4th Round Mod: Spirit of Eden v. Shaming of the

proud to see Gilbert make it this far, as one of my few individual suggestions to the modern tournament not suggested by anyone else.

That said, supported it this far, but no further.  Spirit of Eden is one of my top 3 modern albums. Brilliant and so touching to the heart and soul.

Last one of the 4th round!

Last up... a battle of two greats! In previous rounds we did song samples, great PA's reviews, with this round I wanted to do something a different. So I went outside PA's..  what do people outside of this site say about these albums.

Spirit of Eden by Talk Talk

Gorgeous and timeless
Mark Hollis, like David Sylvian of Japan, Bjork of The Sugarcubes and David Byrne of the Talking Heads, always seemed to be peeking over the horizon and onto the next thing even while his band was appearing on 'Top of the Pops' or pandering to record label execs.

SPIRIT OF EDEN is that moment when he finally realized that walking away from the safety of the pop charts was far more satisfying than making an album full of compromises.

SPIRIT OF EDEN isn't really a pop record or a new wave record or a jazz record. It defies classification and yet captures the heart of many pop, new wave and jazz fans alike. That is because this is a collection of timeless music made all the more memorable by Mark Hollis' frail and delicate musings on life, love and the heartbreak of heroin.

There aren't synthesizer hooks or an overkill of fretless bass as on previous Talk Talk efforts.. instead you'll find passionately played harmonica and carefully orchestrated horns and strings. This isn't your typical orchestral syrup poured over pop tunes masquerading as art. These are gorgeous freeform songs played with love and passion and held together by the thrill of hearing a band performing at its creative peak.

I don't want to explain what each of the six songs do for me personally because I think discovering that for oneself is the real gift of SPIRIT OF EDEN. My only wish in writing is that someone, somewhere, will read this and seek out a copy for themselves. It has been two months now and I haven't taken it out of my CD player.

I lied, I have another wish. That Mark Hollis will read enough of these and be forced to consider making more music. True, LAUGHING STOCK and MARK HOLLIS solo are wonderful too. It's hard to imagine, however, what lovely music Hollis lives with in his mind that might not see the light of day.

I don't expect that I'll be without SPIRIT OF EDEN anytime soon. It has become a part of my nightly ritual. Headphones on. Lights out. And the story begins...

The Shaming Of The True by Kevin Gilbert

As others have said, this album is a masterpiece. Sadly, like many great artists before him, Kevin Gilbert wasn't as fully appreciated as he should have been in his lifetime, but that frustration led him to his greatest creative heights. The way I see it, Gilbert's music was like the musical equivalent of the current Ford Mustang, seamlessly combining early 70s retro and modern styles and everything in between into a timeless whole greater than the sum of the parts. Unfortunately, unlike the wildly popular Mustang, Gilbert's music had difficulty finding a market, and for that I blame the narrow-mindedness of the record company and radio station executives. If it doesn't fit a predetermined radio-friendly format, they don't market it. Kevin Gilbert understood this all too well, and rather than compromise his vision, he chose to channel his anger and frustration into this brilliant rock opera. Ostensibly the story of a fictitious rock star named Johnny Virgil, I'm sure much of it was based on his own experiences. What really boggles my mind about it is that it wasn't completed at the time of his death, but thanks to the efforts of his collaborators Nick D'Virgilio. John Cuniberti, and others, it sounds every bit as polished as the other great rock operas, "Tommy", "Jesus Christ Superstar", "The Wall", and "Scenes From a Memory", and even more heartfelt. Stylistically, it runs the gamut from soft acoustic guitar ballads to angry metal riffs, with a lovely piano ballad and a baroque fugue thrown in for good measure. "Suit Fugue (Dance of the A&R Men)" is one of the standout tracks, a satirical hodgepodge of A&R clichés elaborately set to overlapping counterpoint to create the head-spinning feeling of an artist being courted by several record companies at once. "Certifiable #1 Smash" is even more bitingly satirical, and so it goes, tracing Johnny's path from obscurity to fame and back, skewering every target that deserves it along the way. I agree with those who say this disc deserves to be on a "desert island" list. It's immediately impressive and continues to get better with repeated listenings.