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Quote:I would feel better if I could say something else , but I have to be honest .
I don't like the Unicorn .
Most of the time It doesn't work for me .
Same here.
No, i know that i have not to apologize, but it sounds horrible to me. I hope the guys will get to bass, drums and guitar soon.
What a pity.
So listen to some CRAMPS
well…I don´t mean to offend anyone. I know that music taste is music taste…you can agree or disagree.
Only thing is if you´ve been a fan for the half of your life…
I was addicted the first time I heard the sound of Demon Box back in 1993…I appreciated what they did with Timothy´s Monster the year after…The tussled I thought was original and fresh…and everything album after that in the 90´s…Thing I´ve seen around 25 gigs…they´ve always surprised me with new sounds etc…
Them going that much into jazz territory is me the definite proof that they´ve cut off from everything that made them special…
I am a fan of many of the 70´s prog bands…
Sometimes you just have this intuitive feeling that things aren´t the way it should be…
I mean…nobody wanted to here Emerson, Lake and Palmer ending up on their "Love Beach" or hear Metallica playing with a siphonic orchestra…
Going from rock to jazz is the proof that you´ve become old…
Just to quote G. Slick (Jefferson airplane) When you see them there…. I mean God help them…it´s a strange dream that is wrong…
That´s what I think of mp as a jazz band…
There's no offense and anyone can like what (s)he wants. I wasn't that convinced of some material on Heavy Metal Fruit and some Allman Beach Brotherboys stuff on Let Them Eat Phanerothyme. But I welcomed it as their desire to grow and reach out and the overall creativity of the band. It's your train of thought that lost its way in my opinion. Going jazz is a sign of being old? What??? So the jazzers were all born sixty? And also don't forget, Motorpsycho did jazz in 1995 and now rocks out hard on the Unicorn in 2012.
But the weirdest thing was saying, the band lost its way and creativity because they don't keep repeating a formula they worked with at first. It's silly of the listener to tell the artist to stick to a formula they invented. Like "we pay for your career so you better do as we want!". It's the artist choice and not the consumer's, who never had any say in the band's original perception of itself in the first place per natural default anyway.
Funny you mention Metallica playing with an Orchestra. Because that's the obvious thing to mention and that is exactly what the Unicorn is not! Just like Roadwork 2 is not an exercise in jazzrockfusion. It's music beyond boundaries with no formula at all for the curious. Metallica (or others) with Orchestra simply rearrange their music for strings and then rock out to it. That's neither original nor fresh or barrier breaking.
A sign of getting old (in the artist AND the listener, mind) is being stuck in the same stuff when one was 20 and having no ability and/or intention to move on. Saying the Ramones for example never got old because they played the same 3 chords 30 years later is just plain wrong.
I think mr. nelson just misses the sheer brilliance of the Trust Us/Blissard/AADAP era.
I had to get used to LTEC/Phan/IALC, but dig those records now. But the BHBC/LLM/COTF/HMF still don't work for me. The Unicorn could grow on me, I have to admit.
Not that I want to go all mental about it. But for me this is generally a very interesting and sensitive issue: the perception and demands of the "consumer" towards art and artists (not only in Motorpsycho matters).
Remember the Child of the Future vinyl only debate. When people felt actually betrayed by the band and got even angry because they didn't get a digital version? Stuff like that makes me curious about the underlying trains of thoughts and motivations. So I might disgress (or deviate? dunno the correct word here) now and then.
The brilliance of the 90ties Motorpsycho is a matter of taste as well. Those records aren't any more brillant as the Unicorn or HMF per se. It's what we grew up with and what we're gotten used to when we were young. LLM for me is the artistic highpoint of the 00 years and definitely up par with Timmy and Trust Us.
What if they did the Unicorn right after Trust Us instead of the Cake and Timothy would be the all new record in 2012? Which ones would be percepted as the brillant and "classic Motorpsycho" and lukewarm soso albums? Timeline is a tricky fella.
"What if they did the Unicorn right after Trust Us instead of the Cake and Timothy would be the all new record in 2012? Which ones would be percepted as the brillant and "classic Motorpsycho" and lukewarm soso albums? Timeline is a tricky fella."
I probably would have been blown away
I am a fan from the (early) nineties, that's true.
I'll go a bit with BronYrAur but have to disagree with some.
Yes, a "Masterpiece" it is not. But that's simply because it's the band doing what they always did only in a new clothing, that big bit more shine and gloss and extravaganza as ever. So one should not dismiss it as not being the masterpiece everyone else is telling it is, but should rather listen to it as the piece of work it simply is.
