Nothing like this - Porcupine Tree - Deadwing
So, yeah, I was on the can today when my phone rang. Sitting there, listening to my ringtone in the distance (which is the chorus of the song above) the same thing happened which always happens when I hear it repeatedly: as soon as I can, I listen to the entire album.
Fuck. It’s 7 years old, I’ve listened to it hundreds of times (literally, all songs have at least 80 plays on last.fm and that doesn’t count the plays on my old, trusty, now defunct CD-Player :( God, I loved that player. RIP) and it still AMAZES me. I got bored of it at one point, because, y’know, hundreds of listens, but it’s all good again.
Honest to god, for all I’ve listened to it, I don’t know what to say, so I’m just gonna enumerate semi-random things about it:
Radio-worthy singles (Lazarus, a gateway song with, uhm, nonsensical lyrics, probably tied to the script the album was based on), müsli-like crunchy riffs, 12 minute epics, mellotrons, MIKAEL FUCKING AKERFELDT (barely audible, but that makes it even cooler), a song about the oh-so-dreaded friend-zone (Start of Something Beautiful), groovy bass lines (Halo), lyrics which along these 7 years have repeatedly made me say “Oh, now I know what this is about/how this feels” and again and again redefining what they mean and how they feel.
Wilson really knew also how to order the songs. I’d never thought before about this aspect, but yeah, the album just flows the right way (except in the southern hemisphere).
It’s also a lesson for music producers. Everything is exactly as it should be, sound wise. I would’ve done things differently, but only because I suck, compared to Wilson.
This is my favourite album of all time, period. I’m not saying it’s the best album ever or that it will never change, but it’s undoubtedly the album which has had the biggest influence on my music taste and future development (okay, except maybe Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here or DSoTM) and on my first album*.
Excuse me if this sounds all so fanboi-ish. But if I’m anyone’s fanboi, that someone is Steven Wilson. And maybe Beck.
- coming Q4 2012. Probably.
PS – the album contains on a bonus CD a track called Mother and Child Divided, but which I like to call “The Car Chase Song”. Aka, if I’d ever be the music consultant for an action movie, I’d put this song in the car chase scene. Pew pew.