Within the past week or so, I've received some musical goodies in the mail. After a long hiatus from record shopping thanks to the coronavirus situation, I finally caved and ordered a handful of albums online. Last week, I got my first package, which contained three Styx albums, two early-ish ones, and one that landed during their cycle of classic multi-platinum-selling recordings. The pair of pre-superstardom LPs are Equinox, from 1975, and Crystal Ball, from 1976. Crazy how so many artists back then pumped out at least an album a year (if not more), and good stuff, too. Nowadays, we've got to wait years between studio releases... and no guarantees it's all killer... there's always at least some filler. All great music, very little of it familiar to me besides the obvious radio singles and greatest hits, so I will have some fun discovering new favourites among all of these deeper tracks from Styx's earlier days. Equinox, of course, spawned their first major tune, Lorelei... and Suite Madame Blue is a serious contender for best on the album. The Crystal Ball album was almost entirely new to me; I only knew the title track from a CD greatest hits. Rock with hints of heaviness, progressive and pop, a cocktail that Styx mixed well and perfected on subsequent recordings. The third Styx disc is Pieces of Eight, from 1978, nestled between their '77 breakthrough LP, The Grand Illusion, and '79's Cornerstone. Pieces is mostly brand new to me besides Blue Collar Man and Renegade. Back in the day, I wasn't very receptive to their brand of music, so I was just barely aware of their big songs from the radio. Nowadays, I can appreciate all of it much more. And for me... today... I feel that Queen of Spades is the strongest track on the album. Check it out below!
Then late this week I found a couple more very special records waiting for me in my mailbox. One was Boston's second album, Don't Look Back, from 1978. This LP is very nostalgic for me since I owned this same disc way back when I was a teenager in the late seventies. I loved the colourful album art... and even though this recording didn't pack the same front-to-back Top 40 punch as Boston's first album, the songs are catchy and well-crafted, and that guitar sound... wow! Technicality and musicality collide in a beautiful set of songs that still mean a lot to me. The other record I received deserves the final spot here: ever since I got my turntable back in the fall of 2017, I've been searching for a nice copy of Destroyer, by Kiss. On my favourite online store Discogs.com, the records in better condition commanded prices I wasn't prepared to pay... yet. Though I was aware of a 2014 reissue of Destroyer, I learned that significant changes were made to the music. Apparently, the source tapes used in remastering were NOT the same ones used for the early pressings that I was familiar with. I gave this reissue a listen on Youtube and was NOT impressed. The feel and overall mixing of the song were too far gone for me to accept it. Vocals and instruments were bounced from front to back in the mix, and back to front, with strange additions, substitutions, alterations, all manner of chaotic tampering. Not impressed.
So I decided to avoid later reissues altogether and aim for an early pressing of Destroyer. At local record shows, sellers were asking far too much for LPs in very poor condition. Prices being so prohibitive even for beat-up copies, I accepted the challenge and practised patience, keeping my eye on Discogs prices and regularly checking other sources like Ebay and Music Stack. Finally, last weekend, I spotted a very reasonably-priced copy of Destroyer on Discogs. Both the media (the record) and its outer sleeve were graded in Very Good Plus condition, generally my minimum requirement for used vinyl. This was a '76 release, not a first pressing but not far off, and wow, what a find! The record looks immaculate and plays almost like brand new, while the jacket (outer sleeve) looks very nice if not mint condition. I'm super happy to finally have this in my collection. Destroyer is, if not a perfect album, still one of my favourite hard rock recordings of all time. Sure, that song Great Expectations really slows down and weighs down the album with its strange and bloated arrangement. And radio hit Beth, while a good song, has... well, I've just heard it enough. On an album absolutely packed with rockers, Beth really jams on the brakes, temporarily killing the vibrant, hedonistic vibe that Kiss established with the previous half dozen bangers. Those quibbles aside, I love - and I mean love - the rest of the Destroyer. I mean, look at the track list: anthems and barn-burners like Detroit Rock City, King of the Night Time World, God of Thunder, Flaming Youth, Sweet Pain, and Shout it Out Loud all precede the Beth ballad. Rock and roll lifestyle headbanger Do You Love Me follows, at least saving the disc from a sour ending. The Destroyer album has been my elusive Holy Grail for the past few years, and now that I've found it, a tremendous weight has lifted off my shoulders. I thought about the album constantly all this time. And even though I also own an early CD release of it, I doubt I'll play that much, if at all, any more. Naturally, the vinyl has a sound quality that appeals much more to my ear. Hooray for records!
