dimanche, décembre 05, 2004
Billy Thorpe
"1991"
21st Century Man, 1981
Australian musician Billy Thorpe was never very well known in the U.S., but if he's remembered for anything it's his song "Children of the Sun." That song received a decent amount of rock radio airplay, and its album (also called Children of the Sun) managed to barely crack Billboard magazine's top 40 albums in 1979.
Thorpe was actually born in Manchester, England in 1946 and his family moved to Brisbane nine years later. As a teenager, he and his backing band The Aztecs rode the post-Beatles wave to Australian stardom, even briefly hosting his own 1966 TV show (titled, in typical pop verbiage of the moment, It's All Happening). He recorded almost 20 records with The Aztecs, morphing from pop-rock to blues-rock-boogie, before trying to crack the U.S. market.
Moving to Los Angeles in 1976, Thorpe set out to record his American debut, and once again his impeccable timing led him a few footfalls down the path of success. Two divergent cultural phenomena were brewing around the time of his U.S. arrival. One, Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind came out in 1977, and both were huge. Second, Pink Floyd had been building on the rock opera concept popularized by The Who, stretching the form into an ever-widening spiral of greater cinematic detail and bombastic pomposity. Their album Animals (less a rock opera than a concept album involving, er, animals) was also released in 1977.
So although he had no conscious plan to write a sci-fi-themed LP, he did have the song "Children of the Sun." The track came off so well in the studio that Thorpe decided to make the accompanying album a spacey rock opera.
"Children of the Sun" not only sounded terrific in the studio to Thorpe's ears, it resonated strongly with the American public as well. The single began creeping up the charts in mid 1979, and just failed to crack the Top 40 by a hair in the latter half of the year, peaking at #41.
Thorpe had leftover material from the Children of the Sun project, so he set out to record a sequel (the whole thing envisioned at least as early as 1980 as a trilogy).
And other possibilities emerged as well. Thorpe later said in 1981 interview with KTXQ-FM in Dallas (Q102) that "we were discussing video projects on the album, and a film, and television, things with it. And so it started to grow." After all, The Who had seen Tommy turned into a bloated 1975 film, and their Quadrophenia rock opera had just been given a surprisingly deft movie adapatation concurrent to the Children of the Sun's album release.
So, clearly, the possibility of a Speilberg/Lucas-type blockbuster based on Thorpe's music loomed large--if only he could build on the success of "Children of the Sun" and have a gigantic hit.
Pink Floyd also nudged the bar even higher in late 1979 with The Wall, proving that a garish, sprawling, sonically-complex rock opera could not only sell millions of copies but spawn a culturally epochal hit single (an album also fast-tracked to a cinema reworking).
So he recorded the late 1980 follow-up, the similarly futuristic 21st Century Man. But while Thorpe had the garish quotient right, he overlooked somewhat the "sonically-complex" and especially the "hit single" part of the formula.
So while Thorpe recorded an even more tepid third try (1982's East of Eden's Gate) to round out his space trilogy, no movie adaptation was forthcoming.
Thorpe would soon vanish from the rock scene altogether for many years, retreating to compose music for TV shows (including, ironically, Star Trek: The Next Generation and a 1988 War of the Worlds series).
21st Century Man leads off with "1991," and the first thing one hears is the sound of sirens, screaming, and chaos. A helicopter swoops into the mix, and a voice booming out of public address speakers urging listeners not to panic and telling them to "go directly to your shelters--there is plenty of time." This statement is proved untrue by a sudden atomic bomb blast, a standard sound effect instantly identifiable by all Americans conscious during the Cold War (but which now sounds as quaint as a duck-and-cover drill).
As the nuclear explosion trails off, staccato bursts of white noise emerge out of the fading rumble, along with irregular clicks evoking a Geiger counter. Moog-like synthesizer is added to the rhythm, and an electric guitar finally makes a debut 90 seconds into the track.
