what do people dislike about Birds of Pray? Options

[sherocker]

I LOVE BIRDS OF PRAY!!!

ME TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[GvB]

ME TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

And so do I!

But I have to admit that I like "The Distance to here", "V" and "Songs from Black mountain" better.

GvB.

[SecretInsomnia]

I also like BoP, and have liked it since it's release day
And I became more critical about some songs off it since than, but still think it's a very ok-album.
Ohw, and I DO like The Sanctity of Dreams! Can anyone tell me what he/she thinks is wrong with that song compared with the rest of the albu? Ok, lyrics aren't very deep, but nice and cool enough and I like the way the song takes you from sec.1 and brings you with a positive rush till the end.

[StompingKirsten]

I haven't really listened to BOP in a while, it's not my favorite Live album, but it definitely has a bunch of songs I love... Like I Do, She, Lighthouse, Out to Dry... and I'm listening to it now for the first time in a while. I've been listening a lot to SFBM lately. And I gotta say, compared to SFBM, it's making me love BoP even more! It's like I almost forgot how great this album was. SFBM is soft in comparison.

[fatejd]

I dislike it for the same reasons I dislike everything after TDTH: Ed's lyrics aren't that good. I could be OK with them using the same basic chords over and over again like most rock bands, but the lyrics just aren't there anymore. Just go over to the lyrics section and read any song on SS and compare it to any song on SFBM. SS lyrics are just insane, they are so ambiguous and dark. The newer stuff is just so literal and politically charged (like we don't hear enough about politics and current events, like the war). Songs that don't necessarily mean anything and that are ambiguous are just so much better, but maybe that's just my opinion...

everybody's here
puke stinks like beer
this could be a city
this could be a graveyard
you stole my idea
you stole my idea

VS

It's a crime, this dark time
We wait for presidents who never turn the tide
I find it hard, I find it strange
Go to the movies, have Picasso paint your cage
I've had enough, I think I'm done
So sell me down the river, I'll be waiting there in love

This post has been edited by fatejd: May 30 2006, 5:41 pm

[beau99]

^ As much as I love Samadhi, a lot of the lyrics on it are plain bad.

Whereas the lyrics on BoP may be simple, but they're at least COHERENT.

[sandkind]

I dislike it for the same reasons I dislike everything after TDTH: Ed's lyrics aren't that good. I could be OK with them using the same basic chords over and over again like most rock bands, but the lyrics just aren't there anymore. Just go over to the lyrics section and read any song on SS and compare it to any song on SFBM. SS lyrics are just insane, they are so ambiguous and dark. The newer stuff is just so literal and politically charged (like we don't hear enough about politics and current events, like the war). Songs that don't necessarily mean anything and that are ambiguous are just so much better, but maybe that's just my opinion...

everybody's here
puke stinks like beer
this could be a city
this could be a graveyard
you stole my idea
you stole my idea

VS

It's a crime, this dark time
We wait for presidents who never turn the tide
I find it hard, I find it strange
Go to the movies, have Picasso paint your cage
I've had enough, I think I'm done
So sell me down the river, I'll be waiting there in love

"little swami's got his bowl to eat, and i sing the dirge song"

[DesertWater]

The album has no identity. Pop in any of their other albums and each track has a sound that jumps out at you as being a part of that album, but BOP seems like a random collection of uninspired, completely generic songs. SFBM may be just as simple and perhaps even more pop, but at least it has a unique sound.

Exactly.

[CRH]

Birds of Pray is definitely an album that falls short in many ways to previous albums. Nonetheless it does rock pretty well, but one thing I thought really held it back.

I think the crappy, over-compressed production of the album is what makes it fall short. The album was mixed by Tom Lord-Alge, who is notorious, at least I believe so, for ruining potentially dynamic aspects of a song and making them seem flat. However, I know he also mixed at least Throwing Copper and Secret Samadhi, as well as Pain Lies on the Riverside. I'm not sure about The Distance to Here since its in my car. On these albums, or singular song, I don't have a single complaint with how the album is mixed by him.

However, there are moments on Birds of Pray that feel like they could have been huge, specifically some of Taylor's guitar parts. Two specific examples would be the lead guitar played alone before one of the last choruses of Like I Do. The other would be in Life Marches On when Taylor plays the intro chords again alone. The production causes these two parts, as well as others, to simply carry evenly in the song, instead of standing out and making these transitions raise the overall impact of the song.