I'm kind of running out of genres that reside in my movie collection, so I guess I'll now settle on the rather lacklustre classification of "drama" that rounds up nearly everything else that's left to cover. "Drama" could be almost anything, as long as it isn't comedy, though some dramas can contain a bit of levity to lighten the heavy mood. But not so much that it then becomes a dramedy, which is now a word, or so I'm told. Drama with hints of humour are realistic, because that's how the world works. The same with comedies with a bit of drama. Though I can enjoy a good drama, I don't gravitate so heavily toward the genre that I consider buying very many such movies for my personal video collection. The handful that I own say a lot about me, I guess, since there are so few of them. They are carefully chosen, based on how much I enjoy them, and how well they hold up under multiple viewings. As I scan my shelves of physical media films, I realize that what could easily be called dramas might actually fall within other genres, like crime or sci-fi or war. So here I did my best to sort out those that don't really fit neatly anywhere else.
Enjoy, if you must: The Before Trilogy, by director Richard Linklater... Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight... among my favourite movies... a relationship studied over the span of nearly 20 years Casablanca... this classic could be called a spy-type film, but maybe it fits best in drama Daydream Believers - The Monkees Story... made-for-TV biopic (sorry) that's fun yet dramatic The Delinquents... the very first movie that young pop star Kylie Minogue starred in (1989) The Doors... a biopic, if you want to split hairs, but this is where it belongs. Riveting! The Double Life of Veronique, by Polish art-film director Krzystof Kieslowski... an all-time fave Fanny and Alexander, by legendary Swedish film-maker Ingmar Bergman Flight of the Phoenix... the 1965 original "survival adventure" starring James Stewart Lawrence of Arabia... sweeping epic film classic that needs no explanation Lolita, by none other than Stanley Kubrick... influential and controversial for its time Lost in Translation, by Sophia Coppola... I think this qualifies since it's very light on the humour - just moments or little scenes, while maintaining a low-key, down-beat tone (my all-time #1) Macbeth, directed by Roman Polanski... moody telling of the Shakepearean tragedy Master and Commander... could be called a war film, but its character study set during the Napoleonic wars makes it more straight-up drama for me Running... starring a young Michael Douglas, this is a "sports drama" that would sit alone in that category, so I designate it simply a drama The Seventh Seal, by Ingmar Bergman... "You sunk my battleship!" Three Colors Trilogy, by master of the art-house film, Kieslowski... Three Colors Blue, Three Colors White, Three Colors Red... love 'em all The Virgin Spring, again by the esteemed master, Bergman Wild Strawberries, another masterpiece by Bergman The Wrestler, a cool character study by modern film-maker Darren Aronofsky
While most of my favourite albums of all time come from the 1970's and 80's, there is one very recent release that ranks among those nostalgic and classic recordings that I hold so dear to my heart. That album is Meliora, by Swedish metal band Ghost.
