Oh yeah man, Dorothy is coming to town! Don’t wanna miss this. Gonna be a great show! Check out her 2016 album ROCKISDEAD. Last year, I found out it makes for a great playlist pairing with Hobosexual’s Monolith. Rock on, chillun’. See you in the VIP!
How many of your favorite albums has Bill Bruford played on?
All those amazing early Yes albums (oh man, who can ever forget the way the drums come back in along with Rick Wakeman’s organ solo in “Roundabout”?), plus King Crimson albums like Red and Discipline (to name just two of my favorites), not to mention his insanely great solo work (I will always love “Fainting in Coils” — am I right, Kruekutt?) and, all considered, it is undeniable that if anyone ever deserved 100 honorary doctorates for contributions to progarchy, that man would be Bill Bruford.
But now he’s Dr. Bill Bruford, and he earned the doctorate himself. You can download and read his dissertation (thanks, Internet!) or buy it this year in print because it is being published by the University of Michigan Press.
Congratulations, Dr. Bruford! And welcome to Academy!
CBC reports that the CD is not dead yet, because records execs are trying to keep whole album sales alive by any means necessary:
CD sales were boosted this year by a trend that saw some concert tickets for big arena shows — including tours by Arcade Fire, Shania Twain and Pink — bundled with a copy of the band or artist’s latest album.
Many concertgoers were offered the choice between a digital download or a CD sent through the mail. Whether those CDs were ever unwrapped is anybody’s guess, but each ticket sale helped rocket those performers to the top of the album charts in their first week of sales.
…
Preliminary numbers from Nielsen Music Canada show that while CD sales fell 18 per cent over the past year, still selling roughly 10 million units, they were relatively strong compared to the more dramatic erosion of digital album sales through stores like iTunes.
Digital album sales tumbled nearly 25 per cent for the year to 6.2 million units, extending what is expected to be a steep downturn as more listeners embrace streaming services.
David Bakula, who oversees Nielsen’s industry insights operations, said the changes in digital habits mean the CD is representing a larger share of the declining album sales market.
He believes that writing the obituary for the CD is premature as labels look to bolster album sales however they can, while older listeners stick to their usual buying habits.
“We’re not seeing this flight from the format,” he added.
…
Walmart also dramatically scaled back its CD selection while fellow retail giant Best Buy recently scrubbed music from its stores entirely.
All of this certainly hasn’t boded well for boosting sales figures, but music historian Alan Cross is confident record labels will follow the dollar.
“If they can’t get people into the store to buy a CD, well then (they’ll) just send the CDs directly to them, whether they want it or not,” he said, pointing to expectations that the success of ticket bundles will only lead to other artists experimenting with the strategy.
“By nature a lot of music fans are collectors and that means they need a physical thing to collect.”
It’s possible an established act like Bruce Springsteen or the Rolling Stones could try to up the ante by pairing scarce concert seats with an exclusive CD box set.
Hello! Christmas greetings from Canada!
As the above diagram illustrates, some bands hit all the sweet spots.
But however you classify it, great music is just great music, wherever it lands.
Thank you to all my fellow Progarchists for sharing so much great music this year.
Keep calm and prog on!
Or, as BBT would also say, “Merry Christmas!”
I can’t wait to hear what 2018 has waiting for us.
As promised, in addition to my TOP 10 PROG and TOP 10 METAL lists for 2017, here are my TOP TEN ROCK ALBUMS of 2017. I say “rock” but really this is the list where I include everything that is not so easily divvied up onto either my metal list or my prog list. So I guess it’s really ROCK/POP/OTHER, but that doesn’t sound as good in the title. In any case, I am sticking to the usual constraint of ten, but of course (as usual) I also abandon the metric system to make the list into an expanded imperial dozen:
Hobosexual Monolith is heavy and hilarious retro rock, so good that you will want to own it in its delicious gatefold LP edition. The lyrics will have you laughing at all the references, especially in wild songs like “VHS or Sharon Stone.”
U2 Songs of Experience is an unexpected delight, being the best album they have released in eons. It incorporates all the best elements of each of their past musical periods. I have been with these guys since Boy and October, so my opinion carries credibility. Believe me, it’s so good it takes you back to those happy memories from the early days, when you heard something truly fresh and unique and infectious.
Weezer Pacific Daydream starts off with the archetypal Weezer sound on “Mexican Fender” (a killer single) but then suddenly morphs, around about track five, into an album that mines the sounds of the 1950s and 1960s for the rest of the disc. Unexpectedly, it works. Kudos to Weezer for not playing it safe, and for taking musical risks.
Haha, one of the year’s very best ROCK albums… coming soon to my forthcoming TOP 10 ROCK list, which will supplement my TOP 10 PROG and TOP 10 METAL lists…
As the resident metalhead among the Progarchy editors, I offer not only my Top 10 (Prog) Albums of 2017, but also my TOP 10 METAL ALBUMS of 2017 (below). Ever since I first discovered Rush, my favorite genre is prog metal, and you’ll observe the tilt in taste in that direction below. If you like prog, then you will enjoy all the complex and satisfying metal that has made my list below.
Witherfall Nocturnes and Requiems has perfect metal vocals combined with breathtaking musicianship (the blistering guitar work and intricate drumming are astonishing), making this a truly superb album achievement.
Every few albums, Rush would include a pure instrumental showcase, but what if they had ditched Le Studio and took off to Scandinavia to record an entire album of instrumentals? That’s what sleepmakeswaves Made of Breath Only sounds like to my ears, and it puts a smile on my face every time I hear this amazing album.
