My take on Where Are You?

Teedus · Post by **Teedus** » 7/9/2005, 12:31 pm

Interesting.

What about Sorry? Not Enough and Sell My Soul? Those were really good.

NCdudeN2K4 · Post by **NCdudeN2K4** » 7/9/2005, 1:24 pm

Wow..Story about a girl..Mike really is a genius. That's the worst song on the record..along with Made of Steel..only two songs on the album I'm not a real big fan of. The great bands are always changing..you might not like the direction..but in order to survive, bands have to evolve. I think the lyrics are strong point on Gravity..very focused.

RockOn1075 · Post by **RockOn1075** » 7/9/2005, 1:51 pm

teedus18 wrote:Bob Rock didn't kill OLP. I love the new sounds he's giving the band and he's not really killing the lyrics, or dumbing them down. Gravity had many songs with really good lyrics.

-Sorry
-Bring Back the Sun
-A Story About a Girl

This song, Where Are You? Is really good. Sure it's got minimal lyrics, but my God is it strong. It's powerful and well thought out/mixed.

Good job from me.

If the lyrics arent dumbed down then what are they? The lyrics now are just do deliberately simple, as compared to the rest of the OLP catalog. As for the 3 songs you mentioned they are very good songs. The only problem I had with Gravity was that it just wasnt as good as the rest of their albums. Im not going to knock anyone for liking the new song at all. But it is far from powerful. I felt nothing when i heard it. Go listen to Theif, Automatic Flowers, Naveed ect. and then you hear some power. Bob Rock waters bands down to the point that they arent as good as they once were. Thanks for reading.

RockOn1075 · Post by **RockOn1075** » 7/9/2005, 2:08 pm

Rusty wrote:
RockOn1075 wrote:Im very dissapointed in the new song. I couldent believe it was OLP when I heard it. To be honest its a complete piece of crap. It sounds like they took it from the good charlotte reject vault. Not my thing. They used to have great music a unique sound and well thought out lyrics. They have come to this? I think it has alot to do with Bob Rocks influence. He kills bands. He did it to Tea Party and Metallica too. Im going on a tangent for my first post here LOL

I'm not a fan of Bob Rock myself, and I've been known to bash him many a time, but he does what the band wants. Both OLP and Metallica wanted to go in a new direction and Bob Rock took them in that direction. They told him what they wanted to be done, and he did it. It's not like he said "well things are going great for you, so I feel that you should go this way instead." The band's decided to go in that direction. Also it is the band that has the final say on their music. If they don't like it, they change it. If they are happy, they leave it. Some bands are content to follow the same path throughout their musical careers, while others get bored, and want a change. Fans get bored as well, and sometimes enjoy a change in sound. Remember that they do try to keep up with the changing times as well.

Sorry. I know alot of OLP fans that werent bored with their music whatsoever. And I dont want to sit here and bash them because I still like them very much. It took me a couple listens of Gravity before I really liked it. Most of it anyway. Of course the band has say on what the finsihed product will be. I will never wrong a band for wanting to experiment or go in a different direction. But Bob Rock has an influence thats obvious. Just listen to it in the other bands hes produced. He doesnt make them better. The music is alot less intense and less mature. A bigtime producer such has him will have it a certain way. He has alot of say.

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » 7/9/2005, 2:17 pm

That's true, I'll admit he waters it all down a lot. But he really does try. For example with Metallica he tried a bunch of different methods with them so they could figure out what they wanted. St. Anger turned out the band was hoping it would. As for OLP, Gravity was the first album I heard and I liked it, so that drew me in. In fact St. Anger was the first Metallica album I heard as well, which got me into them. :lol:

Hope · Post by **Hope** » 7/9/2005, 2:21 pm

RockOn1075 wrote:The only problem I had with Gravity was that it just wasnt as good as the rest of their albums. Im not going to knock anyone for liking the new song at all. But it is far from powerful. I felt nothing when i heard it. Go listen to Theif, Automatic Flowers, Naveed ect. and then you hear some power. Bob Rock waters bands down to the point that they arent as good as they once were. Thanks for reading.

yeah i have to agree. gravity + postgravity stuff aren't stuff that i would barf over (for most part), but they are not what drew me to olp, and i dont feel any inspiration from them either. they are just... meh.

Illusion · Post by **Illusion** » 7/9/2005, 2:34 pm

Don't judge the new album entirely on Where Are You.

OLP has always released one shallow, mainstream song with all of their new albums. With Spiritual Machines they had "Life", with Gravity they released "Innocent" and now they're releasing "Where Are You".

Nevertheless, I happen to enjoy "Where Are You", and I think that it's a good way to start of their new album. But then again, I liked "Life" and "Innocent" as well (lol, maybe I just have an immature taste in music).

Hope · Post by **Hope** » 7/9/2005, 2:36 pm

i liked life and innocent too, in the beginning, but i don't like Where Are You at all. if anything, i'd prefer the very first version of Best Day that we heard in the holiday greeting.