Now, Ghost needs some explaining. While they are currently perhaps the most successful and popular heavy metal/hard rock act on the planet, they are not quite a household name like Iron Maiden or Black Sabbath. But they are close. Hailing from the icy Scandinavian wastelands, Ghost brought their melodic brand of metal to the world first with their 2010 album Opus Eponymous. Over the following decade and three more studio recordings, the band gained a fervent following. It was five years ago, in 2015, that Ghost first came to my attention. I heard mention of them in a podcast, so I dialed up some of their songs... then ALL of their songs to date... on Youtube. Loved it all. These guys had an amazing discography of hook-laden, heavy-rockin' tunes that I simply could not get enough of. The first full album I heard and then bought was the 2015 release, Meliora. I quickly snapped up all their earlier releases and have kept pace with their output ever since. While Ghost's earlier efforts bore plenty of great melodic and heavy tracks, it was Meliora that really pulled it all together into super-tight song structures with the most memorable hooks I'd heard in years. I played that CD endlessly for months, intermittently sprinkling in listenings of Ghost's other albums. Gloriously devilish music... and in more ways than one. Not only do most - or all? - of their song lyrics relate to that good ol' headbanger from Hades, Satan, but the band dresses in very stylish supernatural garb for their live stage shows. Their concerts (of which I've seen several online) are big productions, in the vein of Kiss, who very obviously had a big influence on these Swedish rockers. And Ghost takes that theatricality to yet another level. So between the band's image - their visual look, their artistically sophisticated album artwork, and the supernatural lyrical content - and their skills as songwriters and musicians, they had it all going on. Plus once Meliora came out, it was clear that Ghost could easily straddle several musical genres while pulling in awards, radio airplay, and huge album sales. I can hear influences are varied as Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, a little early Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, and Kiss. It's hard to pigeon-hole them into one category since they have blended elements of black metal, classic rock, progressive rock, pop, and more. The album kicks off with Spirit, which begins with an eerie synthsizer line, building to a hammering hard rockin' drum and guitar verse and chorus combo. What I like about Ghost is that the vocals are clean and skillfully sung... and here we've got a choral feel to the backup singing. The highly melodic guitar solo works like yet another voice in the mix. And that horror movie organ sound sets the tone nicely.
Next up is From the Pinnacle to the Pit, a fun heavy rocker that invites the listener to at least nod along if not full-on headbang. The contrasting edgy guitars and the almost crooning vocals create a cool and catchy vibe. Yet another noteworthy short and sweet solo punches up this already glowing tune. Perhaps the highlight of the album is Cirice, a slower, doomy track. Pretty piano and guitar lines open, crawling toward a spine-chilling tone that gives way to a massive driving Sabbath-y riff. There is an epic feel to the song, especially once the "instant classic" guitar solo enters. Everything feels comfortably familiar, yet it's wholly original in a Ghost sense. Spรถksonat is a short acoustic guitar instrumental that feels at once light and creepy. This seques into... ... my favourite song on the album, He Is, which is an ode to the Prince of Darkness. Its music is incredibly uplifting, like something you'd hear in a church... with the plucked acoustic guitar, the huge and soaring keyboard-organ backdrop, the choral quality of the lead and backing vocals. The lyrics never veer toward the cartoonish or gruesome like other black metal-type artists write. Instead, it's tasteful and intelligent, and you kinda want to jump on this bandwagon, as manufactured as it is. It's a beautiful piece of music, if you can put aside any reservations about the lyrical themes. Next up is the catchy Mummy Dust, which boasts an almost thrash-style chunky riff. But throw in a creepy whispery vocal plus a touch of clean piano on the chorus and you've got a sound and style that is uniquely Ghost. Majesty is a song that plays with the grandeur that suits its title, a proudly chugging tempo and airborne keyboards sending verses toward a chorus that brings to mind sky-scraping gothic cathedral vaults. Devil Church is just that... solo electric organ leads into a religious procession that sounds supremely spiritual, and yet it's in honour of the Dark Lord. Somehow it works perfectly. Also one of my faves on Meliora is Absolution, which rocks one of the coolest riffs on the album - or planet? The contrasting incredible piano-work and the awesome rock guitar gel into something I've rarely heard in music, a marriage of styles and genres that birth some of the greatest melodies of this past decade. That guitar solo sounds like something that Kiss could have put on their Destroyer album. Instant classic rock! The final track, Deus in Absentia, has a spacious feel to it, more airy than its album mates. Six-string riffs abound, but don't hog the show. Piano and guitars are finely balanced, allowing breathing room and an atmosphere that's tough to beat. One passage evokes the feel of a heavenly choir, yet those Latin (Ghost likes this ancient, dead language) lyrics must translate into something less holy. So... it's been five years, and I still love this album from start to finish. Not a dud in sight, not a single track I want to skip while spinning the CD or record (I've got both). I predict that in ten years, Meliora will still be among my all-time favourite albums, alongside those by Kiss, Sabbath, and Van Halen. It is that good. So if you love hard rock and/or metal, and you haven't checked out Ghost yet, start with Meliora. I'll bet that some of these songs would even appeal to a non-heavy rock fan. The lighter, more melodic approach makes this setlist very approachable for the new listener. Give it a whirl, and get back to me... I'd love to hear Ghost newcomers' thoughts. Carpe noctem!
