You have got to be fucking joking. Oh, you're not.
I accepted a challenge of sorts, i.e. to listen to Nightwish's song "The Greatest Show On Earth".
I've tried to listen to this lot before, with catastrophic results; I've always slagged this band off as a distorted version of Robert Wells with hubris and computers, but this time, I didn't know that I'd accepted to listen through a 24-minute-long track. Well, challenge accepted.
Here's the video, and here are my thoughts as typed while listening to the track for the first (and only) time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzPT9dGgeTs
01:00: I suddenly realised that I missed Sokolov a lot. 01:35: this sounds a lot like an intro to a fantasy TV series. 02:00: the Yamaha DX-7 really lives! 02:20: LOTR. 02:30: I wonder for how long they're going to play the same notes using both the Enya flute and the "piano". 03:00: oboe. why? 03:10: will they stop playing scales? Why is the sound "spirit voices" from the DX-7 there? 03:20: why a human voice over the robotic Yamaha voices? 04:00: why does it sound as though she's singing while leaning back? 04:10: kettle drums. Eurovision 2013. 04:40: scales and the Enya-Yahama voice again. 04:50: wow. synth violins. 05:00: but god. why? LOTR was 10 years ago? 05:20 "sumptuous planet". I NEVER thought anyone would use the word "sumptuous" about a planet.
06:10: when will it end? Metallica, what have you done? 06:30: everything we needed. Power chords over a twinkling of synths. 07:00: Bonnie Tyler's anemic sister before warming up her voice. 07:20: "we are a universe". wow. 07:57: wow. chemistry pop. 08:15: "we are one". mmm. 08:50: equal parts double bass drum and wishing nightwish were better than this. 09:20: "the wonder of birth". mmm. 09:32: "every form most beautiful". what? "Most beautiful"? 11:00: as though the BBC had never made a nature show. 11:30: just because you _can_ do this, you _should not_ do this. 12:20: wow. what a voice. Is it Robert Wells? 13:xx: "the architecture of understanding"? 13:15: "enter history/the grand finale"? 13:20: "enter ratkind"
Why? Why all the "enter"? It's as though dramaturgy does not exist and has never existed . Why are they using a way of writing which they don't master? why all the references to nature? are they fucking with the listeners?
14:10: Yamaha pan flutes. 14:20: I wonder if they will inject a banjo-- 14:35: yes. 14:45: electronic bass drums for ONE bar. 15:00 "he gave birth to poetry" - ? - and the rest of it...inexplicable.
I agree with the concept of great art generating questions, but this is simply moronic.
16:00: "we were here" - perhaps a trace of something interesting. 16:30: no. 16:50: nightwish ought to have loads of money. why aren't they buying decent synth sounds? the strings really sound DX-7. Totally. The Beatles managed to create better string sounds using a _mellotron_ in the 1960s. 17:40: we're taking the hobbits to GoT-gard. 18:10: "we are going to die/and that makes us the lucky ones"
they have no idea of what I'm thinking of them right now.
18:40: "greater poets than Keats" - why KEATS?!? 19:00: "in our ordinariness" - what!? they mention Keats and use a banjo? How is this "ordinariness"? 19:30: god. everything is special effects. Every second is showmanship. Why? 20:00: the fan video is less dramatic than what is heard while watching. 20:20: is this nightwish? is this just a cruel joke by [person who challenged me to see/hear this]? 21:00: the creaking must be from Robert Wells' rocking chair. That he's sitting in while having made this in fifteen minutes. 21:30: what happened to Stockhausen? Kraftwerk? Black Sabbath? 21:45: I hope Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins never ever hear this. 22:30: one long fade-out? 22:45: the gurgling must be from fans of nightwish who are trying to say they want more. 23:00: one minute left. what am I going to listen to after this? 23:20: my hands are trembling. 23:30: I'm thinking of when I was 12 years old and tried to make up great endings for mixtapes I made. 23:52: wow. I did this.