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Why I like Curve

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Why I like Curve

Postby Tinman » 11/1/2013, 9:51 am

I listened to curve last night. It was nice, as I haven't really listened to it in a few months. This album seems to get a lot of grief from fans. I've had a lot of time to soak in this CD at this point, and it does hold sentimental value to me... it came out during a very large change in my life, and very much was a soundtrack to what I was experiencing at the time. I was going through some rough shit, and I told the band about how much the album really spoke to me during their poster contest on facebook, and now have an awesome Clumsy poster, center stage in my living room as a result. I want to try and defend why this is a good album though, outside of my own personal connection with it.

A comment by our favorite now-banned board member really got me thinking about the album, and the band. I agree that Curve doesn't deliver everything I hope for from this band, but I do think it's a solid album, and I do enjoy listening to it and singing a long. I think my real tie to the album is that it's the first album since SM that I've liked MORE than the previous album. That's a big deal, I think. Gravity, HIPT, and then BB, for me, was a slow decent, where I felt that each previous album was the stronger than the next. I now have gotten to that point in my life where I accept those albums and can find enjoyment in them... where as many of the die hard fans view them as abominations and simply cannot find any enjoyment. However, I think Curve did a lot. It one upped BB. It showed that the band was willing to allow true creativity back into their music. Yes, I feel like moments on the album could have been more inspiring and artistic, but the album is for the vast majority a really creative and amazing experience. It lacks some punches, but it definitely delivers it's fair share. If another band had released curve, I would still enjoy it. Where as BB I enjoy possibly only because it's OLP. There's a huge difference there. Curve was the band digging into something new that they haven't really touched in a very long time, and for me, it's an indicator of things to come. When listening to urban grind tour recordings, I also feel like the band is in much better shape than in older recordings. Raine's solo tour also saw some amazing moments, such as raine's amazing performance of Innocent. It seems like he's getting more comfortable with the changes we've all known that his biology has gone through in the last few years, and I think he's finally starting to settle in to where he is... Interviews with the man seem to show this too, a sense of serenity and a new level of confidence. Curve is an extension of that... the bands ability to be comfortable with who they are and what they can create.

So, no, curve is not better than albums 2-4, I may actually connect with it better than Naveed, which is saying a whole lot. It holds value as being a concrete album, period. Its further elevated because I truly believe that it is the foundation of great things to come. I think that the band has broken the trend of being sort of lost and uninspired, and whatever #9 has in store, I honestly believe will be an evolution of all of the good things that curve has to offer, taken to the next level. It's the first time in a long time that I've been looking forward to an OLP album rather than praying that it isn't like the previous one. So, I would say, it's a solid album, but it's true value is that it has put the band on a new track, and maybe I'm wrong, but I think this time next year, we'll be hearing some really good stuff coming our way that rides on the shoulders of this new directions.
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Re: Why I like Curve

Postby xjsb125 » 11/1/2013, 2:16 pm

Great post. Strong emotional connection is what makes art endure with an individual. I have a strong emotional tie with SM, and for others it might be Happiness. Good call out on Curve being the first album that truly one ups the previous.
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Re: Why I like Curve

Postby astute_99 » 11/2/2013, 1:23 pm

For me, each album has a strong emotional connection to a different part of my life, and each brings with it different feelings, both good an bad, and nostalgia for some of the things I've lived through and the different iterations of my existence.

Curve came at a time when I really needed an album like that. I had radically changed my life (moving to the other side of the world) and I needed that connection to my roots. Hearing this new stuff from the guys made me feel at once both old and new. I was able to come to terms with my new life while maintaining that feeling of who I used to be at a time where I was very lost emotionally. I was struggling with how I would find comfort living in this place. It made me realize that living in a strange foreign country didn't mean that I had to completely reinvent myself, and I have been able to finally find that evolution within myself to who I was and who I am now.

Heady stuff maybe, but that's how strongly I am associated with the band.

