So, what have you been listening to lately?

[westen44]

Being the bass player for Epica is pretty impressive.

[Basvarken]

It is.
He's great bass player, He even has his own signature Dingwall bass.

https://dingwallguitars.com/d-roc-hellboy-ltd-edition

[uwe]

Sure I know Epica, have a few CDs, wish they would finally give up on the cookie monster vocals they occasionally still do, they grate in my ears.

I can take this "diet goth/semi-operatic/chick singer in long gowns with chugging metal rhythm guitars and lots of kitsch neo-classical piano for a symphonic effect" in moderate doses, mixing the DNAs of Kate Bush and Metallica so to say. Let's face it, a lot of those chorus parts wouldn't go amiss in the Eurovision Song Contest (as would the visual presentation), they are "Schlager" as we would say in Germany, with a heavy metal-citing backing. Still, with all the other crap music around, this stuff is still at least reasonably handmade and performed live.

Margarita's version of my countrymen's other über-ballad (besides Winds of Change of course) is nice, more so for the piano arrangement than her not very adventurous vocal performance on this particular track. That song was never written on or meant for piano, but her (?) piano arrangement captures it well.

I have to share this: I just had an unsettling experience ... I'm sitting in the office typing this.  A hard disc player with 70.000 tracks is playing on random behind me. It is not - so at least I believed - in any way connected with my laptop I'm using right now. Yet while I am writing this, the random selection picks out the Scorpion's original Still Loving You and plays it (out of 70.000 songs!); the exact same song I only heard a minute before when I checked on the Margarita version Michael had posted! THEY ARE WATCHING US !!!



No doubt another aftereffect from that Bill Gates-spawned Corona booster shot I've received ...

We've taken too much for granted
And all the time it had grown
From techno seeds we first planted
Evolved a mind of its own

[Basvarken]

Let's face it, a lot of those chorus parts wouldn't go amiss in the Eurovision Song Contest (as would the visual presentation), they are "Schlager" as we would say in Germany, with a heavy metal-citing backing.

Haha, I call it Efteling-metal.
Efteling is a fairytale fairground in The Netherlands.
You couldn't find a better way to torture me than to drag me around this place all day (or Disneyworld, Phantasialand etc).

A hard disc player with 70.000 tracks is playing on random behind me. It is not - so at least I believed - in any way connected with my laptop I'm using right now. Yet while I am writing this, the random selection picks out the Scorpion's original Still Loving You and plays it (out of 70.000 songs!); the exact same song I only heard a minute before when I checked on the Margarita version Michael had posted! THEY ARE WATCHING US !!!

Well, it IS your playlist Uwe.
Would never happen on mine 

[wellREDman]

They never did the track, but an 80ies act like The Sisters of Mercy would have done a better job with it I think.

They actually did, it was a staple of their early live set.



the sisters actually started out as a cover band, their whole schtick was to do ridiculously overblown ironic versions of oft covered songs,

some of us think that was when they were at their best

[westen44]

It is.
He's great bass player, He even has his own signature Dingwall bass.

https://dingwallguitars.com/d-roc-hellboy-ltd-edition

I like the way that bass looks.  Also, obviously, he is very good. 

[westen44]

Sure I know Epica, have a few CDs, wish they would finally give up on the cookie monster vocals they occasionally still do, they grate in my ears.

I can take this "diet goth/semi-operatic/chick singer in long gowns with chugging metal rhythm guitars and lots of kitsch neo-classical piano for a symphonic effect" in moderate doses, mixing the DNAs of Kate Bush and Metallica so to say. Let's face it, a lot of those chorus parts wouldn't go amiss in the Eurovision Song Contest (as would the visual presentation), they are "Schlager" as we would say in Germany, with a heavy metal-citing backing. Still, with all the other crap music around, this stuff is still at least reasonably handmade and performed live.

Margarita's version of my countrymen's other über-ballad (besides Winds of Change of course) is nice, more so for the piano arrangement than her not very adventurous vocal performance on this particular track. That song was never written on or meant for piano, but her (?) piano arrangement captures it well.

