Eat The Elephant
Jan. 11th, 2020 11:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seeyat I finally sat down and thought about Eat The Elephant, the newest A Perfect Circle Album. I know, it's after Tool released theirs, so I'm pretty far behind but I have had no other people to talk to about it. The music today often falls into a pop category wherever we go and there aren't people lining up to talk about the lyrics of it all. The wonderful thing about APC and Maynard in general has always been a willingness to speak without fear about anything that comes to mind. If there is an issue that's held to heart, it will be put to words.
Track 2 - Disillusioned, has hit home pretty hard for me. It is focused on the increasing issue of people getting lost in their electronics and becoming "addicts of the immediate." We lose touch with the people around us when we only look down at our smartphones. I for one enjoy using someone else's phone to look things up which gives me a chance to have a short conversation with them. Someone brought up the point of it becoming an arcane art form, that of conversation, and I can at least partially attribute that to smartphones.
It's hard to relearn when there are two directions involved. I'm genuinely concerned for today's youth and their obsessions... I know it's fine to see them walking around with some headphones or whatever but when they just jump onto their phone for everything, it upsets me to know they could be testing each other's minds in little quizzical ways just asking about something they don't personally know. That's how our minds expand, and we learn how to learn. This is the point in our technological evolution where we have bypassed the use of our minds to expand ourselves and started relying on only the information a select few dedicated people have given us in the past.
Every time I pass by a bunch of teens at least half of them are staring down at glowing screens while being led by the sheep dogs of the group. The Dresden Dolls said it well long before any of this happened, we need to "sing for the kid with the phone who refuses to sing" Lost in technology... I swear it isn't hard to have a small laptop if you really need it, or have a tablet that's just bulky enough to need to store it in a hard-to-reach place. Something that intentionally slows us down, just to the point of requiring some thought before we look anything up. Or alternatively, ask a question and give those around you a chance to talk to you because maybe they'll enjoy it enough to keep the conversation going.
I urge you all to listen to this song with an open mind, don't look up the lyrics unless you can't easily understand them. They are delivered in a way that intentionally gives us time to think about what's being said and in tones that, when we listen closely, can drive home their meaning. The rest of the album is just as beautiful and the lyrics could be controversial to some but none of it is hateful or anything. James Maynard, one of the singers, has a personal history with an incident involving his mother who was crippled even after praying every day and attending church each week, so he has no love for God but this only shows in the form of hate on a single track from the album, Mer De Noms. Judith is still a beautifully written song but it's certainly not a positive one.
In short, listen to A Perfect Circle and form your own opinion. Eat The Elephant is certainly an awesome way to start as it has the variation of Tool's 10,000 Days and showcases the rock and ambient elements displayed in all APC's other work. Just like everything else Maynard touches, it feels right to me.
Track 2 - Disillusioned, has hit home pretty hard for me. It is focused on the increasing issue of people getting lost in their electronics and becoming "addicts of the immediate." We lose touch with the people around us when we only look down at our smartphones. I for one enjoy using someone else's phone to look things up which gives me a chance to have a short conversation with them. Someone brought up the point of it becoming an arcane art form, that of conversation, and I can at least partially attribute that to smartphones.
It's hard to relearn when there are two directions involved. I'm genuinely concerned for today's youth and their obsessions... I know it's fine to see them walking around with some headphones or whatever but when they just jump onto their phone for everything, it upsets me to know they could be testing each other's minds in little quizzical ways just asking about something they don't personally know. That's how our minds expand, and we learn how to learn. This is the point in our technological evolution where we have bypassed the use of our minds to expand ourselves and started relying on only the information a select few dedicated people have given us in the past.
Every time I pass by a bunch of teens at least half of them are staring down at glowing screens while being led by the sheep dogs of the group. The Dresden Dolls said it well long before any of this happened, we need to "sing for the kid with the phone who refuses to sing" Lost in technology... I swear it isn't hard to have a small laptop if you really need it, or have a tablet that's just bulky enough to need to store it in a hard-to-reach place. Something that intentionally slows us down, just to the point of requiring some thought before we look anything up. Or alternatively, ask a question and give those around you a chance to talk to you because maybe they'll enjoy it enough to keep the conversation going.
I urge you all to listen to this song with an open mind, don't look up the lyrics unless you can't easily understand them. They are delivered in a way that intentionally gives us time to think about what's being said and in tones that, when we listen closely, can drive home their meaning. The rest of the album is just as beautiful and the lyrics could be controversial to some but none of it is hateful or anything. James Maynard, one of the singers, has a personal history with an incident involving his mother who was crippled even after praying every day and attending church each week, so he has no love for God but this only shows in the form of hate on a single track from the album, Mer De Noms. Judith is still a beautifully written song but it's certainly not a positive one.
In short, listen to A Perfect Circle and form your own opinion. Eat The Elephant is certainly an awesome way to start as it has the variation of Tool's 10,000 Days and showcases the rock and ambient elements displayed in all APC's other work. Just like everything else Maynard touches, it feels right to me.
