What jingle said. "Worst" somehow gives the impression that it's bad, but it isn't. Some great tunes on there, but on the whole just not as good as other records by Ayreon.
Since March of this year, I've been making it a point to listen to bands' full (studio) discographies, on my iPod at home at night as I go to sleep/wake up, and in my car CD player on my daily commutes. Recently, I just started listening to Ayreon in my car, and JUST finished a listen through Actual Fantasy (Revisited) and I have to say, it does hold up pretty well. It doesn't have the grandeur of later Ayreon albums with famous vocal and instrumental guests all over the place, but the music is pretty good, sometimes great, and the Revisited version featured Ed Warby on actual drums, which give the songs a nice feel to them.
I'm with the others - Worst does not equate Least Best. I may be biased as a fan of all-thing-Arjen, but I can at least say that Actual Fantasy is on the bottom of the pile of great albums he's done, and I haven't listened to it nearly as much as anything he made after, though I'd say I enjoy as much, if not more than, as 01 (which I didn't enjoy very much at release, nor have I gone back to it very much since then). If I had to place it anywhere, it'd be above 01 and tied with The Final Experiment for "rankings" of my own, though that's mostly influenced by frequency of play, and those three don't get played often.
For reference, I really only spin 2 Ayreon albums with some decent frequency - The Human Equation, and The Theory Of Everything. Into The Electric Castle is good, but I don't listen to it very often (though it's next on my car-ride listening today), and the Universal Migrator albums are good too, but are probably on the same level as ITEC for me. The Source is still fairly new so I haven't had a lot of time with it yet, but I'd say it's pretty good, in the upper-half of Ayreon albums for me.
-Marc.
Topic: Ayreon/Arjen Lucassen Thread (Star Three on the way) (Read 381733 times)