Musically, I also love the point you make about how it was the first record since SM to be better than the previous offering. You hit the nail right on the head on that one. I can't wait for OLP #9, not just to hear what the music will be, but also for the new impact it will have on my life. I know other members of the CM may not share this same sentiment, that perhaps the band and the music doesn't affect their life as much as my own, but I've grown up with OLP and I feel like the music has played a large role in shaping how I perceive the course of my life.
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Re: Why I like Curve

Postby OLPManiac » 11/4/2013, 5:04 pm

I agree with all of you guys! Probably i will go a little bit off topic but i want to tell that for me all OLP's music is something that i'm emotially connected in a great way..also with the not amazing albums like HiPT or Burn Burn. I knew OLP in the 2005 after listening Chris Benoit's entry theme...and then after some months i decided to listen all the albums from "that band" that was unknown in Italy. Well after that listening i established an emotional link with all their music that have helped me in a lot of hard situation that i've been (i'm only 22 then there was probably only young's problems). But since these days i can't stay a day without listening to OLP! I didn't skip any song i listen to all albums from the start to finish also if this is not great (like HiPT for example) because i'm able to get the best also from that types of song...especially from the lyrics of Raine that are amazing! OLP's songs took me in another world without bad thoughts! I don't know if this can be a strange thing! For me is amazing! Oh and last but not least OLP is the band that took me to rock music, i liked the post-grunge style of the first five album and then i explored some others amazing bands like Stone Temple Pilots, Foo Fighters and 3 Doors Down ecc.. and i still love the band also if it's really far away from the old post grunge days!
I lived only two album in first person and they are Burn Burn and Curve. I remember that BB came out when i was in Spain during a stage with school and i remember that my first thoughts when i came back to the hotel was to go at the PC and listen the songs on Youtube (i'm crazy i know), then after the return to Italy i bought the Deluxe Version and i loved a lot in the first weeks...but after some months i realized that the album was nothing special and maybe it was better only than HiPT and maybe Gravity (thanks to songs like Paper Moon, Escape Artist, Monkey Brains and Dreamland and Refuge).
With Curve instead, i have got a great emotional connection with it because it came out in a period when i need something to really escape from some problems and its greatness help me a lot! Besides is an album that makes me really near to the band because i talked with Raine after the Heavyweight's leak and he told to me a lot of beautiful words and also gives me a gift! In this album for me there are some songs that are hands down milestones in OLP's history (If This Is It, Rabbits(one of the greates song of all time for me) Find Our Way, Heavyweight...). Well i will stop before i will get banned for OT! hahahah
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Re: Why I like Curve

Postby Tinman » 11/5/2013, 9:00 am

Yeah, OLP has always been a sound track to my life. My older sister got me into them when I was a kid, and I've always liked them. Gravity made my interest waver, and HIPT made me walk. I didn't even know BB had been released, and heard it a year or so later and just kinda hung my head. At that point I started researching what happened to the the band, their history, listening to new live shows (Where Raines voice first started changing), and basically got very into govtschemes mentality. Their first 4 albums started to speak to me again though, and I kinda had a renewed spark of interest in the band, with a twist of discontent with the last 10 years of their music. Then they started posting recording the Curve teaser clips, and I got really drawn back in.

For me, Curve came at a really good time. I've been dealing with depression for as long as I can remember, and last year I decided to start making changes in my life life. I went to israel for 2 weeks, and it was a completely life changing experience, and when I got home, I got "Change" in hebrew tattooed on my arm to remind myself to keep trying to make the changes in my life that would allow me to live happily. Curve kinda fit right in with how I was feeling, and the themes matched up with where I was mentally... Change, the whole boxing metaphor to keep trying.

I think it's a powerful album, and it came out at just the right time for me. OLP seems to have done that a lot. My sister was getting sober from a drinking problem, and the day she decided to quit for good was the day Spiritual Machines came out. I've since been able to go back to the last 10 years of the bands music, and I can listen to the albums through without skipping, and I enjoy them, but it took me just kinda learning to accept that they are what they are, and I can chose to like them or not... that's basically the key to living happy to. But it certainly is better then you don't have to accept something, when it just works for you, and Curve does that for me. I didn't have to convince myself of anything, it was just good, and I like this direction for OLP far more than the directions they've been taking for a while now. I'm pretty excited to hear what they come out with on #9, because I can't see them disappointing me. I will either get a Curve Part 2, which I would be fine with, or I will get something ever better, which I'm more than fine with.
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