50/50 Wednesday Music Zone

No particular playlist has been going today so I'll go 5 80s, 5 prog and see where that leads...

• The Call - I Don't Wanna
  
  Senior year high school, I started hanging with the drama department a bit more than years past, and got involved in the productions backstage, particularly in the one-act plays in the winter.  One of the regulars of that crowd picked up this album and played it non-stop during set construction.  Over time, I understood why.
  
  The theater/drama teacher, Doug "Chip" Rome, is one of only 2 teachers from my time at the school who's still there.
  
  
• U2 - A Sort of Homecoming
  
  Live "semi-unplugged" version from Wide Awake in America.  Like most U2, I learned how good this was long after it was gone, the band having moved into directions I didn't feel were worth following.  The day after they played RFK on the Joshua Tree tour, about 1/3rd of the senior class were wearing their U2 t-shirts.  I wasn't among them.
  
  
• Pete Townshend - Stop Hurting People
  
  Sheer poetry, meaning I don't understand a word of it.  I'm sure Pete means it, though.
  
  My beauty needs an understanding and a knowledge of what I am.
  Her's is enough, earned through eons.  For that is what true beauty is: Time's gift to perfect humility...
  
  
• Loverboy - Turn Me Loose
  
  Early 80s arena rock at its prime.  One of the bands that MTV made, and then broke.
  
  
• A Flock of Seagulls - Nightmares
  
  British New Wave at its most obscure.  Not sure this song holds up out of context of the album (or even the greatest hits collection).  Its good for the Flock, but not that great among everything else out there...
  

and...

• King Crimson - Heartbeat
  
  Fripp in hindsight thinks this is more an Adrian Belew song than a Crimson song, and had it been presented to the band today he would have rejected it as he no longer thinks he could have contributed anything to it.  I'm inclined to agree, particularly as later on Adrian put his own take on a solo album.
  
  
• Ayreon - The Final Experiment Prologue
  
  ProgRock Opera, if such a thing could be imagined.  Ayreon is a "project" by which Arjen Anthony Lucassen produces much of his recent work.  The Ayreon releases have been full-out concept albums, 2 of them being "space operas" in the sense of multiple characters conversing to each other in the songs.  They're also all set in the same "universe", so situations in one album might be mentioned in passing in others.  Very much the "headphones in the dark" kinda stuff...
  
  
• Ozric Tentacles - Chinatype
  
  Inspired by some oriental percussion samples, this work really rocks out.
  
  
• Marillion - Estonia
  
  While in a bar one evening, H ran into a chap, a British filmmaker, who was working on a producing a documentary about the loss of the M/S Estonia in 1994.  When H inquired why, the chap said that he was the only British survivor.  The lyric was written that night.  In spite of the subject matter, it remains extremely popular in concert.
  

  No one leaves you
  When you live in their heart and mind
  And no one dies
  They just move to the other side
  When we're gone
  Watch the world simply carry on
  We live on laughing and in no pain
  We'll stay and be happy
  With those who have loved us today

• Mike Oldfield - The Source of Secrets
  
  Tubular Bells III didn't quite bear the same relationship to the original that TB2 did.  Very much a recap album, with musical styles from throughout his career but with a major "trance" to it inspired by his time living near the club scene in Ibiza.
  
  Side note, Mike just turned 53 2 days ago, and the original Tubular Bells turns 36 next week. :)