Odd Logic Effigy gives you everything you want in an advanced prog metal album, woven here into an especially satisfying, coherent musical whole, and it is truly a shame that this band is not better known, because their art is magnificent.
Soen Lykaia is a distinctively original metal album that combines all the sounds you love from intricate metal into a highly unique whole, marked with upper-echelon musicianship.
Lucid Dreaming The Chronicles Part II is an incredible heavy metal concept album with populist vocals that sound like the cast of a Broadway musical, in service of the dramatization of The Chronicles of Prydain. (Dream Theater totally blew it with The Astonishing pile of crap, but Lucid Dreaming shows what a stage musical metal concept album should really be like instead.)
Leprous Malina is a mysterious and infectious slab of metal that I can thank Progarchy editor Carl for turning me on to, and its richly dark textures get better and better with each listen. Thanks, Carl!
Over at Angry Metal Guy, Swordborn has a good review of one of my favorite releases of 2017, Lucid Dreaming’s The Chronicles Pt. II, which is a heavy metal adaptation of The Chronicles of Prydain books. Here’s a taste:
These books were favorites of mine as a child, and remain so to this day. The first installment of The Chronicles remains one of my go-to favorites when illustrating one of the most thematic and spiritually faithful translations of fantasy novel to metal album, despite a relatively unenthusiastic reception in many power metal courts. To no one’s surprise, I’ve been following the progress of Pt. II with interest, and have been entertaining pretty high expectations for it.
Stylistically, Lucid Dreaming is very raw power metal in a myriad of ways. Not only does the mix feel very vocal- and bass-forward, but the array of guest vocalists that breathe life into Prydain’s characters are sourced from throughout the European heavy/power metal underground. None of them bear the polished pedigree that so many of the more commercially successful power metal acts are often noted for, but rather, they infuse the compositions with gritty, energetic, and passionate imperfection. Consequently, The Chronicles, Pt. II boasts an immense amount of character that is lacking in so many concept and story albums produced by the metal genre at large. Tobias Sammet and Arjen Anthony Lucassen may be able to conjure epic soundscapes to assist their grandiose artistic vision, but I’ll bet an oracular pig that neither of them could whip out such an earthy, authentic literary adaptation as this (and probably could never be bothered to).
A listen through the first several tracks will quickly indicate the order of the day for Lucid Dreaming: long, vocally-driven compositions are laid over relatively simplistic but well-formed power metal frameworks spearheaded by hooky rhythm and lead work composed by Oberboßel.
Dawn Eden has a theologically astute review of the Bob Dylan box set Trouble No More over at Angelus. Here’s a taste:
It is a long way from the almost pugilistic attitude of the opening track of “Slow Train Coming,” in which he announces in his best Bobby Zimmerman sneer, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody,” to the heart-wrenching introspection of the final track of “Shot of Love,” “Every Grain of Sand”: “There’s a dyin’ voice within me reaching out somewhere / Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair … I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man / Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.”
“Trouble No More,” in showcasing versions of those songs and dozens more from Dylan’s gospel period, affords a wealth of insights into what took place between those two moments. It is a moving chronicle of the believer’s journey toward the virtue of true Christian hope, in the sense that Aquinas means when he defines hope as desiring an unimpeded union with God in the manner of “a future good, difficult but possible to obtain.”
And so it was that, for a few years at the cusp of the 1980s, Woodstock Nation’s greatest revolutionary rebelled against rebellion itself, against the old enemy whom Saul Alinsky in “Rules for Radicals” admired as “the very first radical.” Although he afterward returned to secular music, he never disavowed it. In fact, in 2015, when receiving the MusiCares Person of the Year Award, he even indicated a desire to record another gospel album.
The only footnote to her analysis that I would add would be to argue that the subsequent track “Ring Them Bells” from Oh Mercy (1989) is one of Dylan’s best songs ever, right up there with the aforementioned “Every Grain of Sand,” because it epitomizes what Dylan learned in his Gospel period, and yet also signals a shift beyond his Vineyard theological training, both with its explicit mention of “St. Peter” and also its intensely mystical mode of vision.
Philosophical thoughts (an excerpt) on the excellent new Christmas single from Big Big Train, which is available today:
Christmas can be a time of loneliness and suffering for many people. I think that’s why I am so very fond of the new Christmas song from the English progressive rock band Big Big Train.
Their single is called “Merry Christmas” and, like its refreshingly direct name, it goes straight to the heart of the holiday. The song’s chorus exhorts us to “give a little peace, joy, love, and light to the world.”
Not sure what that means? Check out the band’s video for it on YouTube, which tells a story about a lonely guy and the daily grind.
Unlike most new Christmas music, the song is an instant classic, destined for my permanent playlist. The trenchant lyrics ask: “When did the ringing of tills drown the pealing of bells? Who cares as long as the products sell?”
The dramatic turning point in the video happens when the sad bloke, wandering away from his office job, goes into a church, where a choir of children sings.
Bass player Greg Spawton explained, “We wanted ‘Merry Christmas’ to be a proper Christmas song, so it features the Big Big Train brass band, The Chapel Choir Choristers of Jesus College, Cambridge, and, of course, sleigh bells.”
For me, it illustrates how the spirit of Christmas can turn despair into hope. The magic of Christmas arrives when we glimpse how suffering can be redeemed. Surprisingly, goodness can transform the darkness.
Because justice demands the addition of this superb single, my Top Ten (Prog) Albums of 2017 list now gets the BBT Merry Christmas EP added to it, which of course rounds the year’s list out to a delicious baker’s dozen!
What an amazing year it has been for Big Big Train…
Progarchy 