Stupid Dream | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 22 March 1999 (UK) 6 April 1999 (Worldwide) [1] | |||
Recorded | January–November 1998 | |||
Studio | Foel Studio No Man's Land | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 59:55 | |||
Label | Kscope/Snapper (UK and US) East Rock/One Music (Korea) | |||
Producer | Steven Wilson | |||
Porcupine Tree chronology | ||||
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2006 Reissue | ||||
Singles from Stupid Dream | ||||
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Stupid Dream is the fifth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. It was first released in March 1999,and then re-released on 15 May 2006 due to the band's rising popularity on major record label Lava Records with their releases of In Absentia in 2002 and Deadwing in 2005. The album,along with Lightbulb Sun in 2000,represented a transitional period for the band,moving away from the band's earlier work in instrumental and psychedelic music,but before they took a more metal direction in 2002 onwards. The album takes a commercially accessible pop rock sound while still retaining heavy progressive rock influences.
The album's title is a reference to frontman Steven Wilson's view of the music industry;while many aspire to be a musician for fame and glamorous lifestyle,he feels it's a "stupid dream" because it actually leads to a life of hard work and struggle.
Frontman Steven Wilson explained the transitional period for the band at the time,stating:
...the earlier years were characterized for me by this idea of the extended composition that was largely based on jamming or textures or drones or space rock or whatever you want to call it. I felt I could draw towards learning more about song craft and the construction of songs and actually creating hooks and choruses and using vocals in a more kind of solid way. So...when I came back later on to making the longer form of composition, it wasn’t in the same way that I’d been doing in the early years. They were much more structured and they had that kind of songwriter’s discipline that I guess I explored and learned on the earlier albums like Stupid Dream and Lightbulb Sun . So it was certainly an important step... [4]
Wilson said that the album marked a transition away from "abstract instrumentality" into more "natural songwriting" also due to the influence of the music he had been listening to since the release of their last album, Signify in 1996. [5] These artists included Jeff Buckley, [5] Soundgarden, [5] Brian Wilson, [5] Todd Rundgren, [6] and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. [6]
The album was recorded at Foel Studios in Llanfair Caereinion, Wales, and at No Man's Land Studios at Hemel Hempstead, England. [7] Wilson stated that it was the first time that the band sat down and recorded a whole album in one extended period, rather than sporadically as with past albums. [5] He contends that this helped the band "experiment and collaborate on a cohesive sound for the album" and that the album "contains our most vertically complex music, as opposed to horizontally complex (whereby the tracks comprise simple sections, but many of them strung together). Here the songs are relatively tightly structured but much more layered than anything we had attempted before." [5] The band also had a much larger budget than in the past; the album production cost £15,000, compared to only £2,000 for their previous album Signify. [8] This enabled them to bring in an orchestra to record parts for the album. [8] Strings were arranged by Chris Thorpe and Wilson and performed by the East of England Orchestra.
Keyboardist Richard Barbieri took a different approach to the album's recording as well:
A much more sophisticated sound and meticulous attention to detail defines my approach on this album. Steven came up with a strong selection of songs and a long process followed during which we attempted to condense as many ideas, flavours and colours into the arrangements as possible. Orchestra, flute and saxophone added further to the eclectic mix and I also feel that we started to focus more of what each other was contributing. Nearly all my work was completed within an intense 7-day session in Wales. Before the sessions we had decided that the keyboards used would be analogue only. Much of my work was spontaneous performance recorded onto hard disk, which allowed me to adopt an approach whereby multiple takes and parts could be recorded and edited and compiled later on - a much more creative way of working than always looking for the one "perfect" take. But the other side to the recording was getting the pre-written parts worked out and played as well as possible, things like the mellotron and Hammond organ parts. [5]
The album was finished in late 1998 and released in March 1999. [9] The band's next album, Lightbulb Sun, was recorded so closely after the Stupid Dream sessions that Wilson later reflected that they sounded like "two parts of a double record". [4] Songs from these sessions that were ultimately left off both albums were later compiled onto the b-side album Recordings in 2001.
