Fear of a Blank Planet is the ninth studio album by Britishprogressive rock band Porcupine Tree and their best selling before 2009's The Incident. It was released on 16 April 2007 in the UK and the rest of Europe by Roadrunner,24 April 2007 in the United States by Atlantic,25 April 2007 in Japan by WHD,and 1 May 2007 in Canada by WEA. Steven Wilson has mentioned that the album's title is a direct reference to the 1990 Public Enemy album Fear of a Black Planet;while the former tackled race issues,the latter is about the fear of losing the current generation of youth to various common threats to their mental and social wellbeing,including broken homes,excessive "screen time",and narcotic overuse (prescribed and otherwise) to the point of mental and spiritual "blankness".
The album was written in Tel Aviv and London between January and July 2006. The promotion of the record included a premiere performance of the songs during the shows in support of the Arriving Somewhere... DVD tour between September and November 2006,[1] and a series of listening parties at New York's Legacy Studios,[2] and London's Abbey Road Studios[3] during January 2007.
Fear of a Blank Planet was followed later the same year by release of the Nil Recurring extended play. An additional track titled "Always Recurring" was demoed yet did not receive a formal release on any of the four records (the Fear of a Blank Planet LP,the Fear of a Blank Planet single,the Way Out of Here single,and the Nil Recurring EP) released by Porcupine Tree during this era. With the release of Insurgentes,Wilson's debut solo album,Wilson would further develop some of the ideas on which Fear of a Blank Planet is conceived.
The album charted in almost all European countries and entered the U.S. Billboard 200 at #59. The album was highly acclaimed by critics and was awarded "Album of the Year" by Classic Rock magazine in 2007.
Writing and recording
Steven Wilson started writing the album in early 2006 in Tel Aviv,while he was recording the second Blackfield album. One of the first songs that Wilson wrote for the album during this period,called "Always Recurring" (which is an unreleased track),would later be recycled lyrically and sonically,for use in the track "What Happens Now?". In the meantime,while Wilson was in Tel Aviv,Richard Barbieri wrote most of the music for the song "My Ashes". "Cheating the Polygraph" was a Harrison/Wilson composition whilst "Way Out of Here","What Happens Now?" and "Nil Recurring" were written by all four band members. The Blackfield album was finished in June,so Wilson travelled back to London and met the other band members to work on the material he had been writing. These sessions took place between July and August and produced a good number of songs from which just six were picked for the record.[4]
Porcupine Tree's first DVD,entitled Arriving Somewhere...,was released in August of the same year. The band started a short tour in September to promote it,during which the six new songs selected for the forthcoming album were performed at the first half of the shows.[1] Along the tour,which lasted until November,the band began recording the album,eventually rejecting the song "Cheating the Polygraph" since they felt it was somewhat weak when compared to the other five of the live set list;they wrote a new song called "Way Out of Here" to replace it.[5] "Way Out of Here" was a collaboration between all band members and resulted in the only full-band composition of the record. They contacted King Crimson's guitarist Robert Fripp,who provided soundscapes to the song[6] as well as lead guitar for the track "Nil Recurring",an instrumental song not included in the album but later released in the EP of the same name (which also included "Cheating the Polygraph").[7]
Around the time of the recording,Wilson read an interview in Classic Rock magazine in which Rush's guitarist Alex Lifeson had mentioned he was a big fan of Porcupine Tree. Wilson quickly got in touch with Alex to ask him if he would like to play on the album. Lifeson was pleased to contribute[6] so Wilson wrote a section of the song "Anesthetize" for him to play a solo on. Alex recorded the solo in his own studio and sent it to Wilson.
The album recording process was finished in December of the same year.[4] In January 2007 it was revealed that the album title would be Fear of a Blank Planet.[3]
Concept
The concept of the album was heavily influenced by Bret Easton Ellis' novel Lunar Park.[8] The novel is told from the perspective of a father,who bears the name of the novel's author himself,whereas the album is mostly from his son's perspective,an eleven-year-old kid named Robby.[9] Many of the lyrics for Fear of a Blank Planet are lifted directly from the novel;this is particularly evident in "My Ashes",which is a homage to the last chapter,in which the ashes of Bret's father are scattered and cover the memories of his life.