I have to share this: I just had an unsettling experience ... I'm sitting in the office typing this.  A hard disc player with 70.000 tracks is playing on random behind me. It is not - so at least I believed - in any way connected with my laptop I'm using right now. Yet while I am writing this, the random selection picks out the Scorpion's original Still Loving You and plays it (out of 70.000 songs!); the exact same song I only heard a minute before when I checked on the Margarita version Michael had posted! THEY ARE WATCHING US !!!



No doubt another aftereffect from that Bill Gates-spawned Corona booster shot I've received ...

We've taken too much for granted
And all the time it had grown
From techno seeds we first planted
Evolved a mind of its own

Especially after watching that video, it became apparent to me that Margarita does have a few doubts about her singing.  I agree that the Scorpions cover was a little lacking.  But that was years ago and she has since improved.  With her new producer helping her develop her voice, I have a feeling the best is yet to come.

In regard to being watched, it's possible Rockwell (as corny as it may sound now) may have been way ahead of us all years ago. 

[uwe]

They actually did, it was a staple of their early live set.

Huh, now wasn't I on to something here!

[slinkp]

Did I post this already?
I don't usually go for much fusion, but there is so much joy and life in the keyboard/drums interaction, especially after about 5 minutes in, that I love this and come back to it periodically.
One of these days I'll get around to watching the entire live DVD / documentary that this comes from:

[Granny Gremlin]

Huh, now wasn't I on to something here!

And that was before Eldrich's incessant use of  gaggles of black backup singers no less.

[uwe]

I would imagine that the fact that 'This Corrosion' was lavishly produced by Jim Steinman und 'More' even co-written AND produced by the same Meatloaf mastermind did nothing to endear those tracks to you, Jake!  You never struck me as overly appreciative of Steinman's neo-Phil Spector approach of more is more = always better.

[Granny Gremlin]

My problem with Meatloaf was never the production.  More is pretty overwrought even by ironic standards (not a bad song though).  This Corrosion slightly less so (on both counts). Him having only produced that single track (Corrosion) off of Floodland (ignoring a 1/3rd prod credit on Dominion) actually makes sense - Lucieta My Reflection doesn't have half the cheese elements in it (like seriously the "gimmie the ring," "sing!" and shitty choir backup vocals are cringey AF - even 10 year ole me felt that, along with the horrible keyboard bits and that intro - the only good bit is the chorus.... which is probably why it's 70% of the song).  I know harpsichord and choral backups are literally gothic, but hey now, hey now now.

His biggest indictment is being fired by Def Leopard (LOL).  And that's despite being totally behind the times all throughout the 80s, with the Sisters being a weird outlier that only makes sense if you understand what wellREDman said above. Either he was in on the joke or more likely it was much lower budget than Bat Out of Hell (like they couldn't afford him for the whole record) so only qualified for the lowest tier in the Service Level Agreement. 

I'll leave you with a little gift though, which I suspect is all the kinds of wrong you like ;P

[uwe]

"His biggest indictment is being fired by Def Leopard (LOL)."

I actually regret that we don't have a Steinman-produced Hysteria. I really dug the predecessor, the likewise Mutt Lange-produced Pyromania which still had the edge and grit of youth, but Hysteria was produced to death by Lange. It sounded then and sounds today totally lifeless to me. IMHO, the Leps chickened out without their mastermind and had a knee jerk reaction dumping Steinman as a producer. I'm not saying that Steinman would have done an immaculate job, the result would have more likely been tragically flawed, but it would have been at least interesting. In an alternative universe, I would have imagined a Bob Ezrin'esque outcome.

Conventional wisdom has it that Steinman produced Bat Out Of Hell. He didn't, Todd Rundgren did (as Joe Elliott observed at the time). Steinman wasn't an engineer-producer, but a musical director (apart from being a songwriter), that approach didn't work for the Leps who wanted their best possible performances down on tape/hard disk with the best possible sound (Steinman wanted them to get something down, perfect or not, that "felt right" initially and work from there, layer for layer).

In contrast, Mutt Lange's code of conduct is perfection and sonic separation, he can be sparse (remember that this is also the man behind AC/DC's Highway to Hell and Back in Black albums) or he can be lavish, but he's never cluttered (Steinman can be, but then his musical taste is  piano-driven, Lange produces chiefly drum and guitar sounds).

PS: I really like Diane's version, thanks!

[Dave W]

[uwe]

You can hear in some of that where the early Allman Brothers were coming from.