So Thorpe manages to tell the basic story of the song, essentially, even before a single lyric is sung. Lying governments fail the people, start a nuclear holocaust, and an otherworldly presence arises from the destroyed remains of the Earth.
Shortly after the electric guitar arrives on the scene to put the "rock" in this "rock opera," Thorpe begins singing in his dramatic, emotive style, explaining what we've just earwitnessed:
But then things start to unravel a bit.
A chorus of Billy Thorpes start singing "in 1991... in 1991..." in round-robin fashion--first on the right, then on the left, then centered. The layered harmonies sound remarkably out of place as punctuation to the death of two billion people. This cheerful choir then reiterates which year was just sang three times by singing "nineteen hundred and ninety-one!" (not unlike on a bank check that second amount written out in words).
Thorpe ratchets his narrative forward with the arrival of aliens:
Nor is linear storytelling, as it appears. I think we can all follow along with the tale thus far, that some offworld presence saved millions (or billions) of humans from their fouled planet, but now Thorpe takes us into territory for which no one is prepared:
Suddenly we've blithely moved from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to the cryptic finale of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The cheery choir returns to chant:
The music crashes to a halt, giving way to a return to the alien leitmotiv--the staccato white noise and moog--and then Thorpe gives us a brief suggestion of Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565." Rick Wakeman and Yes, eat your heart out!
With all this drama, one certainly expects a stunning revelatory final verse before the song concludes. But like "Children of the Sun" and the original cut of Close Encounters of the Third Kind before it, the fantastic voyage of these protagonist earthlings remain inscrutable to us mere planet-locked observers. All we get in futher lyrics is the refrain:
That had a film been adapted from Billy Thorpe's space operas, it would have been less coherent than Paul McCartney's later Give My Regards to Broadstreet?
Possibly.
That Thorpe's chronological prognostication was even less accurate that George Orwell's?
Partially.
That sci-fi themed rock operas are rarely a good idea, even if only loosely futuristic like Frank Zappa's 1979 Joe's Garage?
Exactly.
The rock idiom is, by default, prone to bombast. For every moment when the nervy pieces fit together snugly and fairly lean (think "Sympathy for the Devil" or "Smells Like Teen Spirit"), there are dozens, if not hundreds, of times when rockers go way, way too far and create music which is either embarrasingly overblown ("Paradise By the Dashboard Light") or dreadfully self-important ("Jeremy").
But, like it or not, spectacle is an integral part of rock and the overblown and self-important factors are often part of the fun. What else can explain Insane Clown Posse, E.L.O., or anything David Lee Roth has ever done?
The amount of pomposity thrown into the rock mix is just another creative choice, like reverb or distortion.
But science fiction plays by similar rules. The genre is especially prone to overwrought prose laced with grandiose pretensions.
Like stirring baking soda into vinegar, the combination of rock and sc-fi isn't necessarily dangerous. But it's extremely difficult for it not to be messy.
Fortunately for all of us, rock 'n' roll practitioners are rarely attracted to the relative uncoolness--by rock standards, at least--of hardcore sci-fi themes. It's only at times of unusual cultural convergence when we must be wary of such mixtures. When such a time next rears its head, be prepared.
For what you thought was a gigantic ship arrived to save the survivors on a fantastic journey might just be Survivor. Or Journey. Or whatever such claptrap the future might hold for us.
21st Century Man, 1981
Australian musician Billy Thorpe was never very well known in the U.S., but if he's remembered for anything it's his song "Children of the Sun." That song received a decent amount of rock radio airplay, and its album (also called Children of the Sun) managed to barely crack Billboard magazine's top 40 albums in 1979.Thorpe was actually born in Manchester, England in 1946 and his family moved to Brisbane nine years later. As a teenager, he and his backing band The Aztecs rode the post-Beatles wave to Australian stardom, even briefly hosting his own 1966 TV show (titled, in typical pop verbiage of the moment, It's All Happening). He recorded almost 20 records with The Aztecs, morphing from pop-rock to blues-rock-boogie, before trying to crack the U.S. market.
