Author Topic: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread  (Read 539566 times)

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Offline ColdFireYYZ

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #980 on: August 21, 2012, 12:51:45 PM »
Thoughts Part 5 Studio Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7A8wwduI6U

I'm only a couple of minutes in and I really like it but its kind of strange that he decided to release this as a solo song. As great as Neal, Mike, and Randy are, I'd rather hear the original Spock's Beard lineup play this. Still a good song though.

Edit: Song just ended and it was excellent! Much better than Momentum (even though that live version was way better than the single). Can't wait for the album.
« Last Edit: August 21, 2012, 12:58:34 PM by ColdFireYYZ »

Offline kirksnosehair

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #981 on: August 21, 2012, 12:56:39 PM »
 :eek   :hefdaddy   :eek

Offline KevShmev

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #982 on: August 21, 2012, 01:04:09 PM »
I really only like most of the Neal songs that are centered around those multi-part harmonies (like the first two Thoughts), and sometimes I don't care much for them at all (Gibberish), so I am not sure about this one.  After one listen, there wasn't one memorable melody in there, and Neal's melodies usually grab you by the throat immediately.  But time will tell...


Offline Pols Voice

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #983 on: August 21, 2012, 01:05:00 PM »
The part from 3:01 to 4:32 is ace.
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Offline ronnibran

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #984 on: August 22, 2012, 09:11:49 PM »
Kind of a strange release for a single, but I LOVE it!!! (singles from albums tend to be my least fav from the albums anyway)

Listened a few times, liked it more with each listen as each time I picked up on more musical complexity or simple awesomeness!  Not sure if I like this or Momentum better, each song is great in their own way.  In the end I probably would lean towards this one simply because of the longer length (that's what she said) and musical complexity.

I can't wait to get my hands on this album!!!  Ordered the special edition from Radiant, hopefully it comes as early as possible. 

Offline yeshaberto

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #985 on: August 22, 2012, 10:11:34 PM »
hmmm....I liked both songs, but thoughts seems like it will have longer stay power than the momentum for me

Offline ronnibran

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #986 on: September 08, 2012, 06:14:04 PM »
Anyone else receive Momentum yet?  (received mine yesterday, ordered through Radiant)  First five songs are pretty good, really varying in style....

But to me the first five songs are irrelevant when compared to the epic 33.5 minute monster at the end!  I was skeptical as to how I'd rank it amongst Neal's other epics (including Transatlantic epics).  But after just a couple listens I am pretty sure it will be amongst the top. 

This album is a home run.  When Testimony 2 came out, I was actually thinking Neal hit his peak and it simply had to go downhill from there.  But I was likely wrong.  Time will tell how this album stands amongst Neal's others, but it's looking good so far.  Lyrically, not very "ecclesiastically bludgeoning", but still very moving if you choose to interpret the lyrics from a Christian perspective.

Offline unklejman

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #987 on: September 10, 2012, 11:43:57 AM »
I love Neal but between this song (Weathering Sky) and Momentum, this is sounding a little genericy and samey. I hope the rest is better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJyI5tIDDbc

Offline KevShmev

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #988 on: September 10, 2012, 12:59:34 PM »
Agreed.  All three songs I have heard thus far have been okay, but nothing that knocked my socks off.  I suspect the epic will be tremendous, but this is why I feared this would be another Lifeline (great epic, rather average everywhere else).

Offline darkshade

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #989 on: September 10, 2012, 01:42:42 PM »
I only heard the title track and Thoughts Part 5, the former was alright, kinda standard Morse short song; the latter was fantastic, so I'm hoping it gets better from there. I agree that I anticipate the epic to be at least awesome. Picking this up later today.

