Failure - Fantastic Planet

I miss having Failure's 3rd album, Fantastic Planet, on my shelf. It's a wonderful album, no matter what Dean Carlson says. You could condense his entire review down to "Simpson's did it. Nirvana's better, and Failure doesn't write catchy songs." Sure, think that if you want, but it's dumb and you're an incomplete human being with a limited mental toolbox, Dean. I'm sure you're a mostly wonderful person like most people, but if we were having a conversation i'd probably tell you to go away. 

We're riding the chemtrails of Tool, and Tool was a big supporter of Failure, bringing them on tour. APC even covered The Nurse Who Loved Me. Wait, i did too, that's hiding somewhere in Mopey Time if you know where to look, wink. The point of the Tool discography was the fact that the discography itself was structured around the content (intentional or not). The cool thing about Fantastic Planet is that they structured an unstructured album. The songs are all over the place thematically, but they are arranged as 2-segue-3-seque-4-segue-5. Plus, it's cyclic (or possibly orbital), the same music-box sample begins and ends the album.

Technically, this is space rock, exploring "other worldly musical textures," and it totally connects with my mental image of old hack, pulp sci-fi. Losers in space. This is as much like Nirvana as Bush, which is to say, not. That's a false comparison from an extremely naive type of listening, the old familiar Industrial equals NIN problem: we'll just gloss over that annoying 20+ year history and compare the sound of the singers' voices, 'cause i'm lazy.

But, man i love this album.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mf5CVy35rXraviBKgh8Of9qv3PICfx_eY

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 4 Seasons - The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette

Image
This might be my longest  album review ever. But i swear a couple times, so it's worth the read ;) How could i possibly mention Jefferson Airplane, The 4 Seasons, and Frank Zappa in the same context? Zappa said "this is rediculous" and a few years later The 4 Seasons said "you know what, Frank is right. This IS ridiculous." To which Jefferson Airplane said, "Oh. Ok. Got it." The real question is: which one is the most transgressive? Zappa said stop fighting, you look like idiots. Jefferson Airplane said i guess if love and community is a bad thing, then sure we're criminals and we'd be happy to move out into the fields and live peaceful lives without your garbage, let us go already. The 4 Seasons said hold my champagne for a moment. In 1969, The 4 Seasons released the single most ironic, acidic, extravagant, and downright befuddling album ever created, The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette. Zappa was accused of writing "shitty doo-w...
Read more

Welcome to my blog, and my record collection.

This is a blog about my love of listening to albums. It started off as a nightly perusal of my dad's record collection (which sadly became mine) on my personal facebook page. Over the last two months it has become quite an enjoyable process of simply ranting about what i think is a real art form, the album. It needs a more permanent home. Some of my reviews are positive, some negative. They might not be what you expect from album reviews, but i hope you at least find them entertaining. For the most part i do very little research, and they tend to be train of thought reactions rather than calculated essays. If nothing else, know that i'm really listening to them and whether they are amazing or abysmal i want you to go listen to them too.  I'll start migrating the 60+ i've written so far over here in the next few days, and hopefully get to the point where i just start writing them here. I'd probably even take suggestions if you're just dying to know my tho...
Read more

J. Geils Band - Freeze Frame

Image
Speaking of New Wave, I just listened to the penultimate J. Geils Band album, Feeze Frame, and it is awesome. You know the title track and Centerfold, but i highly doubt you know the album closer, Piss On The Wall.  It's not even really reviewable, to be honest, it's Freeze Frame, couple songs, Centerfold, couple more songs, and Piss On The Wall. I guess i could rehash what Post-Punk/New Wave New Wave was all about (actual dance club Rock & Roll with quirkily expensive synth leads), but you know The Cars and The Motels and Talking Heads. Believe it or not, the Ramones were considered New Wave rather than Punk in the beginning. Now we'd call them Pop Punk, but the point is that Rock in the late 70s existed on a spectrum from Corporate Cock to Nerdly Neurotic Pocket Protector, and in 1980/81 J. Geils Band said hold my beer, I gotta take a leak, how's this for "radio-friendly, twitchy nerd Rock with huge sing-along choruses?" Freakin' awesome, dude, freak...
Read more