Moving to Los Angeles in 1976, Thorpe set out to record his American debut, and once again his impeccable timing led him a few footfalls down the path of success. Two divergent cultural phenomena were brewing around the time of his U.S. arrival. One, Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind came out in 1977, and both were huge. Second, Pink Floyd had been building on the rock opera concept popularized by The Who, stretching the form into an ever-widening spiral of greater cinematic detail and bombastic pomposity. Their album Animals (less a rock opera than a concept album involving, er, animals) was also released in 1977.
So although he had no conscious plan to write a sci-fi-themed LP, he did have the song "Children of the Sun." The track came off so well in the studio that Thorpe decided to make the accompanying album a spacey rock opera.
"Children of the Sun" not only sounded terrific in the studio to Thorpe's ears, it resonated strongly with the American public as well. The single began creeping up the charts in mid 1979, and just failed to crack the Top 40 by a hair in the latter half of the year, peaking at #41.
Thorpe had leftover material from the Children of the Sun project, so he set out to record a sequel (the whole thing envisioned at least as early as 1980 as a trilogy).
And other possibilities emerged as well. Thorpe later said in 1981 interview with KTXQ-FM in Dallas (Q102) that "we were discussing video projects on the album, and a film, and television, things with it. And so it started to grow." After all, The Who had seen Tommy turned into a bloated 1975 film, and their Quadrophenia rock opera had just been given a surprisingly deft movie adapatation concurrent to the Children of the Sun's album release.
So, clearly, the possibility of a Speilberg/Lucas-type blockbuster based on Thorpe's music loomed large--if only he could build on the success of "Children of the Sun" and have a gigantic hit.
Pink Floyd also nudged the bar even higher in late 1979 with The Wall, proving that a garish, sprawling, sonically-complex rock opera could not only sell millions of copies but spawn a culturally epochal hit single (an album also fast-tracked to a cinema reworking).
So he recorded the late 1980 follow-up, the similarly futuristic 21st Century Man. But while Thorpe had the garish quotient right, he overlooked somewhat the "sonically-complex" and especially the "hit single" part of the formula.So while Thorpe recorded an even more tepid third try (1982's East of Eden's Gate) to round out his space trilogy, no movie adaptation was forthcoming.
Thorpe would soon vanish from the rock scene altogether for many years, retreating to compose music for TV shows (including, ironically, Star Trek: The Next Generation and a 1988 War of the Worlds series).
21st Century Man leads off with "1991," and the first thing one hears is the sound of sirens, screaming, and chaos. A helicopter swoops into the mix, and a voice booming out of public address speakers urging listeners not to panic and telling them to "go directly to your shelters--there is plenty of time." This statement is proved untrue by a sudden atomic bomb blast, a standard sound effect instantly identifiable by all Americans conscious during the Cold War (but which now sounds as quaint as a duck-and-cover drill).
As the nuclear explosion trails off, staccato bursts of white noise emerge out of the fading rumble, along with irregular clicks evoking a Geiger counter. Moog-like synthesizer is added to the rhythm, and an electric guitar finally makes a debut 90 seconds into the track.
So Thorpe manages to tell the basic story of the song, essentially, even before a single lyric is sung. Lying governments fail the people, start a nuclear holocaust, and an otherworldly presence arises from the destroyed remains of the Earth.
Shortly after the electric guitar arrives on the scene to put the "rock" in this "rock opera," Thorpe begins singing in his dramatic, emotive style, explaining what we've just earwitnessed:
in 1991, the big war had begunOkay, so far, so good. Thorpe has tapped into nuclear war fears, government distrust, and apocalypse rubbernecking. Plus, he's got a grandiose musical arrangement, falling somewhere between arena rock and prog-rock--with a Foreigner-esque guitar riff, Styx-ish synth, and a tympani swells worthy of Yes.
two billion people lost their lives in the heat of the man-made suns
for years the people tried to keep the world alive
but mother earth was dying from the [garbled] that was done
But then things start to unravel a bit.
