Top Ten time!
#10Tool – Lateralus (2001)
Well, this is it; the last metal album on the list, and one of the most uncharacteristic metal albums out there, especially in its time, one that is less about anger and sadness and darker human emotions, and more about the paths by which we might escape them and prevent them besetting us.
Tool started out so ferocious, they barely knew what to do with themselves. On Opiate, you can hear their promise, but their anger is so blunt, it cripples their songs. With each album, they dialled it back a bit, and their songs became progressively better. Lateralus was still a massive shock when it came out though, not just for how far they had stepped back from their previous ire and how good their songwriting had become – they had gone from penning punkish blasts of energy to meditative sprawling progressive metal - but as much for the company it kept. Months after it was released and went No. 1, so did Iowa by Slipknot, a pretty good yardstick for nu-metal and, regardless of what else you have to say about it, not exactly brimming with positivity.
Singer/lyricist Maynard James Keenan was supposedly reading about Buddhism when the band were making Lateralus. The spiritual themes really take a front seat at times as well. Take
title track Lateralus for example, loved and constantly cited by fans for incorporating the Fibonacci sequence into the lyrics and some minor aspects of the music (black, then, white are, all I see, in my infancy, red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me, lets me see). Which is cool and all, but I’ve never once seen a fan of the song who brings this up mention WHY it’s cool, because in and of itself, it’s meaningless. What does the Fibonacci spiral do? It spirals outwards endlessly. What’s the song about? About a kind of enlightenment gained by embracing the here and now, reaching for the infinite impressions one might gain from every moment, and the cumulation of such experiences, of which the Fibonacci spiral works as a metaphor.
The album generally speaks out against narcissism and egocentrism, clinging to grudges and blame and one’s own anger and hate, and preaches empathy, communication, humility and the search for enlightenment. My favourite tracks are
The Grudge,
Reflection and the album’s centrepiece and antithesis,
Ticks and Leeches, an intentionally ugly, utterly furious track. I’ll admit I’ve never been able to decide if Ticks and Leeches is there in the middle of the album as an illustration of what the album encourages you to move away from, or as an acknowledgement that the path it proposes isn’t an easy one, and that you’re still gonna falter, maybe even spectacularly, but it definitely stands out amidst the other tracks.
#9Sergei Rachmaninoff – Piano Concerto No. 3 (1909)
So as I’ve mentioned before, when it comes to classical, although I like some variety, I’m more drawn to the great dramatic expressions of the late Romantic, and it doesn’t get much greater and more dramatic than this. Rachmaninoff was a respected composer by the time he wrote his third piano concerto, but he had fought hard to get there. His first symphony received some of the worst reviews music could possibly inspire, and he lived with depression for years afterwards. His second piano concerto undid the damage five years later, and is still favoured over his third by most, I think.
The reason I love the third so much is the degree of seamlessness between the piano and the orchestra. When I listen to early piano concertos (concerti?), it sometimes irks me that composers were still working out how to combine the instrument with the growing orchestral cast without one dominating the other. Though they share the composition, there are obvious orchestra sections and piano sections; the two alternate more than they are united. Indeed, one will often very inconspicuously grind to a halt, and there is a pause before the other proceeds with the piece. Now the orchestra plays; now the piano plays; now they briefly come together.
Rachmaninoff’s third is an incredible example of a composer intertwining the two expertly. Very often when I’m listening to this concerto, I realise I’m hearing only the piano, and I think to myself, “how long has that been going on?” The orchestra and the piano are mingled entirely into one means of expression, to the point that unless you’re consciously monitoring, you won’t catch when one of the two components withdraws and the other stands alone. In fact, the orchestra rarely stands alone at all; it’s mostly there to support and back up the piano, as anyone who knows Rachmaninoff knows that the piano was his forte.
Rachmaninoff’s third is seamless in another sense too – its transition from expressing one emotion to another. The first two movements are generally of a more subdued despondent tone with dark, overwhelming climaxes, and the last has much more energy and builds to a very uplifting ending. But the piece swings from gloominess to really lovely passages and back with sensational lightness and ease throughout.
The highlight of the concerto is definitely
the first movement. The early stretches, the opening theme and the swirling piano that follows, accentuated and accompanied only lightly, are mystifying. A tension escalates, which first brims over in a collective effort, before at eleven or twelve minutes, it comes again entirely at the hands of the piano, with a magnificent, banging, crashing reinterpretation of the opening theme.
Topic: Fluffy's Favourite Albums (currently #2 > #1) (Read 12738 times)
