When did Neal Morse jump the shark?

[simon moon]

I'd have to go with Snow. I liked, and pretty much still like, most of what lead up to Snow. I gave it just as much chance as I give any CD I buy, it just did nothing for me.

As an MD, I can tell you that these "holes in the heart" can often heal by themselves. I read several interviews where Neal said it was a miracle because he had prayed for it. He's free to believe that and even write songs about it, but I disagree about his interpretation of things.

Thanks for this response.

My cousin's baby had the same condition (VSD). She was informed by her doctor that it should heal on it's own by his third B-day. It did.

Intervention from a deity not required.

Unusual occurrences do not equal a miracle. The chances of a VSD healing on it's own are MUCH greater than someone wining the lottery, yet someone wins it every day.

[Dodie]

So, let's get this right - this thread is for people who want to bitch and moan about how Neal Morse isn't as good as he used to be?
Well, sorry, but I just completely disagree with that simplistic view of things. His last solo album 'Momentum' was his best in a while, and the two before that both had killer tracks on (and a few songs that weren't as strong - but that just makes it the same as anything Yes and Genesis have done since 1977, right?). "Seeds of Change" is probably the best epic he's done outside Spock's Beard and Transatlantic, and "World Without End" on the last album was almost as good. If some of our favourite vintage bands from the early 70s were still capable of producing anything as dramatic, colourful and passionate then most of us would be wetting ourselves with delight.

Whereas some of Morse's other solo albums - which I do enjoy in parts - are undeniably bogged down in formula. I'm thinking of 'One' and 'Sola Scriptura' - my least favourite two Morse albums. But I'm still glad I bought them, not least for loads of fantastic cover versions and a few great original tracks.

I don't have a problem with Morse's Christianity. A bit more tolerance about his right to sing about what he feels he needs to say would do some atheist folks some good, I reckon. But I do think his lyrics got less interesting the moment he started writing unabashed 'Praise Prog' solo albums. It's not the sentiment I mind, but the clumsy execution. His lyrics for Transatlantic, Flying Colors and on the most recent 'Momentum' album shows that he's a much better wordsmith when he's not loudly shouting Jesus's name over and over again, and singing about being born again, etc. On the other hand, I love 'Snow', and think it better expresses the religious sentiments in a more convincing way - largely because most of it's allegorical and has more relevance to people who don't use the same born-again vocabulary that dominates albums like 'Testimony 2' (though, like I said, "Seeds of Change" is possibly the best track Morse has done as a solo artist).

[simon moon]

Double post.

Not sure how that happened.

[Garion81]

While there is no doubt that Neal's music has immediately recognizable style and is perhaps even a bit formulaic it still works for me. He continues to write some of the hardest rocking technically challenging music in PROG today. The epic on his latest album Momentum is as good as any he's ever written. The only thing I agree with that has been posted in this thread is that it would be nice if you move on to different lyrical content. But he surrounds himself with and he himself is a world-class musician and one of the most fun to see play live.

If you want to talk about a band that jumped the shark I have one great example. YES: TORMATO

Couldn't say it better, Jim. The shows I have seen especially the ones with Portnoy and George in the band, were very powerful. This last one with the guys that demoed for him was the best outside of TA. To some of this threads points I think he could sometimes do better with a 10-15 minute trim off some of his albums but I think he just want to put everything he has out there to give his fans everything he has for their dollar. Still he has a gift for writing and his music connects with me no matter what he was writing about. He could sing Barack Obama's March madness tourney bracket selections and somehow he would find a way to convey his emotion.

[Progatron]

His last solo album 'Momentum' was his best in a while...."Seeds of Change" is probably the best epic he's done outside Spock's Beard and Transatlantic, and "World Without End" on the last album was almost as good. If some of our favourite vintage bands from the early 70s were still capable of producing anything as dramatic, colourful and passionate then most of us would be wetting ourselves with delight.

Totally agree with all of this.

I have no issue with Neal's subject matter, even though his beliefs are not mine. I do like, however, that on Momentum he tended to move away slightly from that angle, since he's basically said all he can about that. He has his worship album series as an outlet for that anyway. Testimony 2 and Momentum were both excellent releases from Neal that I still listen to on a semi-regular basis. I wasn't wild about Lifeline, but One and Sola Scriptura are both killer albums IMO.

[fiddermilkavon]

Neal Morse's last great albums were V and the Transatlantic albums. Snow was an ill-advised effort comprising bad pop and halfbaked prog. When Neal went all out evangelical after that it was time to show a deaf ear.

