Thoughts on Goblin, Steven Wilson, and videos

[bobg56]

After seeing Goblin in Philly last year, I decided that I liked them and bought alot of their CDs. Now I realize that pretty much all of their albums are soundtracks, but I enjoyed them without having seen any of the movies. Now I don't particularly like horror movies and so listening to the music is all I have to experience. As for Steven Wilson, I watched the videos for Drive Home and The Raven That Refused to Sing. So now when I listen to those 2 songs, I picture those 2 animated videos which I'm not sure is a good thing. So what I don't want is to see a Goblin related movie and then have to picture someone being stabbed or killed every time I hear their music. As I said, I can enjoy the music for what it is. What do you guys think? Does a video enhance or ruin the experience of the music?


Bob

[boilk]

I can separate the two. If I like the video, it can enhance my enjoyment of the song. If I don't like it, it won't affect it. Personally, I love horror movies and SW's dark imagery, and since the music of Goblin and SW is very visual anyways, it's a plus for me. I can understand how it might disturb some, but Dario Argento, the man behind a lot of the movies that Goblin has done music for, stylizes the violence and lights and photographs it beautifully, so I don't think of it as disturbing, but interesting, visually.

neil

[bob_32_116]

I can appreciate the art of a well made video, but I think too much is made of the importance of videos. For every video i have seen that enhances my enjoyment of a song, there have probably been ten that I thought quite pointless, sometimes detracting from the song.

Referring to Steven Wilson in particular, the Raven video is well done, but I have seen other SW videos that I didn't like much. I know what you mean about the song being spoiled afterwards by recalling the video. I loved that song "Somewhere Only We know" by Keane, but since I saw the official video I cannot hear the song now without visualising that idiotic video.

[dropforge]

After seeing Goblin in Philly last year, I decided that I liked them and bought alot of their CDs. Now I realize that pretty much all of their albums are soundtracks, but I enjoyed them without having seen any of the movies. Now I don't particularly like horror movies and so listening to the music is all I have to experience. As for Steven Wilson, I watched the videos for Drive Home and The Raven That Refused to Sing. So now when I listen to those 2 songs, I picture those 2 animated videos which I'm not sure is a good thing. So what I don't want is to see a Goblin related movie and then have to picture someone being stabbed or killed every time I hear their music. As I said, I can enjoy the music for what it is. What do you guys think? Does a video enhance or ruin the experience of the music?

I'm a Goblin fanboy. I love the music, and the movies, and the music and movies together. It's a win-win for me.

Btw, do you have these Goblin albums? They're not soundtracks: Roller, Il Fantastico Viaggio del Bagarozzo Mark and BacktotheGoblin2005. The last one is the Goblin guys without Simonetti, and they're cutting a new album, too. You want/need those. The one you want to stay far away from is Il Volo, from '82, which was a sellout attempt and best forgotten.

[bobg56]

I'm a Goblin fanboy. I love the music, and the movies, and the music and movies together. It's a win-win for me.

Btw, do you have these Goblin albums? They're not soundtracks: Roller, Il Fantastico Viaggio del Bagarozzo Mark and BacktotheGoblin2005. The last one is the Goblin guys without Simonetti, and they're cutting a new album, too. You want/need those. The one you want to stay far away from is Il Volo, from '82, which was a sellout attempt and best forgotten.

I have the 2 of the 3 that you mentioned. Back To The Goblin seems to be out of print. The Il Fantastico CD I really like. I don't know why I didn't get into them years ago. I must have heard something I didn't like and forgot about them for awhile.

[bobg56]

Back To The Goblin seems to be out of print.

I found it on the BackToTheFudda website. Ordered.

[dropforge]

I found it on the BackToTheFudda website. Ordered.

Cool! Wait till you hear "Magic Theater."

[Dusty Chalk]

Videos almost always detract, for me. The music better be strong enough to stand on its own, otherwise I am less interested. (Keep and Thief soundtracks are exceptions.) Case in point: Exorcist. There are a few exceptions -- the Steven Wilson two videos are fabulous, and don't detract from the music at all for me. I did see The Keep before hearing Logos (which has many elements of the Keep soundtrack), so it doesn't bother me so much, and Love on a Real Train is a great movie scene only enhanced by the fab soundtrack. And even though I saw it, I'm not distracted by the visuals of Killing Fields at all -- still one of my favourite albums by him.

[Scrotum Scissor]

I like to have Goblin on my earphones when I'm out at night prowling for prey with my giga butcher's knife. I dunno if the music enhances the action or the other way 'round.

Seriously; the Argento films are mostly of a low-caliber as far as the actual "horror level" goes, in as much as that they always strive towards patterned generics in narrative and thus aren't really "meta-artistic" statements (unlike, say, Psycho or The Exorcist or The Omen or The Shining). Argento's finest pictures are ALL about the fetish of aesthetics, so you'll watch it with a submissive distance no matter whether you appreciate the genre or not. And the music works wonder for the flickers, I think - although some modern viewers (espec fans of current trends in horror) tend to think the Goblin soundtracks rather distract from the contents and tableaus of the movies.

[strawberrybrick]

I'd call in the camp that keeps film and soundrack in one corner, and music in another; I can listen to something without the context of a film, but I can't say I'd watch something just for the music...