A Musical 2017

I want to say goodbye to 2017 on a positive note and there is nothing more positive than music in my eyes.

So if you will allow me a moment of self-indulgence I would like to share with you the music that crossed my path this year. 2017 was a great year in terms of music that allowed me once again to consolidate my collection with a couple of new artists and a couple of established ones.

First of all, I acquired the latest album by heavy metal superstars Metallica, called Hardwired..To Self-Destruct. As you can imagine, subtlety is a word that struggles to establish itself in any Metallica song and this is something that endears me to them. They may be getting on a bit now but the music is still terrific. Here is Now That We’re Dead:

Riverside, a magnificent Polish progressive rock band, released an album that is really a tribute to their guitarist, who sadly died in 2016. The album, Eye of the Soundscape, features experimental material that was released over the past few years as bonus tracks on other albums and is like nothing they have done before; it is mellow and atmospheric, and totally instrumental. The good news is that the band will carry on, which is great for me because at the moment they are one of my favourite bands. Here is Machines:

Also, in 2017, I enhanced my collection of Devin Townsend albums adding four of them, all of which are completely different. Ghost is an ambient album featuring flutes and laid back songs that you can listen to with scented candles in a dimly lit room. Ki is more subdued but with hints of Devin’s metal mayhem. Epicloud is a fantastic album featuring a mixture of ambience, pop, rock and heavy metal but the craziest album is Deconstruction, which is 75 minutes of pure heavy metal mayhem that grabs you by the throat and screams at you. Here are two songs, one from Ghost and one from Deconstruction. Do you think it is the same artist? Believe me it is. First here is the title is a song called Texada from Ghost:

Now we have Juular from Deconstruction. The song is as crazy as the video.

And with the promise of four albums in 2018, I am looking forward to next year.

Veteran rockers, Deep Purple also released an album in 2017. The album may prove to be their last but it proves that they still have something. Here is Time for Bedlam:

Gary Numan is also still going strong. He was very prominent in the 1980’s when I was into electronic music and his new album, Savage: Songs From a Broken World, reminds me of that time, albeit with a much darker sound. Here is My Name is Ruin:

Supergroup Black Country Communion reformed for a new album, featuring Glenn Hughes, Joe Bonamassa, Derek Sherinian and Jason Bonham. The album, BCCIV, is an excellent collection of hard rock and blues rock songs. Here is The Last Song From My Resting Place – a truly beautiful piece of music:

Foo Fighters also returned this year with a new album Concrete and Gold.  And they didn’t let me down with some great songs, my favourite being Run with its highly amusing video:

You may not have heard of Neal Morse, but he is a progressive rock legend who was a founding member of a band called Spock’s Beard. Now he has a band called, unimaginatively, The Neal Morse Band that grabbed my attention because it features Mike Portnoy, the ex-drummer of Dream Theater. I decided to listen to an album they released a year or two ago, called Similitude of a Dream, which is a concept album based on The Pilgrim’s Progress. Neal Morse is a born again Christian and the album very much embraces this but that doesn’t detract me from enjoying what is a superb progressive rock masterpiece that I am proud to have in my collection. Here is Man in the Iron Cage:

I plan to investigate Neal Morse and Spock’s Beard next year.

Steven Wilson also released a new album this year and to me that is a major event. To the Bone marked a more pop oriented direction and he actually made a dent in the charts, forcing an appearance on BBC news as “the most famous British artist you have never heard of”. I hope this is the beginning of the recognition he deserves. The album itself is not as good as the previous masterpiece but still has amazing songs, my favourite of which is Detonation, a song about terrorism:

And finally – do you remember this pop song from the early 1980s?



The bass player in the band, Nick Beggs, has been playing with Steven Wilson for the past couple of years but has also branched out to form his own band called The Mute Gods. I picked up their second album called Tardigrades Will Inherit The Earth. I was amazed at how good it is – and it is a far cry from his Kajagoogoo days. Here is the title track:

And if you are wondering, Tardigrades are microscopic animals that are, apparently, indestructible, able to survive radiation, extreme cold and heat and have even survived in low earth orbit, subjected to the extremes of space. It stands to reason they will be around after we have destroyed ourselves and the planet. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen for a while.