The lyrics of the album were much more personal to Wilson than they had been in previous Porcupine Tree albums. Wilson said the album deals with his own personal "insecurities and feelings" and "the usual singer-songwriter stuff", because he believed the most relatable and affecting lyrics were from a personal point of view. Much of the personal lyrics are also about his relationship and views on the music industry:
When I was writing some of the songs of the album I was very much aware of this contradiction between being an artist, being a musician, trying to be creative and write songs and, then, at the point you finish an album, the music is finished, the creative side is finished, you then have to go out and sell and market and promote. And that's like a completely different experience. It's not a very creative process. It's quite - in some ways - a cynical process going on having to sell your music. But you have to do it. I mean, if a modern musician is going to survive as a musician, you have to - in a sense - 'prostitute yourself' to try and sell your music and your art. And I was very much aware of that contradiction. If you think about that too much, it can drive you crazy, you know. It's an absurd thing to be doing. That kind of led me thinking about when I was a teenager, when I was just starting out and I was interested in being a musician. And I think a lot of teenage kids have this dream of being pop stars, of being a professional musician. This 'stupid dream' of being famous and 'life is a ball and everything is wonderful'. And, of course, actually the reality is that being a professional musician is a very hard work. It can be very heartbreaking, there's a lot of disappointment, there's a lot of hard work, there's a lot of travelling.
The album cover photography, taken by Robert Harding, is linked to the album's concept as well. Wilson stated:
Like sitting down with the record company to discuss how we're gonna market this album. And at that point your record becomes a product. And I just had this image of these CDs just coming off this conveyor belt. And obviously it's at complete odds with the music. But I wanted to have this kind of contradictory feel to the color. The bottom line is, the people that get into Porcupine Tree know that we're exactly not the kind of band that ever consider our music in terms of product and shifting units. So I thought it would kind of be fun to put an image on the album which is a comment on that. What could be a more stupid dream than wanting to make music and sell it.
Three singles were released from the album: "Piano Lessons", "Stranger by the Minute", and "Pure Narcotic". "Piano Lessons" was the first single for the album and was released just a week prior to the album's release. A music video was made in which band members used signs referencing ironic marketing terminology, related to the album's concept of being part of the music industry as a "stupid dream". "Stranger by the Minute" was the second single from the album. The song itself features a harmonization in the chorus, between Wilson and drummer Chris Maitland, his only vocal performance on the whole album. Wilson also plays the bass on the song, instead of bassist Colin Edwin. "Pure Narcotic" was the third and final single from the album. This track features acoustic guitars, close harmony vocals, glockenspiel, pastoral piano and lyrics. The lyrics make a reference to Radiohead's album The Bends : "You keep me hating, You keep me listening to 'The Bends'." [10]
"Even Less" was originally 17 minutes long, but Wilson decided to only use the first 7 minutes for the Stupid Dream album version. [6] A separate, second 7-minute section of the song was released on the CD single of "Stranger by the Minute", and a combined version of 14 minutes in length was later released on their 2001 Recordings compilation album. Additionally, a 15-minute demo version of the song with alternate lyrics can only be found in the special edition of the "Four Chords That Made a Million" single. At the end of the track a woman can be heard repeating the pattern of numbers: "0096 2251 2110 8105". About these numbers, Wilson stated: "The counting in 'Even Less' is taken from a recording of a shortwave numbers station. It is understood that these stations are used by intelligence agencies to transmit coded messages to overseas operatives, although no government agency has ever acknowledged the existence of these stations or what their actual purpose might be. They are virtually impossible to decode without the key since the message and its key are generated at random." [11]
The song "Stupid Dream" is actually only a short, 28 second instrumental piece of a tuning orchestra and sound effects. "Slave Called Shiver", and "Don't Hate Me", according to Wilson, are about feelings of "unreturned love". He said of them, "[A Slave Called Shiver]'s a very perverse love song, yeah. I mean, it's an unrequited love song. It's a love song with somebody who's obsessed with someone else, but none of that affection is returned. It relates very closely to 'Don't Hate Me', which is a song again about someone who's obsessed with someone from afar. 'Don't Hate Me' is an even more extreme version, because here this person actually begins to follow and make phone calls and, you know, it becomes very unhealthy. 'Slave Called Shiver' is slightly less extreme. It's about someone who's very much in love and obsessed with somebody else. That love is not returned and so there's a slightly violent perverse undercurrent. 'Pure Narcotic' also is very much the same subject". "Don't Hate Me" featured the first use of saxophone in the music of Porcupine Tree, courtesy of Theo Travis. During live performances, the flute and saxophone solos are replaced by Barbieri's keyboard and Wilson guitar solos respectively.
