The man The voice The guitar
A wise record label manager would normally pick up maybe not the best track off an album, but a catchy one, with the most commercial potential, even if it is evident it is not the best musical effort and/or does not represent other contents of an album, which is usually different and/or too complex for a radio-friendly tune. Often an artist (including Chris himself in the past) was directly asked by his label to compose a special song for a single release. The Road Ahead is actually catchy but I do hope the rest of the album is not alike.tobi777 wrote:I'd like to come back to the thoughts about the first single we heard: I was confused about the choice. Normally the record company chooses the strongest track - if the other eleven songs are on a par with this song or even inferior than I already regret my pre-order...
Yeah, exactly, this is what puzzles me much, really. There is not much sense in a kind of deception like with Knoplfer's "Beryl" that I already mention here as the brightest exapmle. Had the single been "good old Chris" and the rest of the album like his latest works (like it was with Chance of Love), it would have been very bad, but at least make sense.tobi777 wrote:The record company boasted about this album as a kind of time travel back to the "good old Rea" - but this song sounds like the stuff he's been doin' for the last couple of years. Why should a record company choose just this tune? I don't get it.
Yeah, the same as with his live sets of the 2010s - everything from Chris became kind of blueprints-sampled.tobi777 wrote:I wholeheartedly agree with Munich-1983: the lyrics are also very generic and have little to do with the profundity of the old songs and this song is not comparable to old compositions that showed Chris' enormous abilities in songwriting craft. It seems he just took a kind of blueprint and created another song from this mould - even the guitar solo is a cliché he kind of overused.
Partly kidding, but I think many people in whose head this song stucks, would sing a line "gimme The Road to Hell, uhu..." instead of "give me the road ahead" - maybe this was the point of such single release?..tobi777 wrote:I've listened to the song about a dozen times and still I'm underwhelmed and disappointed.
Good joke, actually, and makes sense if we dig deeper, but I really hope BMG managers had enough respect of themselves to ask for a live demo session like it was with Warner in late 80s and 90s instead of listening to a short sample on the phone to make decision about the album.MRB wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Uw-bAxe8ZY there is 20 seconds of "old Rea style", from 1.55 to 2.15, wonder if record company people have only heard short samples of songs and that is why they are marketing album as old Rea style???
Hi Tobias, I tend to agree with you, and even start to think that the album might be actually the blues project Chris spoke about in an interview in Spring 2016, just marketed in a way to get sold, but indeed, this would be so cynical. I would not be much suprised, though. Maybe Chris and his management got BMG label deceived too, or have and inside man over there...tobi777 wrote:Maybe the marketing specialists and executives of the record company thought that many fans would love a return to the old days and therefore promoted this back to the roots talk in order to make more money with the new album - and win back old fans that had turned their back because the last albums were too bluesy for them (or too badly produced or whatever). So maybe they didn't really care of the album itself and its style - and just because someone wrote this stuff on the website the record doesn't neccessarily have to be a step in another direction. Maybe I'm wrong and they are not that cynical and deceiving - but who knows...
Maybe it is not the release format that makes difference but the fact that Chris is not doing another soundtrack at his home studio, but "normal" songs with a band in Metropolis, which they can describe as his old style opposed to self-recorded non-commercial film material. That actually makes sense, but these old photos on the cover and poster... They are definitely misleading, accopmapnied by the press release making people believe Chris is back to 80s roots... Looks like a kind of deliberate deception, indeed.MRB wrote:andrew fischer liked jokes, here is another one, maybe that is the old Rea to record company that release is simple album without earbook
andrew fischer wrote:Maybe it is not the release format that makes difference but the fact that Chris is not doing another soundtrack at his home studio, but "normal" songs with a band in Metropolis, which they can describe as his old style opposed to self-recorded non-commercial film material. That actually makes sense, but these old photos on the cover and poster... They are definitely misleading, accopmapnied by the press release making people believe Chris is back to 80s roots... Looks like a kind of deliberate deception, indeed.MRB wrote:andrew fischer liked jokes, here is another one, maybe that is the old Rea to record company that release is simple album without earbook
ann268 wrote:Just a thought, the reason we know nothing yet about the new album is because Chris doesn't promote it outside the Social Media, one thing he seems to have negotiated with BMG.
And which sucks I think. I like some promotion.
Anneke
andrew fischer wrote:Just another thought: as Neil Drinkwater is told to stay within the band, and Max Middleton most likely will not join in, even though the other members of "The Fireflies" (Chris's/Max's instrumental band) - Robert and Martin - do join in, it is quite likely there is no real turning back to the genuine old style, which was to a considerable degree on Max's shoulders as co-arranger and key player, and much more likely the recent years (2007-17) style will remain, which has been much driven by Neil's vision on arranging and synths sound (which I do not like, while some others praise it).
I recall 2012 tour with both Max and Neil within the band and while Neil was usual himself, Max seemed very restrained and "out of league", providing only background keyboards and some rare and short solos, while being once the leader of the band (after Chris).
Endless permutations of basically the same three songs can't be what Chris really wants. Cheap production and uninspired arrangements neither.MRB wrote:in the end, Chris is just making music the way he wants, just might be that he do not sign record company promotion about being "The old style of Rea", it's just his music done in year 2017 the way he wants.