Offline darkshade

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #990 on: September 10, 2012, 07:13:10 PM »
I picked up Momentum this afternoon and gave it one full listen. My first impression is mixed, the first 2 tracks I had heard once or twice on YouTube, but sounded a lot better on the album, Thoughts Part 5 kicks a lot of ass, it's so heavy! The remaining songs need to grow on me, especially the epic, which I'm not surprised. It's pretty long, and not much stuck out, but I'm sure repeated listens will pay off, as all Neal albums do.

Offline ronnibran

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #991 on: September 10, 2012, 08:52:06 PM »
I just can't stop loving the epic song....  Neal has a way of his music doing more talking than even lyrics can do.  Kind of like from Testimony, "The Storm Before the Calm" is a powerful song through it's instrumental passages.  I get that same feeling (yet even more powerful) at parts of the new epic. 

Offline Perpetual Change

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #992 on: September 11, 2012, 08:49:06 AM »
So... no Amazon MP3 for Neal? That's odd.

Maybe he got mad that Amazon put "Seeds of Gold" up as a 99 cent stand-alone download last time around.

Offline KevShmev

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #993 on: September 11, 2012, 09:31:34 AM »
I noticed that, too.  It's not at iTunes either.  So much for getting this today.

Online The Letter M

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #994 on: September 11, 2012, 09:36:05 AM »
I noticed that, too.  It's not at iTunes either.  So much for getting this today.

Momentum Hi-Red Audio Downloads in AIFF format are HERE!

Didn't anyone else get the email? :lol

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Offline Perpetual Change

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #995 on: September 11, 2012, 10:02:37 AM »
::snip::

Sorry for the double post.

Offline Perpetual Change

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #996 on: September 11, 2012, 10:05:29 AM »
I noticed that, too.  It's not at iTunes either.  So much for getting this today.

Momentum Hi-Red Audio Downloads in AIFF format are HERE!

Didn't anyone else get the email? :lol

-Marc.

Ugh, no thanks. If I wanted to bay $12 for a high-res rip of the album, I'd just buy the physical CD for almost the same price and rip it myself. And anyway, what am I going to do with a 600 MB digital download? I'm not taking ten albums off of my MP3 player so I can make room for the audiophile version of Momentum, which was probably recorded with all digital instruments anyway.

Lots of artists have specials where you can get a $4 to $7 digital download of an album the first couple days it is out. I love that, because it encourages me to check out lots of material I wouldn't otherwise, and makes affording an album or two a month possible by sacrificing something as simple as a fast-food lunch. It's also pretty bad when Bob Dylan, a 71 year old notorious for draining his fans of every cent they'll give him, has his album out on amazon MP3 for $5 before the "fan-oriented" guys who do "progressive" music. I guess the gears of the Neal Morse price-guage machine just keep on churning...  ;D

I really do want to be a Neal Morse fan. But he just makes it so expensive and inconvenient  :yeahright
« Last Edit: September 11, 2012, 10:51:06 AM by Perpetual Change »

Offline darkshade

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #997 on: September 11, 2012, 10:07:20 AM »
I think it's Radiant Records, not Neal himself. New Transatlantic and Neal Morse solo albums seem to be more expensive than new Flower Kings, The Tangent, Beardfish, and the like, who are on Inside Out. Even Spock's Beard who are on Music Theories Recordings.

Offline KevShmev

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #998 on: September 11, 2012, 10:32:22 AM »
I think it's Radiant Records, not Neal himself.

Um, Neal and his wife ultimately run Radiant Records, if I am not mistaken. :lol

And I agree with PC.  I'd also love to support Neal by buying from his site, but he always charges an arm and a leg, and I have had several bad experiences with a new CD taking forever to get to me, so I don't buy from them anymore.  Is there a way to get myself off of their email list? ;)

Offline Perpetual Change

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #999 on: September 11, 2012, 11:45:45 AM »
Radiant Records is just a bit ridiculous, is all. They kinda remind me of Manga Carta, except more expensive. I mean, who honestly spent $15.99 + s/h for Cover "2" Cover? Anyone?

