Monday, April 1, 2019

The 1984 Listening Post - Planet P Project - Pink World

Planet P Project - Pink World

#344
1984 Housekeeping
Planet P Project
Pink World
3.5 out of 5


Highlights:
Pink World
The Perfect Place

1984 was a big year for double (and triple) albums. At least it feels that way.

This is bigger than the last Planet P album. This is dark. And epic. And it's definitely about something. There's some dystopia and post-nuclear stuff, I guess. I hate 2 things about concept albums:
1. I hate having to read up on them to know what they are about. Don't do that. Books don't do that. Comic books don't do that. TV and movies don't do that (unless it's Lost and even then it pissed people off with it's ambiguity).
2. For fuck's sake don't fall into the "Well, the album means whatever you want it to mean." That's a copout fucker. That's bullshit expressionism and I think that sucks. Take a position. Stand by your work. Standing by ambiguity just makes me angry. (I'm looking at you, David Lynch's Eraserhead)

Sometimes he does bite hard on the Floyd ("The Boy Who Can't Talk" & "The Stranger"...well....most if not all of Side Two. And I can forgive that as it's the second act. I'm more hopeful that Side Three will bring us home.

And it does. Side Three grinds back up from "Breath" which is mostly a breath catching exhalation that leads into some pile driving prog rock ("The Perfect Place"). It's a bit "The Wall"-y (the song "In the Zone" wants to be Bowie so badly it all but offers up royalties) and I will continue to admit: I can't follow concept albums. Probably never will. Unless it's something that woven into the Rock Songbook tapestry (The aforementioned The Wall, Tommy), I just can't follow the story. I'll assume that he's making his point.

Whatever. It's still better than Kilroy Was Here.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/pink-world/417620657

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