The Spirit of Radio: Conceptus Interruptus

[athelind]

AAAUGH.

The radio station just played one track from Rush's 2112 album.

For those who aren't familiar with it; 2112 is a "concept album" of the sort so beloved of Pretentious Prog Rock Bands like the Trio from Toronto. The "A" side is a single long story-based piece, divided into individual tracks solely for the sake of convenience.

Playing just "The Temple of Syrinx" is like ... like ... cutting off Star Wars right before the Death Star run.

Naturally, I have the CD, so I'm playing the entire album right the heck now, but, nevertheless, the damage is done. I'll have that irritating UNFINISHED feeling for the rest of the night.

How can you DO that?

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Comments

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

I was originally gonna find fault with the statement that 2112 is a concept album. The second half - once the second "side" but that's an obsolete term! - has nothing to do with the *song* 2112. But then it sank in that they played part of the orchestral suite 2112.

To be fair, classical music gets treated like that all the time. You listen to classical music stations and you'll heard Ode to Joy or The March of the Swiss Soldiers without any contextualization at all. And they do that kind of stuff to prog rock all the time. Four words. Thick as a Brick. ;)

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Thank you; "orchestral suite" was the missing term I was wracking my brain for.

And, yeah. It bugs me when they do it to "Thick is a Brick", though Tull DID do a special cut of that for radio play. I've heard the radio version of "The Wall" far more often than I've heard the album.

I think one reason it got the AUUGH reaction was that part of my brain was thinking, "gosh, nobody EVER plays 2112 on the radio."

Oh, and a MUCH better metaphor: it was like just playing the "Galileo" parts of "Bohemian Rhapsody".

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

No one plays 2112 on the radio because it's 20 minutes long! I mostly agree with you, though. I hate it when they chop up songs for the radio. I mean, have you heard Sweet Child of Mine on the radio? They cut out two minutes of the guitar solo. Hello! Without the guitar solo, why even bother with the goddamn song! Because we're thrilled with lyrics like "pray for the thunder and the rain to quietly pass me by"? Quiet thunder. Brilliant lyrics? No. Great guitar solos, hehe. And that's only 2 minutes out of a 7 minute song! I agree that Temples of Syrinx, cut from 2112 and played without context, is graphic musical violence.

But, hey, I don't know your pain. I don't even know if we HAVE a radio in the house. ;)

[athelind.livejournal.com]

But, hey, I don't know your pain. I don't even know if we HAVE a radio in the house. ;)

Git offa my lawn, whippersnapper. ::caneshake::

[moonfires.livejournal.com]

Of course, "Thick as a Brick" is an overblown parody of a concept album, it's needed to have a radio cut of it. Since there are only 2 tracks - Side A and Side B.

[araquan.livejournal.com]

The local classic rock station will play Temples of Syrinx from time to time.

I'll grant that many other concept albums are more easily split up into radioable bits, but as I usually listen to them as whole albums, I get a bit of that sense of incompleteness when, say, certain bits of Dark Side of The Moon are played by themselves.

What's even worse is when the station is doing some thing where they play two songs from the same artist in a block (two-fer Tuesdays) and they run a pair from the same concept album out of order...

Nnnnngh...

[twentythoughts.livejournal.com]

There are some exceptions. Even though The Mars Volta has done a concept album or two, nobody understands what the hell they're going on about anyway, so playing a single song doesn't make a difference.

[leonard-arlotte.livejournal.com]

I recall a radio station local to me playing the entirety of 2112 one day on a holiday, just because.

Mind you, this was about 20 years ago.

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

Well ... to be fair, the band did it themselves (or they did it by proxy of their record label) with their first Greatest Hits dual disc set, which only has "Temple of Syrinx" as the contribution from 2112. Given that commercial radio thrives on Greatest Hits compilations, it's a fair chance they don't even have the full album on hand.

Of course, this is the sort of philosophy that also thinks that you have to play "We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions" as one song.

[araquan.livejournal.com]

Also Led Zeppelin's "Livin' Lovin' Maid" and "Ramble On".
And Journey's "Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'" and "City of The Angels".

Though that second pairing seems less common these days on my local radio... More's the pity, as I actually like the latter song more, while it's the former that still gets played.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

May I steal that icon?

[araquan.livejournal.com]

Sure.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

I, um, get the same "Interruptus" reaction when a station plays "We Will Rock You" without following it up with "We Are The Champions". It's not quite so "AUUUGH", but it's definitely a "wait, what??"

[araquan.livejournal.com]

Same here. I guess it depends on how you're used to listening to stuff.

[moonfires.livejournal.com]

I remember when classic rock stations had the plays of "perfect album sides", something I have now heard repeated on Satellite.

[richardf8]

Well, you know, Temples of Syrinx. It's got a good beat and you can dance to it, and it doesn't have all that drug subtext like Bangkok express.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Somehow, I don't think a station that regularly plays "Cocaine" and has two shows hosted by old rockers who aren't shy about sharing stories of their misspent youth is especially concerned with SUBtext.

[mocha-mephooki.livejournal.com]

I can live with just hearing a single out of a sequence... but it drives me absolutely nuts when I hear two songs from that sequence, out of sequence. I nearly snapped my headsets in half the one time I had The Wall on, and forgot that my computer was playing in shuffle-mode.