Considering the amount of discussion I've seen about it here, I'm going with "not many people".

Offline darkshade

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #1000 on: September 11, 2012, 11:55:35 AM »
I watched the special edition DVD and I must say, it contained a lot of interesting information. I already knew, but Randy George and Mike Portnoy contributed many ideas to Momentum, as Neal only had a little bit of music written before the recording sessions. There is even a slightly candid moment during the film where we hear Portnoy discussing how some songs should be omitted from the album: Freak, and another song. That other song didn't make it thanks to Mike's input, but Neal wanted Freak to stay on the album very much.

Mike also worked like an editor for some of the songs, which is not necessarily anything new with both Transatlantic or Dream Theater; but he had an incredibly large say in what went on in the music of Momentum, which is not usual, as Neal usually has most of the music written before recording sessions. Neal even admits that a lot of parts were cut out of the music, which is the opposite of what usually happens with his music. It shows you how much influence Mike Portnoy had on how the album was presented.


I think it's Radiant Records, not Neal himself.

Um, Neal and his wife ultimately run Radiant Records, if I am not mistaken. :lol


Oh, I didn't know that. Then, never mind.  :facepalm:

Offline kirksnosehair

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #1001 on: September 11, 2012, 12:07:13 PM »
*shrug*


I paid the $11.99 for the download, burned a CD for my car and converted it to MP3 for my iPod.




It's really kind of amazing how devalued music has become in the stealing digital age.....

Offline Perpetual Change

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #1002 on: September 11, 2012, 12:20:40 PM »
It's not about under-valuing music. Rather, the music world is over-saturated. Artists don't put music up online for cheap just to encourage pirates to become buyers. It's also to encourage buyers-- like me-- to buy their product when they know someone else has an album just a few clicks away.

That said, I'm a guy with a pretty limited income. Why would I spend $12 getting the 6th (?) Neal Morse album released this year when I could probably get two new albums from Amazon.com's MP3 store for the same price? There's just no incentive. Don't get me wrong; I like Neal plenty. But he and Radiant are just hopelessly behind the times when it comes to getting music out there.

And yeah, I'd love to listen to Momentum, and I'd like to support Neal Morse. But Neal Morse thinks I should pay a $12 minimum just to listen to a digital copy of his album, when almost no-other artists I listen to feel the same way about their own music. I'm not a pirate, so my only choice for right now is to simply not listen.

Offline kirksnosehair

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #1003 on: September 11, 2012, 01:13:39 PM »
It's not about under-valuing music. Rather, the music world is over-saturated. Artists don't put music up online for cheap just to encourage pirates to become buyers. It's also to encourage buyers-- like me-- to buy their product when they know someone else has an album just a few clicks away.

That said, I'm a guy with a pretty limited income. Why would I spend $12 getting the 6th (?) Neal Morse album released this year when I could probably get two new albums from Amazon.com's MP3 store for the same price? There's just no incentive. Don't get me wrong; I like Neal plenty. But he and Radiant are just hopelessly behind the times when it comes to getting music out there.

And yeah, I'd love to listen to Momentum, and I'd like to support Neal Morse. But Neal Morse thinks I should pay a $12 minimum just to listen to a digital copy of his album, when almost no-other artists I listen to feel the same way about their own music. I'm not a pirate, so my only choice for right now is to simply not listen.


I'd say 75% of the digital albums I buy, which are almost always MP3 files @ 256kbps (Amazon.com, mostly) cost me $8.99 - some of them are cheaper, yeah, but most are $8.99.  Neal is charging a whopping, massive $3.00 more for a digital copy of his album which is high res.  I think Neal realizes that his average fan (who is probably closer to my age than yours) doesn't give a shit about a couple of dollars (I don't) but I know not everyone is in the same position.


With that said, I maintain that music has become massively devalued by pirating, but this is not the venue for that discussion.


