An Exhausting Stroll Through Opeth's "Blackwater Park": Prog Review #28
Opeth - Blackwater Park
Opeth was full of surprises—some acoustic guitar, a twinkly piano interlude, drums that weren't machine-gunning the double-kick. This was not the hardcore assault on the ears I expected it to be, vocals notwithstanding.
The growly vocals test the limits of my openness to new sounds, however
I thought this album would be better if every instance of those growl-screams were replaced with nothing at all. The music is complex and interesting, and it's not like those atonal gasps add anything close to a melody. And there are what's called "clean" vocals on just about every track. So why, if you have an actual vocalist who can sing actual discernible notes, would you make the majority of vocals this off-putting, irritating non-singing? The first time an artist did that, maybe it was interesting, a novelty at least. But it's tired and unoriginal and in no way superior to singing.
Opeth fans might want to tell me that Mikael Åkerfeldt's growls are the deepest and purest of all, but they're still just not interesting or fun. I've heard that the most recent Opeth album has clean vocals only, so that one may be more my speed.
As complex and creative and competent as this album may be, it doesn't move me in any way. The growling vocals over chuggy, chunky metal riffs sound like any death metal band, while the more melodic and nuanced sections of tracks grab my attention only momentarily. Most of the time, Blackwater Park (2001) is just background noise to me. None of the tracks feel all that different from any other since each plays through the same dynamic, switching between heavy chugging with growls to emotive, convoluted melodies. It all works just fine, without anything standing out.
A big part of my problem with this album is its length. In my teens and early twenties, I was usually delighted when I'd pop in a disc and look at the total album length if it exceeded an hour. It felt like I was getting more music for my dollar, and I also had more time back then to just lose myself in music. I'd feel cheated if an album ran under 40 minutes. But now, 67 minutes is a major time commitment for discovering a new band and new albums.
Limits for Creativity
A slog through the park
All this has me thinking about how the limitations of recording technology shaped the way we experience albums and what we expect of them. Records and tapes had more limited space than discs, maxing out around 45 minutes. So, when CDs became the dominant medium, it must have been liberating for producers to extend run times to an hour or even 80 minutes. I grew up in the 90s, so I was very used to these bloated recordings, and some such discs remain among my favourites. One notable case of a band fully exploring the space of CDs is Sloan's 2006 album, Never Hear the End of It, a 30-track extravaganza that runs a little over 76 minutes.
Mark Rosewater, head designer for Magic: the Gathering, is often quoted as saying that "restrictions breed creativity." An early article on Magic’s website about this idea had a strong influence on my thinking about creativity. It's a poignant sentiment about how how creators need limitations like deadlines and editors to tell them to stop experimenting too much and to instead trust in precedent, structure, and restraint for producing something great. Rosewater argues that changing the limitations, not removing them, is the key to innovation.
So it is for music. I heard recently on The History of New Music, in an episode discussing Oasis, that the band's third album, Be Here Now (1997), came out so long and so bad largely because no one was censoring Noel Gallagher (or Liam? I forget which). Incidentally, I used to love that disc, and I still like a lot of it.
Th earlier limitations on album length trained us to accept albums to be shorter, and probably for the better. So, the foray into extra long CDs of the 90s and 2000s were often met with criticism for their length. As I've gotten older, I've come to agree that a tight 35-40-minute album may be better, at least in some cases. For Opeth, this is definitely the case. I have not been able to listen to this album through in one sitting, and I have no desire to.
After a few days with Blackwater Park, I turned off the album while driving, and Metric's "Now or Never Now" was just starting on the radio. I immediately wanted to move and sing, and I felt joy from the music I was listening to. That feeling cemented my thinking that I should just give up on Opeth.
Where to rank this one? I asked myself, "would I rather listen to it or Wish You Were Here?" The prospect of the latter was more appealing to me in the moment because I knew I'd at least enjoy "Welcome to the Machine." Coming back to writing this post after a 6-month break, I'm not so sure anymore. Wish You Were Here is boring boring boring, while this is merely too much of something ok. I'll have to go with Blackwater Park as my preferred listen. The album may be a slog, but any track on its own at least has some appeal, especially "Bleak" and "Dirge for November."
Rolling Stone Rankings
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King
Rush - Moving Pictures
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
Yes – Close to the Edge
Genesis - Selling England by the Pound
Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick
Can - Future Days
Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Yes - Fragile
Rush - Hemispheres
ELP - Brain Salad Surgery
Pink Floyd - Animals
Genesis - Foxtrot
King Crimson - Red
Gentle Giant - Octopus
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells
Frank Zappa - One Size Fits All
Premiata Forneria Marconi - Per Un Amico
King Crimson - Larks’ Tongue in Aspic
Camel - Mirage
Rush - 2112
Tangerine Dream - Phaedra
Magma - Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh
The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium
Van Der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts
Supertramp - Crime of the Century
Opeth - Blackwater Park
ASK Rankings
Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Supertramp - Crime of the Century
Genesis - Foxtrot
Camel - Mirage
Yes – Close to the Edge
King Crimson - Red
Gentle Giant - Octopus
Genesis - Selling England by the Pound
Rush - 2112
Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick
ELP - Brain Salad Surgery
Rush - Moving Pictures
King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King
The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium
Premiata Forneria Marconi - Per Un Amico
King Crimson - Larks’ Tongue in Aspic
Pink Floyd - Animals
Frank Zappa - One Size Fits All
Yes - Fragile
Rush - Hemispheres
Tangerine Dream - Phaedra
Magma - Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Can - Future Days
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells
Van Der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts
Opeth - Blackwater Park
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here