The lyrics deal with two typical neurobehavioural developmental disorders affecting teenagers in the 21st century:bipolar disorder and attention deficit disorder. It also deals with other common behaviour tendencies of youth like escapism through prescription drugs,social alienation caused by technology,and a feeling of vacuity—a product of information overload by the mass media. In an interview with Revolver magazine,Wilson described the main character of the story as "...this kind of terminally bored kid,anywhere between 10 and 15 years old,who spends all his daylight hours in his bedroom with the curtains closed,playing on his PlayStation,listening to his iPod,texting his friends on his cell phone,looking at hardcore pornography on the Internet,downloading music,films,news,violence..."[10]
The songs on Fear of a Blank Planet seem to have a connection not just between the lyrics but also musically;every track flows into the next,comprising a single fifty-minute piece of music.[11] Wilson said the idea was to make an album that could be listened to in one sitting,in contrast to some bands tendency to make very long records that do not maintain the attention of the listener.[10] He described Fear of a Blank Planet as a homage to 1970s records,whose moderate length helps the listener maintain focus:
"It was very much conceived in the way bands used to conceive records in the '70s, where you've got two sides of vinyl, and you can lay down a piece of music which is around the 50-minute mark, which plays in a continuous way, and deals with the same subject matter, and tried to kind of immerse you in a world for that time. That's always been the Porcupine Tree way, but we've definitely taken it to the next level."[12]
Release and promotion
A few days after the mixing and recording processes were finished, Wilson unveiled the 5.1 mix edition of the album at two listening parties at New York's Legacy Studios,[2] and at London's Abbey Road Studios,[3] where the official track list was finally unveiled. Additionally, there was a third pre-release listening party without the presence of Steven Wilson in the Club Phoenix of Brisbane later on 14 April, organised by OzProg.com along with Roadrunner Records.[13] A medley of the album tracks was posted to the band's MySpace page and the Fear of a Blank Planetmicrosite on 21 February. Then on 6 March, the title track was released in the US iTunes Store as a bonus track with Blackfield II, the second album from Wilson's side-project Blackfield. On 12 April, the CD came out in parts of Europe four days earlier than intended, and was soon leaked onto the internet.[6]
"Sentimental" was NPR's "Song of the Day" on 4 June.[14]
On 6 August, on their official website, Porcupine Tree announced a new EP was going to be released on 17 September the same year named Nil Recurring, featuring four tracks (just under 30 minutes of music) that were written during the Fear of a Blank Planet sessions, including the title track featuring Robert Fripp on guitar, and "Cheating the Polygraph".
On 18 April 2007, two days after the European release of the album, the band embarked on an extensive tour until the end of the year, with a short break during August and September resuming in October. During the first run of shows, the band played all of the album either in one go, or spread throughout the set. For the second run of shows (after the release of Nil Recurring) this was stopped. Once again, Lasse Hoile worked with the band creating a video to accompany the performance of the whole album.
Porcupine Tree performing at Hamburg, Germany, in 11/29/2007.
The tour continued in April 2008, with their first appearance ever in Australia, where they played three consecutive dates from 25 to 27 April in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane respectively. They performed at the DutchPinkpop Festival on 30 May, the Rocksound Festival of Switzerland on 6 June, the AustrianNova Rock Festival on 13 June, the Hellfest Summer Open Air in France on 21 June and the FinnishRuisrock on 4 July 2008. Shortly after they played for the first time in Russia, on 6 July at the B1 Club of Moscow. Thereafter in October the band started a brief European tour, during which a second official DVD was shot. The filming took place along two consecutive shows on 15 and 16 October, in Tilburg, the Netherlands, at the 013 venue.[26] This was the final leg for the Fear of a Blank Planet tour and included their first performance ever as headliners in Portugal. Oceansize opened for the UK shows.