"This Is No Rehearsal" has been described as a mixture of "semi-acoustic segments with desperate vocals and heavy metal raves". Wilson said it "...was directly inspired by a tragic UK event a few years ago. A child was taken from a shopping mall while his mother was momentarily distracted and was later found dead and tortured near a railway track. The most disturbing thing about the story was that the two abductors/murderers turned out to be children themselves".
"Baby Dream in Cellophane" is a short psychedelic track. Colin Edwin does not appear in this track, Wilson plays the bass instead. Wilson has said of the song, "The baby in the song is basically singing the song: 'I am in my pram'. And it's quite a cynical song because he's basically saying that the boy's life is almost mapped out already as the child is born, it's already predetermined by society and the baby's kind of singing from the pram if you like, saying 'well, actually no, I'm not going to go down this path that's been laid out for me. I'm gonna break out.' It's almost like a very surreal teen rebellion song."
In "A Smart Kid" Wilson returns to a topic he has touched on before in "Radioactive Toy", a track from their first album, On the Sunday of Life.... The lyrics deal with a sole survivor after a possible apocalyptic war that gets picked up by an exploring spaceship.
"Tinto Brass" is the only song on the album credited to the whole band, not just Wilson, and was named after Italian director Tinto Brass. The track is an instrumental, with the exception of a spoken word part. Regarding that part of the song, Wilson said: "Oh, yes, it's spoken in Japanese! It's my girlfriend who's Japanese and she's got a film book. I tell you it's so difficult to find anything on Tinto Brass in England. He's completely unknown... And then my girlfriend... found this little biography: where he was born, the films he made. So she said, 'well, should I translate that for you?' (because I wanted it to be spoken in the track) and I said 'No, it's great' — I thought — 'I'll have it in Japanese'. So she just read it in Japanese. But it's just a list of his films and where he's from... It's nothing interesting".
The album is closed with the track "Stop Swimming". Wilson said of its meaning, "I found that when I was writing the music for this album a lot of the songs were about me and my relationship with the music industry and how I felt about where I was going in the music business and all that. Things like 'Stop Swimming'... maybe it's time to stop swimming... and this kind of whole impulse to just give up and go with the flow can be very strong sometimes. I mean I've never given into it. I never will." [6] Additionally, from the Warszawa live album liner notes, he said, "This is a very sad song, but if you're like me, I always find the saddest music is also the most beautiful and this is one of my favorite songs that I've ever written" [12]
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
Allmusic | [13] |
Ox-Fanzine | 9/10 [14] |
Pitchfork | 3.5/10 [15] |
Record Collector | [16] |
Rock Hard | 9/10 [17] |
Sound and Vision | [18] |
Sputnikmusic | [19] |
Reception for the album has been generally positive. Billboard praised the album, saying it contained some of Wilson's best lyrics, and favorably compared the album to the work of the band Radiohead. [20] Allmusic praised the songwriting and dynamics of the album, stating "Wilson as a songwriter and singer both sounds recharged and more ambitious, while the group collectively pours it on. The loud passages feel truly sky-smashing, the calmer ones perfectly close, and the overall sense of build and drama -- "A Smart Kid" is a fine example—spot-on." [10] In 2005, Stupid Dream was ranked number 339 in Rock Hard magazine's book The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time. [21] Classic Rock listed the album at No. 61 on its "100 Greatest Albums of the 90s." [22]
In October 2011, it was awarded a gold certification from the Independent Music Companies Association (IMPALA), which indicated sales in excess of 75,000 copies throughout Europe. [23]
All songs written by Steven Wilson, except "Tinto Brass", which is credited to all four band members.
