been on this site for like a decade).
But I don't post as much here on this wonderful site as I'd like and I was reading through some of the other posts in this section and I thought, you know what? I was putting too much pressure on myself the last time I was using this. I felt some obligation to document every single album I listened to and write some well-thought-out review or something like that, but instead, I could just kind of use this as a way to jot down scattershot thoughts about the music I'm listening to and maybe we can have a discussion about it or whatever. Who cares!
Maybe it'll be another six years before I post in this thread again, I have no idea! Does it matter? No!
I once heard someone say that when you buy a book you're not just buying a book, you're also buying a future in which you have the time to read that book. That's sort of what I'm doing now, if that makes any sense.
So naturally we're going to start off with some thoughts about what I was listening to today, and that was Imagine Dragons
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Ew gross I know. I get it.
So let me start this off by saying, generally speaking, I'm not inclined to hate on Imagine Dragons as much as the general public seems to. I get it, they're like the new Nickelback, but I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't kind of love them when they first came out. When Night Visions came out, it felt sort of fresh and interesting and new in the world of pop/arena rock. Was it life-changing? Of course not. But I could definitely dig it. Did it get way overplayed? God yes. Way too much. So much. If I never hear Radioactive again I'll be okay with that.
But, when it came out, I dug it. Dan Reynolds has a killer voice, this band is doing some kind of cool, interesting things. I even saw them in concert and they put on a hell of a show.
Cut to 10 years later and here I am listening to the new album they put out last week, part 2 of 2 of a series they're calling Mercury (which, having listened to both, there's no theme here, no concept album or anything, they just wrote enough songs for two albums and decided to call them Act 1 and Act 2 probably because it sounds artsy).
And man have I never heard a band that is so adept at getting in its own way.
These are talented dudes, this is a solid band. Wayne Sermon is a really good guitar player when he gets a chance to show off a little bit and the rhythm section of Ben McKee and Daniel Platzman is rock solid.
But I feel like the band's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness, and that's Dan Reynolds. Yes, he's still got a killer voice, I can't think of many frontmen better-suited to arena rock than someone like Reynolds, whose voice is extraordinarily powerful. But jesus this man is rough as a songwriter, and that's being generous.
I read a review once that said Imagine Dragons sounds like they're shooting their emotions out of a T-shirt cannon and that perfectly encapsulates Dan Reynolds as a songwriter. The lyrics are about as shallow as can be, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but they feel like they think they're deep, if that makes any sense? Like Reynolds wrote "I'm so misunderstood, but I live for this/My money's good and I came to win/So step on up, and I promise you/Only one of us gon' make it out alive and it's not you" and was like FUCK YEAH NAILED IT
And then of course, there's the formula they've fallen into. Every song is a LoudSoftLoudSoftLoud pattern that, at this point, is sounding like an AI listened to 1000 hours of Imagine Dragons and then created something.
That's not to say there aren't nuggets of good songs from them anymore. "Wrecked" off the part 1 of this album series was good, it was a moment of actual, real vulnerability from Reynolds writing about losing his sister to cancer. But for every Wrecked there's some other song that variates on the theme of "everyone thought I'd never make it but HERE I AM BAYBAY" hubris where you feel like Reynolds is a little high on his own supply.
I dunno man, it's a bummer this band is as talented as they are and have shown they can write some solid pop rock in the past but are resisting any sort of musical growth in favor of musical solipsism. _________________ 2023 Chart
I don't know why, but I was really feeling some prog this morning. Marillion has to be one of the best prog bands no one pays attention to, probably because they were most active in the 80s/90s when everyone had kind of gotten sick of progressive rock, but Marillion is fantastic all the same. The guitar playing is excellent, so emotive and simultaneously technically impressive. Is it kind of corny lyrically? Sure, but that's prog rock, and it's not distractingly bad, it's fine, but musically this album is fantastic. Between this and Misplaced Childhood (and even Brave), Marillion have made some of the best prog rock albums out there.
Misplaced Childhood was my only Marillion album for years before I got around to picking up Script For a Jesters Tear. I then quickly chastised myself for not exploring their catalog earlier. That is a fantastic album.
Misplaced Childhood was my only Marillion album for years before I got around to picking up Script For a Jesters Tear. I then quickly chastised myself for not exploring their catalog earlier. That is a fantastic album.
Yea man, Marillion doesn't get the respect they deserve imo. If they were putting out the albums they did but 10 years earlier, I guarantee they'd have been just as popular as ELP or Yes or Genesis in the prog circles. I feel like the appetite for prog rock had kind of subsided by the 80s _________________ 2023 Chart
It's always weird and difficult to talk about the canon classics. It's sort of like saying "hey, that Mona Lisa's a pretty cool painting, am I right?" And even worse, Dark Side of the Moon (and Pink Floyd in general) has been double co-opted by bro culture and dadrock culture making this album cover so ubiquitous and the album such a cliche as one of the greatest of all time that talking about it is just loaded with so much weird context for a lot of people (or maybe it's just me).
