Thursday, December 22, 2005
Speaking of Queensryche (Because We Were, You Know)
Okay, so late-80’s metal fans could all probably agree that Operation: Mindcrime was the best of the Ryche--everything after that was lame and everything before wasn’t as well developed. So, Mindcrime is their best (and anyone who disagrees with me is a fascist).
Now, what is the best song on the album?
It could be “Spreading the Disease” with its filth and anger, but the spoken word portion pushes perilously close to cheesy. It could be “Breaking the Silence” with Tate’s soaring vocals and angsty lyrics. But, no, there are better songs here. “Eyes of a Stranger” is probably the sentimental favorite, but I’m not fond of sentimental favorites, even if they are reminiscent of Pink Floyd in some ways.
It could be “I Don’t Believe in Love"--and if teen girls had anything to say about it, this would be the end of the list. Lucky for you, I’m a hypercritical old guy who realizes that the best song on any heavy metal album can’t be the ballad. Even if it’s a really good ballad and maybe not quite as ballad-y as something from posers like White Lion or Bon Jovi.
No, the way I see it, it comes down to “The Needle Lies” and “Speak"--which is to say, making a choice between these two is tough. “The Needle Lies” was my favorite for a long time. It was the fastest, hardest song on offer, and that beat still grabs my attention. In fact, if you walked into my office while I was listening to this one, you’d find me nodding along with the song, mumbling the words--sort of embarrassed--"carved my cure with the blade that left me in scars/ now every time I’m weak words scream from my arm.” Oh, yeah.
The vocals on “Speak” are better, though--in fact, some of the best that the album has to offer. The drums (with just the right hint of cowbell (heh)) and the guitar work are superb examples of the 80’s heavy metal aesthetic. But the lyrics dive down into some stereotypical “boy, don’t rich people suck since they control the country and rape the poor” kind of philosophy that is harder to overlook the older I get.
Which leaves me with “The Needle Lies” as the best song on Queensryche’s best album.
(Although, damned if the ten-minute epic “Suite Sister Mary” doesn’t just cry out for recognition.)
None of which explains why the country has gone batty over Bush having the NSA perform signal intelligence duites sans warrants. Until this last week, there seemed to be an accepted and rather liberal concept of the necessity of secretly collecting electronic intelligence in times of war. Presidents, with an obligation to provide for national security, have historically had quite a bit of leeway in deciding how to collect intelligence from “agents of a foreign power"--in fact, I would suspect that most Americans have always expected the President (any American President) to have secret programs for collecting signal intelligence from belligerent foreign powers (including terrorists) that have nothing to do with needing warrants.
I would go further and suggest that most Americans would see that as a reasonable activity and would understand the distinction between the need to gather warrants for criminal investigations but not for military and national security operations. Most Americans aren’t all Americans, I realize, and some dissent is to be expected.
But how many people are really surprised that an American President (following Sep. 11th) instituted a secret program to collect signal intelligence from suspected terrorists and their contacts? Not me.
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Comments & Trackbacks
First, and only because someone has to:
“More cowbell!”
Second, and only because I want to, not necessarily because it’s true*:
Late-80s metal is clearly inferior to real metal—Black Sabbath’s NIB, Deep Purple’s Machinehead, BOC**’s Secret Treaties (any album with an Me-262 on the front has an inherent advantage).
None of which has anything to do with NSA sigint either. I don’t see how this is worse in any way than the pervasive censorship of communication into and out of the country during previous wars. It is, if anything, far less intrusive.
BTW, you might want to suggest a neck-brace in the future. 8-)
* It is, but that’s not why I make the statement here.
** Yes, they used the dreaded metal umlaut; yes, it was lame. At least they weren’t the 852nd band to do it.
Oh, BTW:
If you’re going to open discussions about metal bands, you should really turn on the ability to use the .html umlauted vowel entities. It helps when discussing German physicists, too.
I personally have to go with Eyes of a Stranger. It displays Geoff Yaye’s` increidble vocal range and the lyrics are the best on the album IMO.
Heh. If I knew how to turn on that ability, I would do it just for the all-important superfluous metal umlaut. Although I would never use it--it’s too much of a pain in the butt for a typist as bad as I am.
For the record, I do have to agree with the obvious superiority of Sabbath’s Nativity, but Deep Purple just never roused my interest. I liked 80’s metal until it morphed into 80’s hair metal. I embraced the so-called grunge movement in part because it utterly killed hair metal. Green River be praised.
PS- I’m awfully glad that someone actually read all the way down to the NSA stuff. Wasn’t sure anyone would get there.
Trench, Geoff has an amazing voice. He coulda been an opera singer, I tell you.
I saw them a few years back in Seattle, and he still hit all the notes.
I saw them in Philly in ‘91 when they were doing all of Mindcrime live. Would have been the best concert I ever saw if it wasn’t for the fact that they closed with
Silent Lucidity.
I have all sorts of mixed feelings about hair metal vs metal.
I mean, was Tesla “hair metal”? Dokken?
Winger has a suprising amount of sophistication in their songs when you get past “17” and “Madelaine”.
I like all of them.