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Even Less" | 7:11 |
2. | "Piano Lessons" | 4:21 |
3. | "Stupid Dream" | 0:28 |
4. | "Pure Narcotic" | 5:02 |
5. | "Slave Called Shiver" | 4:40 |
6. | "Don't Hate Me" | 8:30 |
7. | "This Is No Rehearsal" | 3:26 |
8. | "Baby Dream in Cellophane" | 3:15 |
9. | "Stranger by the Minute" | 4:30 |
10. | "A Smart Kid" | 5:22 |
11. | "Tinto Brass" | 6:17 |
12. | "Stop Swimming" | 6:53 |
Total length: | 59:55 |
The re-release was in the form as both a 2 disc CD/DVD-A set, and double vinyl LP. The double vinyl LP was only available through the band's official store, Burning Shed. The CD contains a new mix of the album by Wilson, and the DVD-A contains a 5.1 surround mix, the video for "Piano Lessons", and two bonus tracks, the full 14-minute version of "Even Less", and "Ambulance Chasing", both previously released on Recordings in 2001. The Korean edition of Stupid Dream included the "Piano Lessons" video as well. [7]
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".
OSI was an American progressive rock band, originally formed by Fates Warning guitarist Jim Matheos in 2002. Chroma Key keyboardist and vocalist Kevin Moore is the only other full-time member of the band. The collaboration may be considered a studio project, as its members and contributors write and track most of their material independently, sharing and developing tracks long-distance, only coming together at the end of the process for mixing and additional tracking. The band's name is a reference to the Office of Strategic Influence, a short-lived American government agency formed in 2001 to support the War on Terror through propaganda. The band has featured a number of guest musicians on its albums, including Sean Malone, Steven Wilson, Mikael Akerfeldt, Joey Vera and Gavin Harrison.
Office of Strategic Influence is the first studio album by American progressive rock band OSI, released by Inside Out Music on February 18, 2003. The album was recorded in June 2002 and mixed in August 2002 at the Carriage House Studios in Stamford, Connecticut.
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".
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.
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.
Up the Downstair is the second studio album by English progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released in June 1993. It was originally intended to be a double album set including the song "Voyage 34", which was instead released as a single in 1992, and other material that ended up on the Staircase Infinities EP (1994). In 2005, it was partially re-recorded, fully re-mixed, remastered and re-released along with the Staircase Infinities EP as a double album. The re-release contains a re-mix by Steven Wilson incorporating newly recorded drums by Gavin Harrison that replace the electronic drums of the original version. Another re-release on double vinyl was pressed on 14 August 2008 on Kscope records. This is identical to the 2005 release, except it is printed on coloured vinyl and the Staircase Infinities disc contains the song "Phantoms".
Recordings is a compilation album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released in May 2001. It is mainly a collection of b-sides and unreleased songs from the Stupid Dream and Lightbulb Sun albums' recording sessions. Recordings was originally a limited release, limited to only 20,000 copies worldwide. It was later reissued on CD in September, 2010, and as double vinyl in January 2011.
Voyage 34: The Complete Trip is a compilation album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. The individual tracks for the album were recorded in 1992 and 1993, while the album itself was compiled and released in 2000, and then reissued again in 2004.
Blackfield is a collaborative music project by the English musician and founder of Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson, and Israeli rock musician 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.
Fear of a Blank Planet is the ninth studio album by British progressive 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 to the point of mental and spiritual "blankness".
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.
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?".
Insurgentes is the debut full-length solo album released by British musician and record producer Steven Wilson, known for being the founder and frontman of progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. The album was recorded all over the world in studios from Mexico City to Japan and Israel, between January and August 2008, and released in November 2008 as a special deluxe multi disc mail order version, with retail release to follow in February 2009. According to Wilson himself, the album contained "the most experimental song-based music [he had] made." The album is named after the Avenida de los Insurgentes, the longest avenue in Mexico City near which part of it was recorded.
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.
4+1⁄2 is an EP by British musician Steven Wilson. It was released on 22 January 2016. It collects songs that were written during the sessions for Wilson's previous two studio albums, The Raven That Refused to Sing and Hand. Cannot. Erase.. The closing track is a new version of "Don't Hate Me", originally recorded by Porcupine Tree on the album Stupid Dream, sung as a duet with Israeli singer Ninet Tayeb. The title 4+1⁄2 indicates the EP serves as an interim release between Wilson's fourth solo album Hand. Cannot. Erase. and his fifth full-length studio album To the Bone.
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".
Herd Culling is a song by progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released on 20 May 2022 as the third single in promotion of the bands eleventh studio album Closure/Continuation. The track was released alongside a visualizer and later, on 1 September 2022 a music video.
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