Anyway, back to the CD -


First impressions:
The opening track, which is the title track, frankly, bores the shit out of me.  I'll be skipping that one every time I listen to this album.  I don't know what it is about that song, it might be that I can't get that awful video out of my head, not sure, but the song doesn't really work for me.  "Thoughts Part 5" is pretty cool, I like it.  "Smoke and Mirrors" is pretty "meh"   I think "Weathering Sky" is pretty decent.  "Freak" is....OK I guess.    I've been through the epic once so far.


Overall, my first impression is it's fairly typical Neal Morse stuff, and it definitely has his stamp all over it.  A lot of the same bag of tricks he's been pulling from for the last half a dozen albums or so.  My gut tells me this one was maybe a little bit phoned in.  But I need more listens to give it a proper chance to grow on me. 

Offline unklejman

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #1004 on: September 11, 2012, 01:52:38 PM »
Just for clarification I emailed Radiant about the AIF download. The files are 44.1Khz/16b, and not 96/24.

Which is a shame. What's the point?

Offline Nick

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #1005 on: September 11, 2012, 02:20:02 PM »
I love how standard CD quality is "hi-res".

Edit: Not a knock on Neal in this instance as much as it is on the current musical culture.
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Offline kirksnosehair

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #1006 on: September 11, 2012, 02:27:19 PM »
Compared to ___________________ <---insert typical down here -- it is "high res" if you think about it.


Amazon.com gives you 256kbps MP3 files


iTunes gives you something similar


Of course it's just a gimmick to make the $11.99 price point sound more palatable, but being a musician myself and looking at those "royalty checks"  :\  I get from my record label each quarter for sales of our album, I can't say I blame ANY musician for a little profiteering these days.  I guess you have to live it to get to the point of understanding it.  I used to feel the same way a lot of others here feel, until I got a legitimate record deal and published an album.

Offline unklejman

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #1007 on: September 11, 2012, 04:04:21 PM »
I would just rather pay the $3 extra dollars and have a hard copy.  I've only bought a digital download once, and that was to get a really obscure Christian song from the early nineties for nostalgic reasons that I literally could not find anywhere.

Offline Scrub206

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #1008 on: September 11, 2012, 04:47:10 PM »
Did anyone else get their pre orders from his site? or did you guys just pick them up?

Offline darkshade

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #1009 on: September 11, 2012, 06:35:34 PM »
I picked mine up at my local shop. I've never done a pre-order.

Offline Bongasti

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #1010 on: September 11, 2012, 10:29:01 PM »
I pre-ordered it from Radiant Records and it arrived yesterday. It wasn't signed though :(

Offline kirksnosehair

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #1011 on: September 12, 2012, 09:00:51 AM »
I would just rather pay the $3 extra dollars and have a hard copy.  I've only bought a digital download once, and that was to get a really obscure Christian song from the early nineties for nostalgic reasons that I literally could not find anywhere.


heh, I used to be the same way, but I went all digital about three years ago and never looked back.  Now I get to buy almost twice as much music as I was previously. 


I still collect physical CDs, but only for a few select artists that are in my top 10 or 15 bands

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #1012 on: September 12, 2012, 11:16:49 AM »
Oh crap, I completely forgot about this!
"All great works are prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night." - A. G. Sertillanges

Offline Ħ

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #1013 on: September 12, 2012, 11:29:00 AM »
Watched the two music videos for Momentum and Weathering Skies. The latter was better...but I wasn't really hooked by either.
"All great works are prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night." - A. G. Sertillanges

Offline kirksnosehair

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Re: Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread
« Reply #1014 on: September 12, 2012, 11:58:21 AM »
Watched the two music videos for Momentum and Weathering Skies. The latter was better...but I wasn't really hooked by either.


Yeah, I'm already skipping both of those tracks.  To be honest, the only track on the album that I think I will keep listening to is the epic.


The rest of it definitely has a very phoned in feel to it.


Overall, I is disappoint


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