But man. What an album. Again, I know, it's like saying Mt. Everest is pretty tall, but I was sort of in the mood to listen to this album at full blast on my best headphones last night and it never fails to move me in ways few albums do.
The atmosphere, the way this album feels so big and yet so spacious, the way this album deals with themes of death and mortality and sanity, it's perfect, truly perfect.
I got to The Great Gig in the Sky and I don't know why but I suddenly felt so moved. It's so strange. Clare Tory is singing about nothing, but at the same time, she's singing about everything. I don't know what it was that hit me when that song came on, maybe it was that answer their doorman gave to the question, "Are you afraid of dying?" that, paired with the music, just feels so poignant while being so simple and straightforward.
"Why should I be frightened of dying? There's no reason for it – you've got to go some time."
It's beautiful.
One of my favorite stories I've ever heard about death was when the great Indian saint Ramana Maharshi was dying of cancer, and his followers begged him to perform a miracle and stick around. They were crying to him, "Don't leave us!" and Maharshi looked at them and said, "Don't be silly. Where could I possibly go?"
I dunno, that song, that line at the beginning of the song, it brought that story to mind for me.
I don't think I'll ever get tired of Dark Side of the Moon. It's not my favorite Pink Floyd album (that's Animals, which I'll also never get tired of), but man is it close. _________________ 2023 Chart
I got to The Great Gig in the Sky and I don't know why but I suddenly felt so moved. It's so strange. Clare Tory is singing about nothing, but at the same time, she's singing about everything. I don't know what it was that hit me when that song came on, maybe it was that answer their doorman gave to the question, "Are you afraid of dying?" that, paired with the music, just feels so poignant while being so simple and straightforward.
"Why should I be frightened of dying? There's no reason for it – you've got to go some time."
It's beautiful.
One of my favorite stories I've ever heard about death was when the great Indian saint Ramana Maharshi was dying of cancer, and his followers begged him to perform a miracle and stick around. They were crying to him, "Don't leave us!" and Maharshi looked at them and said, "Don't be silly. Where could I possibly go?"
I dunno, that song, that line at the beginning of the song, it brought that story to mind for me.
So I mentioned in the 2022 music thread this is some of the best power metal I've heard in a long time, but I want to expand on that a little bit.
As far as I'm concerned (and I'm far from an authority on the genre), this is a new classic.
Now, bear with me. I heard about this album via AngryMetalGuy and the reviewer there wrote a glowing review, so naturally I thought, "well I've gotta give this a shot." I turn on the first track and it starts off pretty goofy, I won't lie to you. And I'm thinking, "ah okay, this is gonna be one of those forgettable, super corny power metal albums by a band that's so desperately misguided they actually want to be DragonForce."
And then the rest of the album kicked in, and I was absolutely wrong.
I wanted to add that context so that you know how pleasantly surprised I was by this album. I didn't walk into expecting to love it. Sure, I wanted to love it, I want to love just about every album I listen to (life's more fun that way!) but I didn't walk into this saying "this will be great" and spent the rest of the album's runtime doing everything I could to confirm my assertion.
I approached this with "eh, another power metal album, let's see what this sounds like" and it was brilliant.
I understand power metal isn't for everyone, and that's okay. I know it's hard sometimes to look past the absurdity of power metal sometimes and not really take it seriously (and I mean, jesus christ look at how absolutely ridiculous this video is for the lead single on the album)
It's ridiculous! It all is! But for me, that's okay! I kind of love it. If some Walmart Brandon Sanderson with a high tenor wants to pump out an album's worth of lyrics about dragons and swords and battles with some killer guitar and catchy melodies, I. am. here. for. it.
Fellowship take everything that's great about the power metal bands they clearly love and fuse it into one album. This album is pure joy, it's fun, it's fast (without being gimmicky *cough*DragonForce*cough*), lyrically it's actually not as corny as you might think, it will make you want to bounce around in the middle of some field in England in your best LARP gear and belt with your fist in the air like the lead singer of Fellowship does in that beautifully absurd video.
Not everyone is going to like this. Shoot, not every power metal fan is probably going to like this. But damn, I absolutely adored this, and it's a strong contender for my AOTY. _________________ 2023 Chart
Okay, you sold me. I’ll push play on this shortly. Power Metal is a genre I’ve avoided. But I like the vibes from the cover and the idea of a super optimistic Metal album sounds great at the moment. _________________ -Ryan
Okay, you sold me. I’ll push play on this shortly. Power Metal is a genre I’ve avoided. But I like the vibes from the cover and the idea of a super optimistic Metal album sounds great at the moment.
Let me know what you think! _________________ 2023 Chart
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