In Praise of ... Ocean Rain by Echo and the Bunnymen

It is an extremely thin sounding record for some reason, Thorn of Crowns is so slight and papery sounding.

Some of the CD versions are a bit thin-sounding, but that's more a result of bad mastering.

the sequencing of this record is terrible.

This is my favourite album of all time. Every single second on it is flawless as far as I'm concerned!

The Bunnymen very recently announced that their next album (out May 2018) will be 'The Stars, The Oceans & the Moon' and will contain new songs as well as reworkings of old classics with strings & stuff.
That's... probably a very bad idea in principle; reworkings of old classics are very rarely an improvement and most people agree that Ian McCulloch can't really sing as he used to anymore. But I'm looking forward to it myself. I actually prefer Ian's present-day crooner voice over his eighties voice. Ian did a solo thing where he added strings to a live performance and I thought it worked surprisingly well, it'll probably be something similar.
In any case, he/they can do little wrong in my opinion.

These guys really should have been as big as U2. Musically, they were head and shoulders above them.

Pattinson and De Freitas were an amazing rhythm section, so unique.

the sequencing of this record is terrible.

― campreverb, Saturday, November 25, 2017 12:49 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

weird, the other thing i noticed this time around is how much i love the sequencing

Pattinson and De Freitas were an amazing rhythm section, so unique.

― MaresNest, Saturday, November 25, 2017 8:09 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Indeed, and De Freitas no longer being with us is a huge part of why it wasn't, and couldn't have been the same when they reformed. It feels like a huge part of their sound is missing. Post-reformation Bunnymen feels like a very different thing to me.

I realised years later (after reading a Mojo article) that I had, in the past, worked fairly regularly with De Freitas' wife, wish I'd known at the time.

weird - i woke up this morning with a line from ocean rain in my head ("all hands on deck at dawn/sailing to sadder shores").

Think I would have had 'The Killing Moon' end side A, and had 'Angels and Devils' open side 2. Seems like 'Yo Yo Man' is better executed in other places.

As it is, it's heavily weighted side 2 record, none of which matters into day's digital age, but I think accounts for some of it's mixed reception.

This is one of those rare albums that I have two copies of: the 2003 CD with great bonus tracks and the 2008 reissue with Live At The Royal Albert Hall, a fantastic 1983 gig.

I stand by my Quietus piece.

xxpost:

Mixed reception? It's widely considered to be their best album, even if some days I don't agree.

NME and RS were both pretty down on it at the time. Not saying they're right, but I do think it's been elevated retroactively.

Listened to this a couple times this foggy morning, it's such a gorgeous record. My Kingdom strikes me as a very Julian Cope sort of song, especially the end. Guitar solos in it are stunning, I repeated it three or four times.

Actually the whole 2nd side of this, wow.

"The Killing Moon" – 5:50
"Seven Seas" – 3:20
"My Kingdom" – 4:05
"Ocean Rain" – 5:12

― Mark, Friday, March 18, 2011 7:54 PM (seven years ago)

Was this polled and I'm having trouble finding it via search?

Discovered this copy of the Killing Moon in my tapes. I usually got copies for my own personal collection. This will be a rough mix with the original drums on. Before Pete replaced the kit using brushes. #bunnymen pic.twitter.com/YPfEov2pvt

— Will Sergeant (Official) (@Will_Fuzz) December 6, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6ICtWN5hw0