With more sitting-around time on my hands in these days of the coronavirus, I've been reading a lot more, and I know there'll be even more opportunity ahead to spend poring over the pages of some great fiction. I need some good escapist stuff to get me through this stressful period. Though I've read some sci-fi in fits and starts over the past ten or so years, it is only recently that I've really been re-bitten by the far-out fiction bug. When I was a young lad and into my teens, I read a fair bit of the spacy, futuristic stuff. Old standards by wizards of the written word like Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. LeGuin, and so on. In more recent years, I've delved into gems by both veterans of the genre and newer names, a mix of the likes of William Gibson, Michael Crichton, Robert J. Sawyer, Charles de Lint, Andy Weir, Margaret Atwood, Kurt Vonnegut, Ted Chiang (short fiction, actually), and Liu Cixin.
Very recently, the itch was undeniably strong, so I sought out some lists of the most highly regarded science fiction to pinpoint books I have never read. I have a bit of a wish list of my own now, based on both my interest in particular areas of SF and curiosity about unknown (to me) authors. I have a little pile of goodies on deck that I can't wait to attack soon. Right now, I have the Dan Simmons novel Hyperion on the go, and am enjoying it immensely. Why did I never read this sooner? I remember seeing this book - and its striking, colourful cover art - many times on store shelves over the past few decades. Slightly intrigued, but always with a dismissive mindset "ah, I'm done with that stuff", I passed it by. Anyway, I'm only partway through it at the moment, but it's proving its status as a more modern classic (published in 1989). In the wings I have The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven, another book I've noted on store shelves many times over the decades. Apparently, it's required reading for fans of the genre, so I'm gonna do it. There's also Anathem by Neal Stephenson, which I've never heard of before, but its "first contact" story sounded super-intriguing, so I jumped on that, too. By the way, what made it extra appealing to finally do this little SF shopping spree was Indigo's recent online free shipping deal - probably inspired by the caronavirus sealing anxious readers into their homes, in need of books. These purveyors of the printed word knew we avid readers would need to stock up on satiating materials to see us through this bizarre lockdown period. Me, I'm fortunate (or not, my feelings sway from one side to the other and back again) enough to still be employed (at an essential service... a grocery store) and earning a paycheque. Mind you, that comes with the catch that I have to work around a crew of employees and scads of customers in a grocery store day in and day out. It has its drawbacks and - small - rewards, to be sure.
Anyway, when I'm not a slave to the grind, I am housebound and devouring book after book. One other novel in my "to read" pile is Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke, a story I've been aware of since grade school, when I saw a classmate hauling a dog-eared copy around with his homework. Yet I never sought it out... I just paused to glance at that familiar cover art on bookstore shelves over and over again, decade after decade. Finally, it is in the rotation. A more recent purchase waiting for my attention is one I bought from the "cheapie shelves" at Chapters, Ball Lightning, by Cixin Liu. Liu is one of my favourite modern authors, with his own special brand of hard sci-fi blended with warm and very real characterizations. Down the road, I think I'd like to tackle the famed Foundation and its follow-ups by Asimov, The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, Ice by Anna Kavan, A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, and Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky. All come highly recommended, some of them I've heard of before, other titles are new to me.