The album was critically acclaimed at release, receiving an average rating of 82 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on nine reviews.[37]Q magazine regarded the album as "a dramatic, wide-screen, expertly executed, even genuinely thrilling rock record worthy of an audience way beyond nu-prog's regular constituency."[37]AllMusic, which gave the album a 4.5 out of 5 score, assured that "While there is no "radio single" on the disc most songs transcend their complex structure and feel as provocative as any traditional rock tune".[38]David Fricke from Rolling Stone perceived Porcupine Tree to have evolved into "an aggressively modern merger of Rush’s arena art rock, U.K. prog classicism—especially Pink Floyd’s eulogies to madness and King Crimson’s angular majesty—and the post-grunge vengeance of Tool".[39]Greg Kot from Chicago Tribune described the sound as "stellar in its serpentine mood-shifting".[40]Sound and Vision praised the album as the band's finest work: "Porcupine Tree is at the height of its powers"[41] and voted it #3 CD of 2007.[42]
Decibel lauded: "Porcupine Tree prove they can play with the best of 'em".[43]The Phoenix newspaper stated "Fear of a Blank Planet is not only their most vintage-sounding album, it’s also their best",[44]Jim DeRogatis from the Chicago Sun-Times thought the album was "easily as strong as any of the band's previous eight releases, and the most timely", and Revolver magazine proclaimed "England’s prog princes return at their most limber and conceptually relevant".[45]PopMatters placed it at #5 of "The Best Metal Albums of 2007".[46]Reason magazine chose it as one of the "Best Albums of 2007" though they were more severe than other critics about the lyrical content, saying, "lyrically, it's ridiculous" and "if your grandma was theming a prog rock album, it'd come out something like this".[47] Dan LeRoy from Alternative Press announced it "as heavy as P-Tree have ever been" but "wistfully, sprawlingly melodic as well-sometimes in the same tune" and concluded that "if Wilson's vision of today's kids as overmedicated, overstimulated robots seems like a blatant appeal to the over-30 crowd, it's still worth setting the Xbox aside to listen".[48]
Steven Wilson live with Porcupine Tree at Arena, Poznan, Poland. 28 November 2007.
The album did well commercially. With Fear of a Blank Planet, the band broke the selling mark established by Deadwing, and reached the Top 100 of the Billboard 200 for the first time, debuting at #59. The album also entered the European Top 100 Albums at #21,[49] and charted the Top 40 in the UK, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Poland. The special edition limited to 10,000 copies was sold out worldwide within the same day of its release.[50] The album has sold 250,000 copies worldwide.[51]
Accolades
Fear of a Blank Planet won the "Album of the Year" award for the 2007 Classic Rock magazine awards.[52] This was the second time the band won this award, the first time being in 2005 with Deadwing.[53] It was also the No. 1 album for 2007 on Metal Storm.[54] On 12 December 2007, the album received a nomination for a Grammy Award in the "Best Surround Sound Album" category.[55]
Gavin Harrison won the Modern Drummer magazine readers' poll for "Best Progressive Drummer of the Year" consecutively in 2007 and 2008; the last time he also came second in the "Best Recorded Performance" category for Fear of a Blank Planet.[56] In 2014, readers of Rhythm voted it the fifth greatest drumming album in the history of progressive rock.[57]DRUM! Magazine included the album in its 2012 list of the "Top 20 Drum Albums of the Last 20 Years" referring to Harrison as "today's answer to nearly any drumming question."[58]
In 2012, Popmatters named Fear of a Blank Planet the best progressive rock album of the 2000s.[59]Loudwire placed the album at #27 on their "Top 100 Hard Rock and Heavy Metal Albums of the 21st Century" list.[60] In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked Fear of a Blank Planet as the 39th best progressive rock album of all time[61] and British magazine Prog ranked the album 18th on its list of the "Top 100 Greatest Prog Albums of All Time."[62]
Track listing
All tracks are written by Steven Wilson, except where noted
In addition to the regular issue, a special two-disc edition was released, containing both Stereo and 5.1 Surround Sound mixes plus a forty-page booklet. This limited edition of 10,000 copies was sold out the day of its release.[50][63]
Vinyl edition
The 2LP vinyl edition was released through Tonefloat Records; there is a standard edition on 180g black vinyl in a gatefold sleeve and a special edition (limited to 1000 copies) on black/blue marbled vinyl packaged in a numbered slipcase with a 12x12" 16-page booklet. The vinyl edition has a slightly different track listing[64] and includes the Nil Recurring EP. There is also a special pink vinyl edition limited to 500 copies released on 1 May 2008, to coincide with the band's recent appearance at the Pinkpop festival in the Netherlands. This was originally provided to Dutch record stores only[65] but was made available for purchase from the band's online store for a very limited run from 14 June 2008. The stock lasted less than five days.
