Wrong wrong wrong. Middle of Nowhere is probably the weakest album but still has good stuff on it. Altogether was a lot better - especially Tension and Meltdown and Beezlebeat - and "Altogether CD 2" or whatever the remixes are called is ace. So shut up.
Middle of Nowhere has one good song, and you can get that on a single and save yourself a LOT of trouble. Otherwise, it's a lot of anonymous noodling. They got ProTools and forgot how to write songs. They do too much cut-and-paste composition and leave out the lovely lyrical leads and really interesting sound and compositional techniques that made Snivilisation and In Sides so lovely. It's like they devolved back into a generic techno band and turned into a weak take-off of their old sound.
Altogether does, yes, have decent tracks, but the CD-2 stuff was all out on singles beforehand, so I'm not counting that as part of the album. It's just the domestic record company wanting to punish the people who bought the singles on import beforehand (or, I suppose to reward people who didn't buy the imports. (This is the US release I'm talking about, anyway.)
Beelzebeat was a b-side of the first "Funny Break" single.
Hm, on my laptop, I have Funny Break, Shadows, and Illuminate. I appear to have nuked the rest of the album to save space... I didn't even bother encoding Middle of Nowhere.
I was really really disappointed by both of those albums. I wanted so much to love them as much as I loved Snivilisation and In Sides, but I just couldn't... So much was lacking that I wanted from P+P... I think they got too popular for their own good and burned out. It makes me sad...
But the thing is, right, as a non-music-making idiot, I suppose I don't listen to music in the same way. I can't hear where they've just cut and pasted stuff together in Protools, instead I just hear the finished result. Or I'm more easily pleased, something like that. I'm going to listen to Middle of Nowhere again today and report back.
Also, Illuminate is the worst thing they've ever done.
Okay, I think of Illuminate as somebody else's song... I hardly think of it as Orbital at all.
The stuff that bugs me is over-repetition of samples, and a lack of structure. Listen to In Sides and see how songs build-- you get each piece showing up one or two at a time, and there's a definite ebb and flow. Listen to, say, "Out There Somewhere" (both parts together) and think about how it builds and creates tension within itself. For about ten minutes, they manage to keep sounding like they're juuuuuust on the verge of a breakdown or a resolution, and keep adding and adding and adding, building and building, and then... the little random-sounding bleepy bit in the middle, which is almost (but not quite) a letdown, and THEN it finally explodes and resolves and turns into something totally new and yet entirely connected to the first half of the song.
Hearing not much more than loops with samples over them in Middle of Nowhere was kind of a letdown after how good In Sides was...
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-19 01:25 pm (UTC)What do you suggest?
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-19 01:33 pm (UTC)Snivilisation and In Sides for their (best and) most melodic stuff.
Older albums for more dancefloor techno. Avoid newer albums. They're highly disappointing.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-19 01:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-19 01:48 pm (UTC)"Altogether" or "Middle of Nowhere." They were... disappointing.
Also, "The Box" is REALLY NEAT, and shows up, I think, on the bonus disk of "In Sides."
cool!
Date: 2003-12-19 01:51 pm (UTC)I will have to create a new memories category so I can keep track of when I discuss music!!!
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-19 04:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-19 06:35 pm (UTC)Middle of Nowhere has one good song, and you can get that on a single and save yourself a LOT of trouble. Otherwise, it's a lot of anonymous noodling. They got ProTools and forgot how to write songs. They do too much cut-and-paste composition and leave out the lovely lyrical leads and really interesting sound and compositional techniques that made Snivilisation and In Sides so lovely. It's like they devolved back into a generic techno band and turned into a weak take-off of their old sound.
Altogether does, yes, have decent tracks, but the CD-2 stuff was all out on singles beforehand, so I'm not counting that as part of the album. It's just the domestic record company wanting to punish the people who bought the singles on import beforehand (or, I suppose to reward people who didn't buy the imports. (This is the US release I'm talking about, anyway.)
Beelzebeat was a b-side of the first "Funny Break" single.
Hm, on my laptop, I have Funny Break, Shadows, and Illuminate. I appear to have nuked the rest of the album to save space... I didn't even bother encoding Middle of Nowhere.
I was really really disappointed by both of those albums. I wanted so much to love them as much as I loved Snivilisation and In Sides, but I just couldn't... So much was lacking that I wanted from P+P... I think they got too popular for their own good and burned out. It makes me sad...
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-20 04:40 am (UTC)Also, Illuminate is the worst thing they've ever done.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-20 08:04 am (UTC)Okay, I think of Illuminate as somebody else's song... I hardly think of it as Orbital at all.
The stuff that bugs me is over-repetition of samples, and a lack of structure. Listen to In Sides and see how songs build-- you get each piece showing up one or two at a time, and there's a definite ebb and flow. Listen to, say, "Out There Somewhere" (both parts together) and think about how it builds and creates tension within itself. For about ten minutes, they manage to keep sounding like they're juuuuuust on the verge of a breakdown or a resolution, and keep adding and adding and adding, building and building, and then... the little random-sounding bleepy bit in the middle, which is almost (but not quite) a letdown, and THEN it finally explodes and resolves and turns into something totally new and yet entirely connected to the first half of the song.
Hearing not much more than loops with samples over them in Middle of Nowhere was kind of a letdown after how good In Sides was...