The Whirlwind was a great record made by great minds coming togeher; sadly Neal's born again lyrics killed an otherwise epic conclusion to the album. At the time of the Whirlwind I bought Sola Scriptura. A decent album to my ears musically, but praising Luther showed that he was at his wits end.

While there are aspects of Morse's music that I should be able to enjoy, praise-god lyrics put me off. After ten years of the same message, I find Morse's devotion to his god rather creepy. God has had enough of Neal's praising by now, and God is not lenient towards sycophants.

Neal may get thumbs up for his devotional music from his church and from scattered voices on the Internet. Truth is, most of his true fans from the Spock era have bailed because they have nothing in common with a born-again evangelical from Tennessee. In Europe, Neal god addiction puts him in the lunatic fringe.

Once Neal drops jesus and starts to write about normal prog-topics like hogweeds and khatrus he'll triple his audience.

[Man In The Mountain]

When did Neal jump the shark? Who cares? The dude gave us 5 of the most awesome prog albums ever, from The Light, Beware of Darkness, Kindness of Strangers, Day For Night & then the all-time classic V!! I love them all. Add on top of it, Transatlantic's SMPTe & Bridge Across Forever - It was as an amazing string of great albums as anyone has ever put out!!

OK, his albums are hit or miss these days... but, I guess that makes him human and not an instrument of God after all. And hey, Momentum is actually very very good, a very solid release & super light on the Jesus-speak. You should check it out before you write him off completely.

[Hobo Chang Ba]

I agree with ?.

[Adrian]

The only song on Snow that did anything for me was "Carrie," which Nick sang, so I guess that was where I got off the bus. His solo stuff has been hit and miss for me, and I still like his work with TA, but I still haven't gotten his last couple of solo CDs.

The religion stuff doesn't really bother me. He can believe whatever he wants to. On the other hand, there's only so much I can listen to a person singing about the same topic, over and over and over again. It's not the subject matter so much as the repetitiveness. I burned out on Roger Waters for the same reason.

[Digital_Man]

from The Light, Beware of Darkness, Kindness of Strangers, Day For Night & then the all-time classic V!!


I might take out "day for night" and put in "snow" instead. That is if I had to limit it to just five. DFN is very good but it's a bit poppy and not very representative of classic SB imo. I also think it was their somewhat blatant attempt to hit the big time. In a world where good pop would rule over bad pop it would have been huge. I guess they felt if that one didn't crack the top forty then none of their albums ever would and they went back to prog. Their snow album did make it to #15 on the top internet album charts though.

[JKL2000]

Didn't people like Sinatra and Tony Bennett sing about the same things all the time too? I can phase out the Jesus lyrics as easily as I can phase out lyrics about gals, etc. I know the "American Songbooks" or whatever that they sing from are largely great, but still it's often the same subject matter over and over. It just doesn't bother me. Not that all Neal Morse is great, but the lyrics just don't seem like they should be a real concern. I actually find it funny more than anything else, and find weird little phrases like "sleeping Jesus" running through my head, morphing into obscene phrases, etc. I certainly don't take it seriously. I'm happy for him, but to me he might as well be singing about Pothead Pixies.

[snowsnow]

A bit of Snow bashing which seems to occur every now and then - for me it is the Best Beard album by some way (Disc 1 in particular is just one excellent song followed by another)

Agree with others who point to Neal's latest solo effort + The whirlwind as being really strong efforts (IMHO)

[Rand Kelly]

When did Neal jump the shark? Who cares? The dude gave us 5 of the most awesome prog albums ever, from The Light, Beware of Darkness, Kindness of Strangers, Day For Night & then the all-time classic V!! I love them all. Add on top of it, Transatlantic's SMPTe & Bridge Across Forever - It was as an amazing string of great albums as anyone has ever put out!!

OK, his albums are hit or miss these days... but, I guess that makes him human and not an instrument of God after all. And hey, Momentum is actually very very good, a very solid release & super light on the Jesus-speak. You should check it out before you write him off completely.

BINGO! Best post in the entire thread.

[Rufus]

A bit of Snow bashing which seems to occur every now and then - for me it is the Best Beard album by some way (Disc 1 in particular is just one excellent song followed by another)

Agree with others who point to Neal's latest solo effort + The whirlwind as being really strong efforts (IMHO)

BINGO ! What the man said !

[YESHEAD777]

[QUOTE=

Once Neal drops jesus and starts to write about normal prog-topics like hogweeds and khatrus he'll triple his audience.[/QUOTE]

1)Once Neal drops Jesus-Its pretty obvious to me that he won't completely ever do that.
2)Since when was Prog supposed to be normal, even the lyrical content.
3)And if you know anything about Neal personally and his convictions, passion, and heart's intent-its NOT about increasing his audience.

