Well, if i was to agree with you (which i don't) about this album being "ugly", i'd direct you to the motto of this blog, which underlines the fact such music is often celebrated on 5:4 • But it's clearly not an "ugly" album (& that may, of course, be a reason why you don't like it); "awful" & "shit" are up to you; "reactionary", on the other hand, you're definitely going to have to explain • i don't know about you, but i was there in 1990 when this came out, & i know full well how new & unusual this kind of thing was back then • Far from being a 'reaction' to anything, it established a really new kind of sound, giving more prominence to ambient music & shifting electronic pop/dance (which had to a large extent been languishing in the doldrums through the late 1980s, at least here in the UK) in a fresh new direction •
It's true that it spawned a plethora of mediocre imitators (show me a good idea that hasn't), & also led to the stultifyingly brain-dead 'chill-out' genre that still plagues aspects of contemporary ambient music today • It's even true to say that Enigma themselves ended up becoming part of that dumbed down breed of music—as i said in the article, pretty much everything Enigma did after this was NOT good—but none of that can change the fact this is a contextually significant album, & (in my view) an imaginative, undeniable success •
Is this all a joke? — I don't understand how one can appreciate Schnittke and this load of ugly, awful, sadly reactionary sh*t. Forgive me, I really do appreciate your blog a lot, and thank you for the beauties you've posted; but I have had to bear this one on the radio back then in every supermarket around, and feel a bit surprised to see it back in such a place…
memories are never ugly… one can adore Xenakis or Arvo Part together with Gorilla Biscuits or Black Flag… after all who likes only blondes?
Well, if i was to agree with you (which i don't) about this album being "ugly", i'd direct you to the motto of this blog, which underlines the fact such music is often celebrated on 5:4 • But it's clearly not an "ugly" album (& that may, of course, be a reason why you don't like it); "awful" & "shit" are up to you; "reactionary", on the other hand, you're definitely going to have to explain • i don't know about you, but i was there in 1990 when this came out, & i know full well how new & unusual this kind of thing was back then • Far from being a 'reaction' to anything, it established a really new kind of sound, giving more prominence to ambient music & shifting electronic pop/dance (which had to a large extent been languishing in the doldrums through the late 1980s, at least here in the UK) in a fresh new direction •
It's true that it spawned a plethora of mediocre imitators (show me a good idea that hasn't), & also led to the stultifyingly brain-dead 'chill-out' genre that still plagues aspects of contemporary ambient music today • It's even true to say that Enigma themselves ended up becoming part of that dumbed down breed of music—as i said in the article, pretty much everything Enigma did after this was NOT good—but none of that can change the fact this is a contextually significant album, & (in my view) an imaginative, undeniable success •
Is this all a joke? — I don't understand how one can appreciate Schnittke and this load of ugly, awful, sadly reactionary sh*t. Forgive me, I really do appreciate your blog a lot, and thank you for the beauties you've posted; but I have had to bear this one on the radio back then in every supermarket around, and feel a bit surprised to see it back in such a place…