I am truly looking forward to a musical 2018.

Happy New Year to each and every reader

Progressive Thoughts - Day 16

Today’s song is by my current favourite artist, Devin Townsend. The song is called Bend it Like Bender! and is a very catchy song featuring the amazing Anneke van Giersbergen as a co-vocalist.

Devin Townsend’s music is more towards the Progressive Metal genre but a lot of his music is unique and experimental. In many ways when you hear a new album you aren’t always sure what you are going to get.

This song has elements of dance music in it, particularly the chorus and I can imagine it being played at a rock party to get people up onto the dance floor.

I would certainly join in.

I pointed this out to Mrs PM on New Year’s Eve when we were getting ready to go out. We were accompanied by my eldest lad and his girlfriend and decided to have a few snacks and a glass of prosecco before departing.

Mrs PM wanted to take control of the music. I stepped in.

“You are not taking control of the music,” I insisted.

“Why not?”  she said standing in front of me defiantly.

“Three reasons!” I said.

The first reason I gave was obvious. I simply do not like her music. I cannot stand listening to dreadful dance music with one dimensional lyrics that cover one of two things. These lyrics are either about chatting up members of the opposite sex whilst dancing and using the most innuendo driven hints known to man. Or alternatively, they discuss in sometimes graphic terms, the end result of successfully procuring a member of the opposite sex and the antics the two of them get up to in a bedroom afterwards – usually all night long. Don’t get me wrong; heavy metal and rock songs occasionally do the same but at least they cover other subjects too. Rush, for example, have only one song with word “love” in the title and that is from well over one hundred they have written and recorded.

My second reason was more in keeping with the company we were with. My son likes a wide range of music but he particularly loves rock music and heavy metal (heavier than the music I like in some cases). His girlfriend also likes some rock music including, bizarrely, “screamers”, which is heavy rock where the singers scream rather than singing. Again, in this case, her taste is closer to mine (although she does like some dreadful nonsense too).  Basically, Mrs PM was outvoted because the three of us hate Britney Spears and Rihanna.

My final reason was purely selfish. We were going to a large pub that would clear a huge area as a dance floor and allow people to strut their funky stuff for hours. The problem was that this music would be the kind of drivel you get all the time with terrible dance music, the odd old dance song and, if we were lucky, a vaguely interesting rock song. In short I would have to endure hours of music that I despise – as I usually do.

Mrs PM stared at me then looked around at my lad and his girlfriend for support.

“He’s got a point,” said my lad.

Mrs PM caved in and allowed me to control the music for an hour.

“Okay,” she said.

The good news for her was that I played music from across a few genres, including the song above as well as pop songs, rock, a smidgeon of metal, a pinch of dance music (for Mrs PM) and a soupçon of indie, punk and funk.

Later, I was chatting about how radio plays terrible contrived one-dimensional and repetitive music. I vowed to give up ranting so this was my final rant of 2016.

“I would love to be a DJ,” I said. “I would play all sorts of stuff. I want to be the John Peel of Manchester”.

John Peel was a bit of a hero of mine because he basically played music he loved rather than the playlists that the radio stations wanted him to play.

“Why don’t you create a podcast?” said my lad's girlfriend.

And do you know, I think I might consider doing that in future. I know a guy who does exactly that. He is a super cool person but his musical taste and mine are polar opposites. In fact, he sometimes reads this blog if you have any suggestions, let me know (you know who you are).

So maybe I will do this as a challenge for 2017.

After all, I have almost 7500 songs in my collection and there are vast oceans of music out there in cyberspace to fish from.

Watch this space.

A Musical 2016

In 2016, we lost several musical icons; Prince, David Bowie, Rick Parfitt, Greg Lake, Keith Emerson, Glen Frey, Leonard Cohen and even George Michael.

I hope they all rest in peace.