[iguana]

i'd have to say TRANSATLANTiC’s debut “smpte”. i bought it glowing with anticipation and ended up downright hating it. to me it had no freshness and energy and i quickly considered it to be a reactionary, bloated turkey. furthermore, it installed an unmitigated unapprecciation for all things that involve roine stolt (who, otherwise, is probably a lovely fellow). i loved SPOCK’S BEARD’s “V” which was released shortly afterwards, however, a sense of overkill quickly crept in. “snow” left me completely cold and i consequently jumped ship. i have no problems with faith orientation in lyrics as i always tend to see an ambivalence in the text, but, needless to say, i never approached one of his works again and just moved on, finding something that i like better.

i do agree the voices here, that this issue really shouldn’t matter. without neal’s productivity in the mid-late90s, many of us wouldn’t be active here. perhaps this is why neal morse entices so much emotive participation, also related to his radical artistic and faith-based moves. that is why a question of “having jumped the shark” (i hope that i interpret the phrase correctly) is totally legitimate.

[Poisoned Youth]

IMO, Neal did not jump the shark at all. This is a term misused quite often. The only way it's applicable in this thread would be his lyrical content. Once the lyrics went more overtly Christian, he did lose some fans. And when he quit Spock's Beard because God told him to is arguably the "jump the shark" moment for some. Whether he's become "stale" or a "parody" is another issue though.

But in the end, musically I think he's as strong as ever. I think he's as controversial as ever. And I think he's as prolific - not in a good way - as ever. As a result, his albums still resonate with me, but I always think there's a fair amount of throw away material. I'm also not a fan of the lyrical content, but I've grown to ignore that for the most part. I think Momentum works because it's not bloated and the songs don't run into each other to create yet another magnum opus. While there's good material on Testimony 2 and previous albums, I get turned off by these huge suites of music (see The Whirlwind).

But he's still on autobuy for me at the moment. He's produced some really catchy music over the years for me, stuff that I go back to often. That kind of artist deserves all the slack you can give him.

[martiprog]

He still makes great music, and his split from SB reinvigorated both parties IMO. Momentum is his best solo effort to date but his earlier ones have some great music. I respect his right to sing about whatever he likes.

As an agnostic, I do find it hard to "sing along" with a lot of his overtly god-bothering lyrics, but perversely I absolutely love to sing along to TA's Dancing With Eternal Grace and I find it genuinely moving - at High Voltage in 2010 I was in tears (along with much of the audience) during this section. Does that make me a hypocrite? I personally think that it takes great skill as a songwriter to move non-believers in this way. Maybe if churches played this sort of music, more people would go? Then again, maybe not!

[Bucka001]

That may be the case, but i don't recall a song about it on Testimony (someone can correct me if I'm wrong). His daughter's health problem would've be a scare, however it (thankfully) wasn't a tragedy in the end. I'll refrain from commenting about "miracle" healings, other than to say I don't believe in them.

Fair enough. I was just replying to your comment that nothing truly bad happened to him to warrant his finding God. For NM, he obviously is a guy with faith for whom miracles wouldn't be out of the question. Fair enough for him as well. In that context, and given the situation with his daughter, I was just saying that this probably did play a part in his conversion and it makes sense.

It's still reaching for me to think that Neal's life was so depressing and hopeless before his conversion. He was the leader of an awesome prog band during an era of resurgence for the genre. That's not exactly a low point to me.

Well nobody knows what one is going through, or how empty they're finding it all. Look at Kurt Cobain. I know musicians who would give their left arm for that kind of success and he goes and kills himself. I think back to some actors/actresses from several years ago (Inger Stevens is one who's always fascinated me) who've commited suicide even though they had hit shows and movie deals. You just never know. (Not that NM was ever suicidal, I have no clue; as I mentioned earlier, I'm not a fan of his but it doesn't surprise me at all that one can have outward success yet still feel empty / voided / depressed inside).

Thanks for this response.

My cousin's baby had the same condition (VSD). She was informed by her doctor that it should heal on it's own by his third B-day. It did.

Intervention from a deity not required.

Unusual occurrences do not equal a miracle. The chances of a VSD healing on it's own are MUCH greater than someone wining the lottery, yet someone wins it every day.