Side one
All tracks are written by Steven Wilson (except noted)
"Nil Recurring" (Gavin Harrison – taped guitar; Robert Fripp – lead guitar)
Harrison, Edwin, Barbieri, Wilson
6:08
2.
"Normal"
7:09
3.
"What Happens Now?" (Ben Coleman – electric violin)
Wilson, Barbieri, Edwin, Harrison
8:23
Total length:
21:40
DVD-A edition
A Grammy nominated special limited edition audiophile 5.1 Surround Sound version released on the band's own Transmission label, featuring the 5.1 mix of the album in advanced resolution/MLP lossless 5.1 surround, DTS 5.1 digital surround sound, and 24 bit stereo, as well as all 4 tracks from the Nil Recurring mini album in surround sound. The disc also includes three video works directed by Lasse Hoile: a special Blank Planet Introduction short film, the uncensored version of the "Fear of a Blank Planet" promo video, and the full length 17-minute film for "Anesthetize" as seen during the band's live shows.
Porcupine Tree are an English rock band formed by musician Steven Wilson in 1987. During an initial career spanning more than twenty years, they earned critical acclaim from critics and fellow musicians, developed a cult following, and became an influence for new artists. The group carved out a career at a certain distance away from mainstream music, being described by publications such as Classic Rock and PopMatters as "the most important band you'd never heard of".
Steven John Wilson is an English musician. He is the founder, guitarist, lead vocalist and songwriter of the rock band Porcupine Tree, as well as being a member of several other bands, including Blackfield, Storm Corrosion and No-Man. He is also a solo artist, having released seven solo albums since his solo debut Insurgentes in 2008. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Wilson has made music prolifically and earned critical acclaim. His honours include six nominations for Grammy Awards: twice with Porcupine Tree, once with his collaborative band Storm Corrosion and three times as a solo artist. In 2017, The Daily Telegraph described him as "a resolutely independent artist" and "probably the most successful British artist you've never heard of".
Richard Barbieri is an English musician, composer and sound designer. Originally a member of new wave band Japan, more recently he is known as the keyboard player in the progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, which he joined in 1993. Aside from the founder Steven Wilson, he is the longest tenured member of Porcupine Tree.
Deadwing is the eighth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, released in Japan on 24 March 2005, in Europe on 28 March, and in the US on 26 April. It quickly became the band's best selling album, although it was later surpassed by Fear of a Blank Planet. The album is based on a screenplay written by Steven Wilson and Mike Bennion, and is a ghost story. Wilson has stated that the songs "Deadwing", "Lazarus", "Arriving Somewhere but Not Here", "Open Car", and "Mellotron Scratch" were originally intended for the film soundtrack, but when the project failed to find funding they were instead recorded for the next Porcupine Tree album. The album versions of "Lazarus" and "Open Car" essentially remain Wilson solo tracks onto which Gavin Harrison overdubbed drums.
Signify is the fourth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. It was released in September 1996 and later re-released in 2003 with a second disc of demos, which had previously been released on the b-side cassette tape Insignificance, and a third time, on vinyl, on 9 May 2011. It was the first album that frontman Steven Wilson recorded with the band on board from the beginning; previous albums had been essentially solo efforts with occasional help from other musicians.
In Absentia is the seventh studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released on 24 September 2002. The album marked several changes for the band, with it being the first with new drummer Gavin Harrison and the first to move into a more progressive metal direction, contrary to past albums' psychedelic and alternative rock sounds. Additionally, it was their first release on a major record label, Lava Records. It was very well received critically and commercially, with it often being considered the band's crowning achievement, and selling three times as many copies as any of the band's earlier albums.
John Wesley Dearth III is an American guitarist and singer, best known as touring guitarist for Porcupine Tree between 2002 and 2010, and also for performing with Mike Tramp, Fish, Sound of Contact, Edison's Children and Vertical Horizon, as well as for his solo work.
Lightbulb Sun is the sixth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released in May 2000, and later reissued in 2008 on CD, DVD-A surround sound, and vinyl.
Colin Edwin Balch is an Australian musician, specialising in fretted and fretless bass guitar, double bass and guimbri.
