I've been thinking a lot about Our Lady Peace lately. I used to be a HUGE fan a couple of years ago, then I started enjoying heavy metal and progressive rock, so I kind of stopped listening to OLP for a while, but luckly I stared listneing ot them all over again, I guess you can tell, cause I'm always online at the HUB (as olponline) and I've been posting a lot here.
But I get really sad when I see what OLP is becoming. They really aren't the same band they used to be... Spiritual Machines was certainly their best work. Suddenly Mike Turner leaves the band, and we have a new guitarist, then a new producer. They just dumped what was OLP's second brain, Arnold Lanni.
From what I hear the band saying on interviews, they keep saying they are happy like they've never been before, but to be honest I just can't believe it. Just listen to old OLP and compare them to Gravity OLP, how can THIS be the OLP they've always wanted to be?
They've always made relativly complex music such as Hello Oskar, One Man Army, Stealing Babies, Wonderful Future...
How can a band suddenly change from such deep complex music/lyrics to things such as Innocent, Do You Like It, Story About A Girl with poor lyrics and musical structures...
Whenever I think of this, I get really sad.
My first disappointment begain with the cover for Gravity, when I first saw it I almost punched a wall... That is one of the worse covers I've ever seen. I know that before Gravity they had Spiritual Machines, a quite complex and heavy album in terms of subject, but one of the most original videos out there such as In Repair, great artwork by Oli... and now ridiculous MTV type of videos where Raine tries to be all sexy (in SOT video)... such as SOT and Innocent... I don't even have to say a word about the cover of Gravity.
Well, now they come up with this Live album, which was another disappointment, specially because it's got only 14 tracks... come on, how can a band like OLP who has 5 studio albuns make a live album, which has been expected for ages, with only 14 tracks... that is SO damn sad.
To be honest, I'm very pessimistic about their album #6. I'm afraid of what Bob Rock might do with the band (if they pick him as their producer). And also I don't know what exacly Steve will add in terms of song writting and musical structure...
I heard Our Time Is Fading, and I got so happy. In my opinion, it's far superior than the stuff in Gravity... and Not Afraid was alright, not that impressive.
It's not that I don't want OLP to change, and that I think they should remain the band from Clumsy or Happiness, or Spiritual Machines, no it's not that... I just don't like their change, and the thing is that they can't make every single fan happy. And they actually changed a lot from Happiness... to Spiritual Machines, huge amazing change.
Sellout? Well... I guess I could use that term. They seemed to have had this desire of being big in the US for ages, and I think that by taking the path they took with Gravity, they're going on the right way.
I know it's bad comparing bands, but I'm gonna do it anyway. You can see Matt Good for example, he seems to be making the type of music he's always wanted to make, without changing as much as OLP, in terms of sort of selling souls to record companies. You can't deny that OLP is in the hands of record companies.
I think I've said enough.
Some will agree with me whilst others won't.
Please, discuss.
Cheers.
