Level ?
Genres: Synth Pop, Electronica, Lush Pop
Description Coming Soon as the page progesses
Total Score: 8
Best Song: FLYING NORTH
She Blinded Me With Science; / Radio Silence; / Airwaves; / Flying North; / Weightless; / Europa And The Pirate Twins; / Windpower; / Commercial Breakup; / One Of Our Submarines; / Cloudburst At Shingle Street
This album was released five times... with many tracks going in and out, and remixed and whatnot. I'm not really sure if what I'm listening to are the original versions. In fact, I could be totally wrong and confuse you if you happen to have a different version.
I'm not really sure how to approach a song like "She Blinded Me With Science". It's a catchy, poppy, if not somewhat annoying song. Thomas Dolby hated this song, from what I heard. It gets a little draggy, and actually gets boring and monotonous (Yep!). But at times is funny and silly enough for it not to be garbage. In fact, I'm very ready to totally trash this record for being overly dancey generic techno music, but something stops me from that, and that alot of this stuff is catchy. I really don't like the random sounds put in throughout this record. "Radio Silence" actually goes much of nowhere, and another thing that bugs me is that Dolby's voice distortions kind of detract from the song, and they get washed out by the murky synths. I like the female backing vocals somewhat. The wash-out just gets on my nerves! At least it's not formulaic, like "Airwaves"... in fact, I know the guy was probably trying to be a little different with this stuff (although by 1982, it was hard to be different in the world of Synth pop), but alot of this just follows the same pattern of Bridge-Chorus-Bridge-Chorus-Quiet Part-Chorus. It's WAY too predictable! This is catchy, it's not overbearing, but it could have been arranged WAY better. And in my head I could think of better ways to arrange a song like "Airwaves". But these songs aren't just boring techno-babble. Some of them rock! "Flying North" has one of the most dang addictive drum and synth sequences on the album, and the near-angelic chorus "Flying nooooooooooorth"... ok, maybe it was post-processed, but hey, this is synth pop... overproduction is never usually an issue as it is on, say, any Nickelback album. "Europa And The Pirate Twins" is VERY catchy... and rocks too... the song doesn't make very much sense though, but it seems to hit all the spots right. The rootsy "Weightless" shows me that some slow synth pop songs can be downright BORING. "Windpower"'s booming drums simply put up a wall for me in the song, but if you can't appreciate that chorus of "Switch off the mind and let the heart decide..." then you have a way too hard an allergy to synth pop. In contrast, "Commercial Breakup" is simply a brainless, go-nowhere, "upbeat" rocker. "One Of Our Submarines"... simply has an abysmal arrangement... it's almost like he was trying to mix pop with... avantgarde here. What was with that lengthy pointless instrumental part? Just bad bad bad. There are a few good songs on here, but overall it just leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. Well, it's better than most Kraftwerk albums, at least.
Leave A Comment About This Review