About our beloved band playing their game: Yes it's true that there is self-indulgence in the band. And they do recycle riffs and ideas from all over 50 years of music history. They always did that, since the earliest of their days. But come on, that's the point of being in a band! As an artist you have to do what you want. If you do not, then it has no value! Freedom of art and such! Only narrow minded naysayers can disagree with that and call it pretentious and self important (and whatnot while sitting in the office job 9-5 for their own 50 years). This cockyness is what makes Motorpsycho reach out and boldly go… you know the rest. And damn, I love them for exactly this reason. I don't care if anyone ever did that album before. As I said in the other topic, the Unicorn might not have been very outstanding in the early 70ties, but that's a benevolent comment towards the music of the time and not a criticism of the Unicorn. The Wall – which I deeply respect – now that is a pretentious and self important record compared to The Silly Reason Defying Unicorn. Tales From Topographic Ocean is a pretentious journey into shamefully abbreviated simplified Hindi myths which Mr Anderson himself doesn't understand himself (or thought his audience won't so he simplified it) and the music is waaaaay too stretched out in tedious lengths. These are fine examples of adolescent self estimation gone wild. The Wall and the earlier DSOTM show how Water's work later benefitted from the artist's own ageing (though the pre-Wall Animals is Water's best work as a writer and conceptualist at least in his Floyd era). So what do you mean it's too late for a 43 year old guy to create a masterpiece (nevermind if the Unicorn actually is one or not)? How does age, experience and learning get in the way with that? I suppose you are very young, then?
I also must strongly disagree with the statement, the band's contribution to music ended with Trust Us:
In the 90ties they made outstanding great music. But it wasn't any more new than what they did later. Demon Box was a bold mixture of everything they liked with no obvious concept. This of course made it such a fresh and rewarding listen. But there's nothing NEW there to the music except for its uncompromised attitude in the making and the presentation. Same goes for Timmy, Dameons and Trust Us. The volume and the boldness and the music's quality are overwhelming, but if we're speaking NEW and want to critise the current Motorpsycho, then we must honestly state, that they never did anything new and unique. They simply did it louder, crazier, softer, bolder, weirder and mostly better than their contemporaries and their own idols. What about that other topic, where about 9765987580756 different artists and albums are listed as influences?
So LLM was the first real departure of and therefore really a new or at least alternative contribution to the contemporary music scene. And thanks for that! In a time where any half baked combo with beard and acoustic guitars and some alibi lowfi electronic beeps yawning about simple life in a wooden shed in the mountains over chords that good old Neil chewed out a lifetime ago got considered to be the next GENIUS band, they threw a 20+mins indiespaceheavyrocker opus with the most far out melodies and riffing ever known to mankind at us. Year Zero wipes the floor with Vortex Surfer in terms of drama and intensity (especially the live versions) and the Sunship and the Alchemyst… oh dear Jesus, just listen to the Kill Devil Hills / Alchemyst Combo on Intrepid Skronk. THAT's some contribution to music!
And then to top it off, this Unicorn madness. Yes it's been done before, yes it's self indulgent but most of all it's bold and funny and – most importantly – very very passionate. And if that doesn't make it valuable, then I don't know what does. That's no reason to like it, of course, but respect is due. At least for the fact that someone still does this crazy shit.
Oh well I'm not short in words here myself :mrgreen: but the album's silly title should make clear it's not to be taken too seriously.
@supernaut: I agree with you on most counts – and especially this: people come to like things they grew up with and they are familiar with. My first MP album was Phanerothyme and I love that album to bits, really. Most MP fans wont agree with me and thats fine. Did it mean they run out of ideas? Nope. Does it mean they are over the hill now that they record albums in such a quick succession? Hell no.
Anyway, most important things in the matter have been said: tastes are tastes, you dont have to like it, just listen to something else if you dont, etc.
yeah, i think there's no need to discuss the quality of the band's output over the years. they just differ greatly in styles and i just happen to love 96% of it. just saying they lost it here or that phase there was better is non-understandable to me.
btw old prog masterpieces: no one ever mentions THICK AS A BRICK and A PASSION PLAY by jethro tull. now that's some big cinema as we say in german. only one 40mins song on each album, though A Passion Play has this interlude here (shown live during the break when they played the whole record):
so these pieces are drenched with lots of sillyness and that's what makes them truly great. prog is only bad when it's dead serious. but when funny, then it's allright with me.
Just one thing mr. nelson; Why do you keep referring to MP as becoming a jazz band? Sure there are some references to jazz in their music here and there, but there are more then equal amounts of hard hitting rock, pop, avant-garde, prog etc aswell. Personally i think a little touch of jazz now and then only broadens the musical experience. But to say that it's become a jazz act is slightly silly if you ask me…
@supernaut: "Year Zero wipes the floor with Vortex Surfer" – I consider this blasphemy and am quite ready to put on my explosive belt to blow the unfaithfulls to hell!
On the topic's issue: I am lost for words how much I don't like this new album and for the first time in about 17 years I am considering NOT going to their gig in my hometown.
@Be: I think, the live version has to be quiet different from the studio version because there are only four people on stage. Think about "Stained Glass" on Roadwork 3. Its a complete different thing than the studio version. Maby they can win you back with the Live Version. And I'm shure that the'll play more than only the Unicorn.
Yuo could miss something if you don't go to the gig in your hometown…
I think this album presented as a fourpiece will indeed be much more "mp" and so those who do not like it, should see a show if doable.
The only strange thing would be the separation of "complete unicorn" and "surprising encores" if it happens like this in the end…
Looking forward to have that big Brocken served live and I do not worry about future mp albums: "Dog Parade" from the latest autumn concerts goes in a very promising direction – this might even be a huge part of the sound they do as a quartet this spring
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