Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Porcupine Tree - "Fear Of A Blank Planet"
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. Released by Roadrunner on 16 April 2007 in the UK and rest of the Europe, 24 April 2007 in the United States through Atlantic, 25 April 2007 in Japan on 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 was about 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".
<snip>
The lyrics deal with two typical neurobehavioural developmental disorders affecting teenagers in the 21st century: bipolar disorder and attention deficit disorder, and also 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 '70s 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]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_a_Blank_Planet
<snip>
The lyrics deal with two typical neurobehavioural developmental disorders affecting teenagers in the 21st century: bipolar disorder and attention deficit disorder, and also 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 '70s 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]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_a_Blank_Planet
This album very accurately describes where we're at as of today and where we could be headed. If you want to hear the whole thing in its' entirety you can do so here:
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