Blackfield is a collaborative music project by the English musician and founder of Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson, and Israeli rock singer Aviv Geffen. Together, six albums have been released under the moniker. The first two records, Blackfield and Blackfield II, saw Geffen and Wilson working together as equal partners, while the third and fourth, Welcome to my DNA and Blackfield IV, saw Geffen take on a leading role, writing all but one track across both albums and providing a significantly increased share of lead vocals. Despite initially announcing his intention to leave the project in 2014, Wilson instead worked again as an equal partner on a fifth album, Blackfield V, which was released on 10 February 2017. A sixth record, For the Music, was released on 4 December 2020, with Geffen again taking a leading role.
Lasse Hoile is a Danish artist, photographer and filmmaker. He has collaborated with musician Steven Wilson and his projects Porcupine Tree and Blackfield. He has also designed live visuals for US progressive metal band Dream Theater. In the mid-1990s he was the vocalist for Danish death metal band Panzerchrist.
The following is a listing of officially released works by the English band Porcupine Tree. The band has released eleven major studio albums and 7 EPs, as well as many limited editions and revamped material.
"Fear of a Blank Planet" is a Porcupine Tree song released in 2007. It appears as the first track on the album of the same name.
Nil Recurring is an EP by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, released on 17 September 2007 through the band's online store. The standard version of the mini-album is composed of four tracks written during the Fear of a Blank Planet recording sessions and was completed over the summer of 2007. The EP's title, which stems from the opening instrumental track on the EP, was actually derived from an unreleased demo written during the Fear of a Blank Planet recording sessions, called "Always Recurring". Although the band never formally released the song, lyrical and melodic elements of the track were reused in the closing piece of the EP, "What Happens Now?".
"Way Out of Here" is a song by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, and the fifth track from their ninth studio album, Fear of a Blank Planet. It is remarkable for being the only full-band composition of the record. A promo two-track single was released by Roadrunner Records intended for radio airplay. The record consists of the album version of the song and a radio edit, the same used for the promo videoclip, it comes housed in a cardboard sleeve with unique artwork.
Ilosaarirock is a live album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, released in March 2009. It was sent out only to members of the "Residents of a Blank Planet" ticketing club and is not commercially available. It was recorded at the Ilosaarirock Festival in Finland on 14 July 2007, and is considered by the band to be one of the best concerts from the "Tour of a Blank Planet". It includes the band's complete performance remixed from the multitrack recording made by national Finnish radio. Although it contains a few familiar favorites, most of the concert consists of tracks from Fear of a Blank Planet. This was the first time that live versions of the Fear of a Blank Planet songs have been officially released. Due to a fault with the mastering on the first manufacturing run, a corrected replacement CD was also included inside the package.
The Incident is the tenth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. It was released as a double album on 14 September 2009 by Roadrunner Records. The record was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album and reached the Top 25 on both the US and UK album charts. It was the final release to feature Colin Edwin on bass as well as the last one from the band before an extended hiatus that lasted until 2021.
Anesthetize is the second live concert film by progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, released on 20 May 2010. The Blu-ray edition was released on 15 June. It is filmed in high definition and taken from two concerts given by Porcupine Tree at Tilburg, Netherlands on 15 and 16 October, at the end of the Fear of a Blank Planet tour in 2008. The film is directed and edited by Lasse Hoile and the audio track is mixed in stereo and 5.1 Surround by Steven Wilson.
Closure/Continuation is the eleventh studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. It is their first since 2009's The Incident. Despite public uncertainty of the band's future after frontman Steven Wilson's focus on a solo career in 2010, the album was recorded intermittently in complete secrecy among Wilson, Gavin Harrison, and Richard Barbieri across the course of the following decade, without longtime bassist Colin Edwin. With the COVID-19 pandemic putting members' separate plans on hold, the band found time to finish the record in September 2021. Towards the end of the year, the band's reformation was announced, alongside the album's release date of 24 June 2022. Four singles were released ahead of the record—"Harridan", "Of the New Day", "Herd Culling", and "Rats Return".
Closure/Continuation.Live.Amsterdam 07/11/22 is a live album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released on 8 December 2023. The record is the second major release since the band's return in 2021. It features the band's concert to a sold out crowd at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam, Netherlands on 7 November 2022. The set list of the concert features every track from the standard edition of the band's most recent studio album Closure/Continuation. Alongside the album, a concert film documenting the performance, was also released.
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