But I could never get into Motley Crue, Poison…
The jazz-classical-fusion influence of early Scorpions makes it worth hunting up their old albums. When they had Uli Roth vice Mathias Jabs…
I, too, loved grunge when it came in, partly just for the emotion and heavy guitar, but mostly because you didn’t have to be a castrato to sing it. Us Bass/Baritones rather hated it when female-voiced pipsqueaks ruled the airwaves, but what can you do?
Personally, I think Global Warming is to blame for the decline of Queensryche, and probably for the wiretapping, too. However, when reached for comment on the decline of Queensryche, a spokesman for John Kerry said his statement had been taken out of context and blamed the right-wing smear merchants at Fox News.
"Wasn’t sure anyone would get there.”
I thought your speech was just chilled by the trolls (or the NSA?) enough to hide the substantive current events stuff. Far be it from me to break your cover. (Oops!)
“female-voiced pipsqueaks”
Hey, now, I’m a tenor. It’s not my fault that your range is so limited that you can’t sing lead. Everyone has a cross to bear; suck it up and soldier*.
* Mixed cliches brought to you by the Pastafarian Christmahannukwanzivus alliance. Give generously at your local Olive Garden.
Oh, sure, I can use my falsetto, and I did. But I didn’t have to like it.
Part of the unintentional humor of metal bands was that they wanted the high voices, right? So you get dwarfs like Udo Dirkschneider, Klaus Meine, and Ronnie James Dio fronting bands, trying to look threatening, but looking like about the only thing they could endanger is a Stonehenge built to Nigel’s confused specifications.
Then again, LOTS of the inspiration for Spinal Tap came from the Scorpions, it seems.
Mention the one named Dio in a negative light and you shall incur my wrath. Think of it as talking bad about Mark whatshisname to our gracious host. *lol*
Yeah, Dio and Udo were short but at least they had a unique vocal sound that didn’t sound like everyone else.
And I thought Spinal Tap was based more on the original Black Sabbath.
”...and I did. But I didn’t have to like it.”
Much better. Intentionally inflicting pain (even if, perhaps especially if, only psychic pain) on yourself is entirely in the metal ethos.
Also jazz.
Smell the Glove cover always seemed to me to be based on the Scorpion’s Animal Magnetism cover art. The whole “popular in Japan” thing definitely seemed to be lifted from the Scorpions’ history.
But I’ll concede that they took little bits from every bands’ less-fortunate moments, I’m sure. Maybe I’m just left with the impression that an inordinate amount of stories came from the Scorpions because I saw the MTV documentary on the Scorpions back when the song “Still Loving You” was the huge hit released with their Greatest Hits album, which came right on the heels of “Blackout”, if I remember correctly.
Yeah, Dio and Udo were short but at least they had a unique vocal sound that didn’t sound like everyone else.
Well, I suspect nailing live cats to the floorboards would also have a unique sound, but I’m not going to go so far as to say it would be good.
Re: best song on Mindcrime. I’d go with your two choices, although I’d probably lean more toward “Speak.” “Suite Sister Mary” is good so long as you can avoid picturing any Meatloaf-esque dramatics when the woman is singing.
The problem with getting into a conversation this late is that you have WAY too much to say. I’ll just go straight to “Mindcrmie” instead. After hearing about the upcomming (dreaded?) “Mindcrime 2” the other day, I busted out the “Mindcrime” CD. So far I’ve only listened to the whole disc, start-to-finish, once. I have listened to “Mary” and “Needle”, back to back, probably 10 times. Those two songs together represent the pinnavle of what metal once was.
Metal used to be a beautiful thing.
It still is if you know where to look. I highly recommend “The Glorious Burden” by Iced Earth.
I’ve moved on. It’s just not the same anymore.
Metal? I have really tried, honestly, and I just. don’t. get. it.
One of my co-workers just came in to ask me what I was playing. He’s a drummer in a Christian band--quite a bit younger than me and a hell of a nice guy--and he has a soft spot in his heart for 80’s metal. I was playing “Speak” and he said he’ll be picking up a copy of Mindcrime over the Christmas break.
I’ve one my good deed for the year.
News Flash:
The one named DIO is playing Doctor X on mindcrime 2
I was trying to see if they had lists of songs played because whe I saw them cupla years ago with Maiden, they played a Rainbow song that I cannot get out of my head. Thats when I heard.
Suite sister Mary, I love it when a metal song plays like a opera.
But the best Ryche song? Take hold of the flame, Dream in infrared deserves mention. Boy they used to put out good music.
As far as intercepting phone calls from known Al quada types, that is something that they SHOULD do. Only people that are clawing at opportunities to hammer this administration and finding reasons to support their rancorous dislike of dubya care. The rest are like: well duh?
And then I read down the page and find out that you already know that
Oh, you’re worried about Mindcrime 2 possibly sucking?
Oh ye of little faith.
Listen and enjoy the first single . . .
http://www.savefile.com/files.php?fid=5497610
Still worried, or looking forward like the rest of us?
I listened: Too much “Tribes” and not enough “Mindcrime”
My vote goes to it sucking.
I thought too much “Q2K” and not enough “Mindcrime”.
I second that sucking....wait...that didn’t sound right.
[simon] If I were to be completely honest… [/simon]
Seriously, I was underwhelmed by the single. I don’t think it’s particularly good--it sounds like a lifeless reject from the original Mindcrime. Buy, hey, the rest of it could be brilliant.
I know someone who has a review copy, and I’m looking forward to seeing what he has to say about the thing.