A chorus of Billy Thorpes start singing "in 1991... in 1991..." in round-robin fashion--first on the right, then on the left, then centered. The layered harmonies sound remarkably out of place as punctuation to the death of two billion people. This cheerful choir then reiterates which year was just sang three times by singing "nineteen hundred and ninety-one!" (not unlike on a bank check that second amount written out in words).
Thorpe ratchets his narrative forward with the arrival of aliens:
gigantic ships arrived to save the millions that survivedWe know that two billion people perished in Thorpe's WWIII, almost half of the Earth's 1980 population of four and a half billion. Yet only "millions" survived? What happened to the rest? Locked in some weird sci-fi stasis--not dead, not living? Or more simply, perhaps math isn't Thorpe's strong suit.
and an entire population left with these children from the sky
Nor is linear storytelling, as it appears. I think we can all follow along with the tale thus far, that some offworld presence saved millions (or billions) of humans from their fouled planet, but now Thorpe takes us into territory for which no one is prepared:
now travellers in time, their journey had begun"Now travelers in time"? Huh? Where'd that come from?
they left the earth forever for the kingdoms of the sun
Suddenly we've blithely moved from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to the cryptic finale of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The cheery choir returns to chant:
to the kingdoms of the sun...While the listener is left to ponder where the time-traveling entered the picture, Thorpe wisely moves into his solos after a spacecraft whooshes by. We get a keyboard solo, a guitar solo added to the top of that, then a harpsichord-sounding synth-and-guitar climax.
now their journey has begun!
The music crashes to a halt, giving way to a return to the alien leitmotiv--the staccato white noise and moog--and then Thorpe gives us a brief suggestion of Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565." Rick Wakeman and Yes, eat your heart out!
With all this drama, one certainly expects a stunning revelatory final verse before the song concludes. But like "Children of the Sun" and the original cut of Close Encounters of the Third Kind before it, the fantastic voyage of these protagonist earthlings remain inscrutable to us mere planet-locked observers. All we get in futher lyrics is the refrain:
mothers, fathers, sons and daughtersSo as the song fades out into its final dramatic spaceship fly-by sound effect, what have we learned from "1991"?
of the world, your time has come
leave the planet earth forever
for the kingdoms of the sun
That had a film been adapted from Billy Thorpe's space operas, it would have been less coherent than Paul McCartney's later Give My Regards to Broadstreet?
Possibly.
That Thorpe's chronological prognostication was even less accurate that George Orwell's?
Partially.
That sci-fi themed rock operas are rarely a good idea, even if only loosely futuristic like Frank Zappa's 1979 Joe's Garage?
Exactly.
The rock idiom is, by default, prone to bombast. For every moment when the nervy pieces fit together snugly and fairly lean (think "Sympathy for the Devil" or "Smells Like Teen Spirit"), there are dozens, if not hundreds, of times when rockers go way, way too far and create music which is either embarrasingly overblown ("Paradise By the Dashboard Light") or dreadfully self-important ("Jeremy").
But, like it or not, spectacle is an integral part of rock and the overblown and self-important factors are often part of the fun. What else can explain Insane Clown Posse, E.L.O., or anything David Lee Roth has ever done?
The amount of pomposity thrown into the rock mix is just another creative choice, like reverb or distortion.
But science fiction plays by similar rules. The genre is especially prone to overwrought prose laced with grandiose pretensions.
Like stirring baking soda into vinegar, the combination of rock and sc-fi isn't necessarily dangerous. But it's extremely difficult for it not to be messy.
Fortunately for all of us, rock 'n' roll practitioners are rarely attracted to the relative uncoolness--by rock standards, at least--of hardcore sci-fi themes. It's only at times of unusual cultural convergence when we must be wary of such mixtures. When such a time next rears its head, be prepared.
For what you thought was a gigantic ship arrived to save the survivors on a fantastic journey might just be Survivor. Or Journey. Or whatever such claptrap the future might hold for us.
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