From a personal perspective,  I have consolidated my collection with new recordings by some of my favourite artists but have also discovered a new artist in the genre of Progressive Metal and he has blown me away with his raw talent.

The year started off with Steven Wilson releasing an extended player to keep fans ticking over while he works on new material. The album is called 4½ and contains previously unreleased songs that didn’t quite make it on his last two albums. The song Happiness III, in my previous post, appears on the album so I won’t repeat it again.

Next, Progressive Metal giants Dream Theater released a colossal new album called The Astonishing and it is truly astonishing because it is a huge rock opera featuring 34 songs lasting well over two hours. Here is something called The Gift Of Music, which even features a gospel choir:

Dutch Symphonic Metal band Delain also released a new album, with the strange title, Moonbathers. The final song on the album is a beautiful song called The Monarch that wouldn’t be out of place as part of a movie soundtrack:

I also revisited a Progressive Rock band from Poland, called Riverside. What is sad about this band is that now, just as I have completed my collection of their albums, I discovered that their guitarist Piotr Grudzinski  died of a cardiac arrest at the young age of just 40 years old – yet another sad loss from 2016. Here is a song called Egoist Hedonist:

And now to my discovery; Devin Townsend. I have actually seen him live once as lead vocals for the legendary guitarist Steve Vai way back in the late 1980s. What I didn’t realise at the time was that this fiery young Canadian is a prolific and extremely talented multi-instrumentalist with the ability to write a wide range of styles of music, from ambient rock to extreme Progressive Metal with everything in between including, bizarrely, country rock (which I’m not that keen on to be honest). Most of his songs are brilliant, weird, funny and epic.

Here are a couple of songs from some of his albums I have bought this year. First, March of the Poozers:

The next one is called War:

Devin also released a new album this year called Transcendence. Here is an amazing song called Stormbending:



However, there is one album that he released way back in 2009 that is my absolute favourite. I love every single song on the album. The album is called Addicted! and is amazing. Here are a couple of songs. first, the title track, an amazing heavy metal song:

Next, a wonderful song called Hyperdrive! Featuring the amazing Anneke van Giersbergen on vocals:

Devin Townsend’s back catalogue is immense and I shall be dipping into it more in 2017.

And if you didn’t believe me about country rock, here is an example:

I’m looking forward to 2017 and hope it is a great year musically as well as for everything else.

Happy New Year Everybody

Birthday Boy

Well folks, it’s that time of year again – another birthday on Saturday October 8th.

I’ve had 53 of these buggers before and this will obviously be my 54th – and to be honest I’ve stopped counting them or getting excited by them – mainly because I know that there won’t be another 54 of them. It would be nice, but I might not remember who I am or what I am supposed to be doing.

So what am I doing for my 54th birthday?

Mrs PM is taking me down to Chipping Camden in the Cotswold’s for a relaxing weekend, walking in the wonderful English countryside, sampling excellent British food and supping British ale (or maybe a continental lager or two too).

I might even treat myself to something nice.

I will try to enjoy my birthday – honestly. Mind you, it’s a struggle. But it is another year, another year older and a little closer to 60 years old. The good thing is that I am also a lot closer to retirement too, which I am really looking forward too, although in reality I have to wait another ten to twelve years before I can finally kick my job into touch.

I keep asking Mrs PM if she will let me retire soon and look after me – but she refuses telling me that I am in the prime of my life and look like a 44 year old. “Why retire?” she asks me.

She doesn’t understand.

Anyway, enough of this nonsense.

I’ll leave you with a few rock songs from my six decades so far. I love these songs and they would be great at a party!

 I hope you enjoy them.

See you on the other side of 54.

1960’s – Led Zeppelin – Whole Lotta Love

 

 1970’s – Sparks – This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us

 

 1980’s – Aerosmith – Rag Doll



 

1990’s – Rammstein – Du Hast

 

 2000’s – Devin Townsend Project – Bend It Like Bender

 

 2010’s – Nine Inch Nails – Copy Of A