Stupid Dream

This is the second in a series of posts about my favorite albums over the years: the first (in no particular order) I wrote about was Robert Plant's Now and Zen.

This time it's Porcupine Tree's Stupid Dream, released in 1999. I wasn't even aware of Porcupine Tree until a few years later when I heard them on Radio Paradise (which in turn, I only happened to discover by picking up an issue of Linux Journal, which highlighted the netradio station's use of free & open source software). I bought a bunch of their albums and searched the file-sharing networks for the rest. What first captivated me was the science-fiction themes in a few songs. Later, getting into their early work, it was the lysergic lyrics that borrowed from and extended upon 60's classics like Sgt. Pepper's. Later still, it was the harder rock sound of albums like 2004's In Absentia. With many long songs and unconstrained musical changes, Porcupine Tree hearkens back to progressive rock bands like Pink Floyd or Yes without sounding dated.

Stupid Dream puts it all together beautifully. Mature lyrics that go far deeper than their early Alice-In-Wonderland psychedelic stuff. Songs that shift tempo from low-key ambiance to great power chord jams. A consistent quality throughout that keeps you hooked in.

Even Less

With this topic, songwriter Steven Wilson certainly doesn't seem to show sadness, remorse, or guilt, but instead perhaps a dull acceptance that life goes on, why some people choose to leave it may always be a mystery, and maybe there's a kind of pride buried in that acknowledgement. I just realized upon hearing an NPR story the other day that the song concludes with part of a real "numbers station", a global phenomena of cryptic shortwave broadcasts, known in at least some cases to be encrypted broadcasts to spies abroad. Nice touch!

Piano Lessons

Like Another Brick in the Wall, this song lambastes authority figures who work to destroy creativity in their pupils and instill conformity by driving out originality. But he never gave up on his "stupid dream" to become somebody, even if (he now realizes) it is something of a commodity ("I come in values packs of ten, with five varieties!"). Welcome to the machine indeed. Sardonically humorous and thoroughly British.

Pure Narcotic

"You keep me listening to the Bends..." I think some of the lyrics on this album may have been inspired by Thom Yorke's oblique style of writing for Radiohead. A lot of the lyrics in the songs that follow haven't crystallized for me... but they're musically delicious.

A Smart Kid

Returns to a science-fiction theme visited in some of their earlier songs, particularly Radioactive Toy, the sole survivor on a post-apocalyptic Earth. But his song-writing shows vast improvement here, painting the picture of an epic narrative with very few words.

Stop Swimming

Wikipedia suggests that this "was heavily inspired by one of Steve Wilson's favourite bands, Talk Talk." Cool, they are one of my favorites too, for what [little] that is worth. Talk Talk evolved from an Eighties sound, lumped with Duran Duran, into avante garde "post-rock" soundscapes, and ultimately gave up making music due to the ice-cold reception of their fans, label, and critics. Thankfully Porcupine Tree did not take that route.