Random Name · Post by **Random Name** » 7/9/2005, 3:10 pm

*ahem*

LEAVE THE POOR HORSE ALONE!

afealicious · Post by **afealicious** » 7/9/2005, 5:07 pm

RockOn1075 wrote:The only problem I had with Gravity was that it just wasnt as good as the rest of their albums. Im not going to knock anyone for liking the new song at all. But it is far from powerful. I felt nothing when i heard it. Go listen to Theif, Automatic Flowers, Naveed ect. and then you hear some power. Bob Rock waters bands down to the point that they arent as good as they once were. Thanks for reading.

it all depends on how you feel power though. i know a lot of people today who feel "power" as anything that sounds rough and driving. it's something they feel on the outside, and they like it, because it's nice and melodic and that is what their ear is used to. however most people on this board feel "power" in the complexity of olp's lyrics, the taste of paranoia and dissonance in raine's trademark howl, the overlapping of the different sounds that each band member contributes, etc.

so i guess the people who like all this "watering down" are people who listen to music for that bold and brash sense of power that you can't really dissect, but makes you feel good on the outside.

Hope wrote:yeah i have to agree. gravity + postgravity stuff aren't stuff that i would barf over (for most part), but they are not what drew me to olp, and i dont feel any inspiration from them either. they are just... meh.

in my case, gravity songs were what first drew me into olp. i used to be an ear candy listener, and i liked whatever music i felt and touched and locked onto right away--basically catchy, radio-friendly tunes. i hated clumsy. the sounds were just so foreign. but then i started giving the earlier albums a better listen and i my respect for gravity began to deteriorate as i saw just what made olp olp in the earlier days.

to summarize...some people like musical candy because it's sweet, while most of us on the cm are just sick of too much sugar, and have also acquired a taste for things a little more...exotic. that's all.

Brooklin Matt · Post by **Brooklin Matt** » 7/10/2005, 1:18 am

i like that argument afealicious. Well put.

And Hope, I feel the exact same way about the radio friendly trio (Where Are You, Innocent, Life)

nikki4982 · Post by **nikki4982** » 7/10/2005, 2:12 am

Furious George wrote:I was one of the original mods but then they kicked me out without every explaining why...

Probably because you weren't posting. Most mods that've been dropped were dropped because they disappeared.

Rusty wrote:In fact St. Anger was the first Metallica album I heard as well, which got me into them.

You've really gotta stop admitting to that, Rusty. :lol:

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » 7/10/2005, 7:13 am

But it's such a lovely ice breaker......for other people.

nelison · Post by **nelison** » 7/10/2005, 8:06 am

The progression towards simple lyrics and songs started on SM. There are a couple songs on there that would have fit in well on Gravity (namely RBY, Made to heal and Life just to name a few). Bands go to Bob rock when they want to produce mainstream hits. Very few bands that go to Rock ever come out of the studio with an album that doesn't produce a hit or two. My take on this is that the band was looking for more mainstream success in the states around 2001 especially after seeing a progressive album in terms of lyrics and sound got them no where when Happiness came out. Money and success are important things, especially in the music industry.

ya that's my take on the dead horse...

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named · Post by **He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named** » 7/10/2005, 9:40 am

J-Neli wrote:The progression towards simple lyrics and songs started on SM. There are a couple songs on there that would have fit in well on Gravity (namely RBY, Made to heal and Life just to name a few). Bands go to Bob rock when they want to produce mainstream hits. Very few bands that go to Rock ever come out of the studio with an album that doesn't produce a hit or two. My take on this is that the band was looking for more mainstream success in the states around 2001 especially after seeing a progressive album in terms of lyrics and sound got them no where when Happiness came out. Money and success are important things, especially in the music industry.

ya that's my take on the dead horse...

I think one of the world's biggest mysteries is why Spiritual Machines was NOT huge. I listen to that record and I honestly try to figure out why. It's a pop masterpiece, in my opinion. The songs are catchy but the band never sacrificed an iota of their sound to make it. I put it on in the car, and people always ask me "Who is this? I really like it!" Granted, the release date in the US, about 6 years after the Canadian version came out, may have helped that, but the album as I recall wasn't really all that huge in Canada either.

Perhaps it was that "In Repair", despite being an amazing song, was a poor single choice ("Life", "Made to Heal" might have been better options), or that Sony supported it terribly, or that "the normal people" simply were tired of the OLP that released two albums within a year, basically. Perhaps these same people were scared away by the idea that the album, despite it's accessability and catchiness, had been literally spawned from a brainy book. Who knows.

If SM had been as big as it should have been, maybe things would be different. You could tell OLP was frustrated, they started working with Bob about 9 months after SM came out.

afealicious · Post by **afealicious** » 7/10/2005, 11:38 am

yeah, i don't understand why sm wasn't as big as it should have been either. it was a beautiful album, and it's kind of sad when you look at it from the band's point of view. what could they have done but turn to bob rock out of desperation?

Hope · Post by **Hope** » 7/10/2005, 2:44 pm

no, i understand how SM wasnt as huge. i don't know how to explain it though.. its kinda like. 'you have to be intellectual enough to get what we are saying' type thing. yeah i dont know how to say it

afealicious · Post by **afealicious** » 7/10/2005, 2:46 pm

still, there are so many other connotations that you could make with those lyrics, it doesn't all necessarily need to be about all that computer jargon. anyone could relate.

nikki4982 · Post by **nikki4982** » 7/10/2005, 10:14 pm

"Life" should've been huge, in my opinion.

My guess is the lack of Sony pushing it here was the problem.

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » 7/10/2005, 10:21 pm

I liked life.