Birds of Pray, What do you think of it anno 2010? Options

[SecretInsomnia]

Live fans on these board often say that Live didnt make anything goo after TDTH.
V, BoP and SFBM are regarded as 'Live going downhill'. Although I can enjoy some parts of each of those 3 albums, BoP is (for me) still an album that I can listen very often and to which I always look back to with joy for some reason. (must also have to do with the period it was released, it had some quite hopefull and upflifting energy for me in spring/summer 2003).

Ofcourse not all on the album is as creative as in the 90ies, certainly not. But for me it's for some reason still a really "Live" album and for some part breathes the atmosphere that I think about when I think of Live in general. I don't really have that with "rapping and experimental V" or "too much Ed focussed SFBM" (although, as I said, they had their "Live" moments as well).

Heaven is still (commercial sounding or not) a very nice song. Like I do is for me up with Live's best work. And Lighthouse touches me again each time I listen to it. I really like Sanctity of Dreams (and yes I know most don't), as it just grabs you from beginning to the end. Out to Dry is POP, but not pop like most of Alive, for example.

Listening to SoD, I also notice that back then, Ed still wrote about different topics on the album. Compare for example topics in: SoD, Heaven, River Town and Out to Dry.
SFBM had not much variety in topics, and on Alive it seemed to be gone completely.

What do you think about Birds of Pray, now 7,5 years after its release? For me it's not a bad album at all, although I know it's not their best work ever.

This post has been edited by SecretInsomnia: Dec 8 2010, 6:51 pm

[Pokey]

I never hated BOP, it's certainly nowhere near the masterpieces that the first 4 albums were, and it didn't have that emotional attatchment to it that V had for me, but it had some really good songs on it and nothing that I absolutely hated like on SFBM for instance.

I was super excited when it came out and initially really enjoyed the album, as time went on quite a few of the songs lost their initial shine and now I can't remember the last time i listend to the album from start to finish, a long time ago. Like I Do and Lighthouse are the 2 stand out songs that I still adore. They had a little bit of balls to them and Ed sng his heart out on them, not a coincidence I think that they're the albums that had writing credited to not just Ed.
She was a song that really grew on me, i thought nothing of it for a long time before the extended version came out online and I heard that which was the first time I'd listend to any version of the song in about a year and I realised i really enjoyed it.
I have a real soft spot for Every Time I see Your Face ... I don't mind Live going pop a little bit with a song here and a song there, an entire shift to the genre like SFBM is not good. But the odd song is fine when done well and I think ETISYF is a great example of that, and to a lesser extend Out To Dry.

I'm not really a fan of Heaven, in the words of Morrissey, "it says nothing to me about my life". I felt like it wanted to be a bit of an epic like Dolphin's Cry, but I think it falls well short. Sancity of Dreams I listen to really rarely, but every now and again like a coupleof times a year I seem to for some reason have a real craving to hear it because I usually seem to forget it exists, once I hear it I'm satisfied but don't seem to listen to it again for a long time. I found Rivertown pretty boring, not bad, just blah. Sweet Release also does nothing for me as does Bring the people together. It's been said before it's an extremely poor attempt at another Stage-like song.
What are we fighting for is quite a nice song, again i tend to barely listen to it, but when i do i enjoy it. Life Marches On was wasted potential, it should have been much rawer and had more balls, it felt scaled back on the album.

That is my biggest complaint witht he album, how polished it sounds. It sounds horribly over produced, if only it were a little rougher around the edges. For lack of a better way of explaining, it sounds very computerised ... as in, all instruments recorded separatley and then copied and pasted together to form the song. Rather than it feeling like 4 guys were given instruments in a room and told to let go whilst someone just pressed the record button so that it was recorded on the fly. I know so many albums are recorded by doing individual instruments and then piecing it all together, but the good ones are done so this isn't noticable. With BOP I found it very artificial and noticable. SFBM was even more so again.

So to me BOP is an album with mostly waisted potential, not terrible, but not amazing. As the original post stated, I did like that it had a little variation in the song subjects ... Life Marches On, Rivertown, Lighthouse, Sanctity Of Dreams, Heaven, What Are We Fighting For .... they're not just songs about loving a girl or loving God, which is all Ed has become now. Each Live album before BOP had a much bigger variation in song subjects, but post BOP it became more and more bland.