LESS IS MORE

Around 2002 we got a new regional manager who thought he could motivate us with slogans he had picked up from one or other "Management Tips For The Social Skills Impaired Executive" manual. One of his favourites yells was "More with Less!". 'More' being 'work harder'; 'Less' being 'for less pay'. Needless to say we all hated his guts. As managers do, he's long moved on already to enlighten other companies with his insights.

Anyway, the "Less is More" axiom stuck with serious negative connotations forever since and Marillion's take on it won't help it a bit.

Next, I've always found this MTV-created unplugged hype complete bollocks. In my book, any serious piece of music is composed by or for a certain set of instruments. The whole sound of it is an integral part of the artistic vision. Music is not just a jumble of melodies you could play on any instrument. The saying that any good song should work in low-fi may be true for 3 chord pop ballads that never had much sophistication to begin with, but would you seriously expect Wagner's Walküre to sound as good on a mandolin as on the down-tuned contrabass it was composed for? Don't think so.

At best, it might be fun for the musicians themselves to explore their songs in a low-fi or a different arrangement. But I'm sure I don't want to be bothered with it. I can sure appreciate an hour long of piano or acoustic guitar if that are the instruments the piece was made for, but I don't want to hear this monotonous massacre (of some of my favourite Marillion tracks by the way) ever again.