I remember the disputes around the school yard. There were those who believed the voice in What's On Your Mind (Pure Energy) was that of Spock from Star Trek, and those who said, "No way. Not true." Well, let's first start by clearing up that schoolyard scrap. It is Spock, AKA Leonard Nimoy from the Star Trek episode Errand of Mercy. The track also features a sample of DeForest Kelley, AKA Bones from the episode I, Mudd. Nimoy delivers the chorus line, "Pure Energy", while Kelly's voice is the intro to the track, "It's worked so far, but we're not out yet." As they say in Tridimensional Chess, "SuDtaH chaH, HIjmeH, qul naQmey!" - Thanks, English to Klingon translator!
The self titled Information Society album from 1988 was the band's debut, and with it delivered a heavy dance driven, and almost techno style, sound. It's full of bass thumping, drum track jumping beats, as well as a lot of sampling of spoken dialog from various sources.
Additionally, the album remains one of the very few in music history to be released in CD+G format. The downside to this is it renders it relatively unplayable on a standard computer disc drive. When played back in both Windows Media Player and VLC, it was sputtering and skipping horrendously. Fortunately, it ripped flawlessly to iTunes.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the format, CD+G is a music disc which not only provides the music from the album, but also low resolution graphics along with the music which are often times are attributed and used with karaoke displays to show lyrics on the screen. Because I don't have a CD+G player, I wasn't able to see any of this on my own disc. However, thanks to the day and age of Youtube, you can see it for yourself courtesy of of a quick search of "Information Society CD+G". At least you could at the time of this writing. The disc contains not only the lyrics at the bottom, but also a ton of information on the band. It's kind of entertaining.
As for the album itself, well, that's a different story. It's okay, but it doesn't deliver much. It's a shame too because What's On Your Mind (Pure Energy), the album's opening track, really sets a high expectation.I won't call it a total loss, because I'm sure to many fans of dance music it's probably a well deserved top ten in their music catalog. If I was looking at this album from that perspective, you know, just looking for dance-able beats, I'd probably be more so apt to enjoy it more. However, for me, I'm just looking for something along the lines of radio friendly, top forty type material.
I respect the album for what it is, but it's really just not for me. As I've said before, if nothing else, I'm at least broadening my horizons by giving "new" stuff a chance. I've been pleasantly surprised in the past, and I'm sure I will be again in the future.
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I had to listen to the sample on iTunes to remember the song though I remembered the Leonard Nimoy part, I couldn't remember the rest. Classic 80s.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's one that plays in my rotation frequently.
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