I know very little of how Live records, but could this be due to the album being recorded digitally? I don't know if it actually was, but it seems like most bands do that now. With the earlier albums, those are most likely recorded to tape. Am I correct in this assumption? If so, this could explain the difference between Lord-Alge's production on the previous albums compared to Birds of Pray.

Another example of Tom Lord-Alge's butchering of an album is Weezer's Green Album. This album, similarly to Birds of Pray, can be faulted for uninspired lyrics and failing to live up to the greatness of previous albums. However, when Weezer plays these songs live, you are able to see the potential that was in some of these songs and experience a greater impact as well. Consistent, though, is that he mixed a remix of their song "Pink Triangle," which appeared on Pinkerton, 5 years before the Green Album. All of Pinkerton was recorded to tape, and this remix is very good in terms of production.

Having seen Live play both Like I Do and Life Marches On, I think the same thing can be said. Taylor's guitar in these songs in a live setting definitely increased the impact that was missing from these songs on the album.

[Grandpa Grizz]

I think the crappy, over-compressed production of the album is what makes it fall short.

Compression is the bane of the recording industry right now. Rush's 2002 Vapor Trails is digitally compressed to the point that it is almost unlistenable at any slightly high volume. A friend of mine found a way to somewhat repair that, and many fans have a more listenable version now. Meanwhile we await an official remaster.

[seriakiLLa]

Compression is the bane of the recording industry right now.

That's correct. I've heard many CDs now that sound like mp3.

[Grandpa Grizz]

Here is an indepth discussion and investigation of the digital clipping on Vapor Trails. In a misguided effort to produce louder records, the industry is destroying the nuance of the music.


I’m a big Rush fan.

Yeah, I know. Me and 50 million other drummers.

I’ve been listening to this band since they showed up on my radar in the late 1970s, and have always followed their tours and new albums. I admit that I fall into the camp of wistful fans who yearn for a return to the art-rock glory days of the band (which pretty much makes me an old burnout) but I still like to hear the new stuff and see what these dudes are up to. And, Rush’s return to a more guitar-oriented (and acoustic-drum-oriented) sound has reignited some of my interest in their performances. Rock music is all about the guitar, and few people are as interesting to listen to as Alex Lifeson. And don’t even get me started about Neil Peart.

The other interest I have in this band is that they have always been at or near the forefront of recording technology. They were one of the first bands to jump into digital recording, where they definitely learned some tough lessons, but the engineering work done on their CDs has usually been top-notch. I can almost always learn something about engineering from listening to the production of a Rush CD.

So you can guess that it was with much anticipation that I awaited my first real listen to the band’s newest CD, “Vapor Trails”. Reviews heralded this album as one of the hardest-rocking Rush albums in some time, with a strong focus on guitars, powerful drumming, excellent bass work, and some of the best songwriting to come from the band in years. And, in listening to the CD, I found all of these things to be true. This is easily my favorite collection of Rush songs in years, maybe decades. It’s incredible work and I earnestly hope it reflects a new and sustainable direction for this great band.

However there was one fact that the reviewers had all left out: this CD sounds like dogshit.

[seriakiLLa]

Wow, that graph shows it all. Imagine all the dynamic range that was lost there. That translates to lost depth of sound and probably even that 'edge' we are looking for.

Now it would be interesting to see how BOPs graph would compare against SS (the best mastering of a live album that I've heard).

[Pain]

Birds of Pray was one of the first Live albums I heard and I just loved it then. And you know what, I still do. Most of the songs are very, very good and some of them even belong to the best songs Live ever made (She and Lighthouse for example are amazing).

Ok, the album isn't as good as TC, DtH or SS and some songs aren't that good (especially Bring the People Together is quite bad), but I still love the album allot.

Also, it's funny how many here say they hate the song Sancitity Of Dreams. Personally, I never seem to get enough of that song!

[Diane]

I like BOP. My 2 favourite songs on it are Like I do and Sweet Release.
I'm not too keen on Runaway.
It would be my 5th best, which sounds like I don't like it much, but I like all their CD's for different reasons.