I'm not an MD, so the previous poster may be able to answer this, but aren't there degrees to this? Did your cousin's baby require open-heart surgery? Or is a hole in the heart just a hole in the heart, they're all to the same degree. What I read about NM (I went and googled it ) is that his daughter's condition was severe, life-threatening, and required open-heart surgery. Don't know if that's the case, or if all holes-in-the-heart (or whatever) are the same. And therefore hers would have healed up fine regardless.

[Frumious B]

Take the deity/not deity stuff out for a moment. Remember how John Lennon used to get all kinds of stick for singing about Yoko even though if you look at his catalog, it's really just a couple of his songs where she's mentioned? However, there is no debate on whether or not Yoko exists, none whatsoever, so I want you to try this experiment: Listen to a Neal Morse record and everywhere he mentions "God" or "Jesus" I want you to substitute "Yoko".

See how freakin' boring that is? Bring back Señor Velasco I say.

[LeFrog]

Wow, I'm surprised of the hate Snow seems to be getting around here.
I've loved the album ever since it came out, for me it was a welcome break from the classic "Neal Morse epic" formula that was getting a little tired even then, and that Morse started using again after that.
I liked the focus on shorter songs, with recurring themes to hold the whole thing together. I think the melodies are really strong, and NDV's drumming is huge on this (he adds all kinds of little fills that really lift the songs), as well as Alan's soloing.
Sure, the story is very close to Tommy, with a happier ending, but in retrospect, I like how he used this concept to disguise his Christian lyrics, compared to the "in your face" lyrics of his later solo output.

[Plasmatopia]

I don't think Neal Morse has jumped the shark. I admit I haven't bought his last 2 or 3 albums, but I have checked out a couple of YouTube clips of tracks from these latter albums and I definitely got the sense that the quality level is still there. I can see where one would get the idea that he's sort of a parody of himself when certain musical devices are employed on these recent albums. There's a sense that he's being a bit calculating in the way that he throws together songs, that he has his methods and sticks to them.

But quite often, after that initial listen (and accompanying rolling of the eyes), I can still get sucked into "formulaic" music and it can win me over. If you refuse to (or are incapable of) suspending your cynicism then you may never be able to like certain music. I don't think that's a fault or a bad thing, I think that we're all just wired differently that way. The world probably needs cynics as much as it needs those who can approach (and enjoy) new (but old sounding) things as though they were the first of their kind.

The evidence here in this thread mostly seems to point to a total lack of consensus. That's probably due to either the totally subjective nature of music, or the imperceptible, unquantifiable difference in quality from one NM release to the next...or both.

I personally just got to the point where I was not interested in what NM was doing lyrically and also felt like I had enough other NM albums to keep me happy. I just don't listen to him that much and if I do feel the need I have the SB albums, the Transatlantic albums, and the first few solo albums.

If anyone/anything jumped the shark I'd point my finger to the Whirlwind album (just my personal opinion). Loved the tour (live music is generally a lot more fun), but there is very little on the album I like. I'm hoping their next effort is redeeming. The whole "ready, set, we have X amount of time to get this done" recording process doesn't do the music any favors, I don't care how "prolific" and speedy the artists are. A little time and craftsmanship will pay off in the long run.

[ItalProgRules]

I never see any criticism of the Christian lyrics in Glass Hammer's work like I do of Morse's.

I assume that's because GH are lesser known and because they don't focus exclusively on it.

But an album like IF is just loaded with Christian lyrics and I don't think I've ever seen a complaint here at all.

[Plasmatopia]

I can understand the trials and tribulations of a suburban white guy might not seem all that compelling, but I don't think Neal taking up with Christianity was intended to be a calculated marketing move. No one but Neal knows exactly what he might have been dealing with or what might have been powerful enough to push him to seek answers. Even normal everyday people can get depressed (or whatever) and reach out to various places to get help.

[battema]

But quite often, after that initial listen (and accompanying rolling of the eyes), I can still get sucked into "formulaic" music and it can win me over. If you refuse to (or are incapable of) suspending your cynicism then you may never be able to like certain music. I don't think that's a fault or a bad thing, I think that we're all just wired differently that way. The world probably needs cynics as much as it needs those who can approach (and enjoy) new (but old sounding) things as though they were the first of their kind.

There's tons of truth in this. If I turn the magnifying glass on myself, Neal Morse couldn't hold my attention after V because it all felt like more of the same...but I happily buy each and every Klaus Schulze album that is released, even if from a certain viewpoint KS has more or less been releasing the same song for 40 years now, just with different synths

If someone really connects with NM's sound then that repetition sounds like more of the same quality he's been doing all along, rather than a sign of someone coasting on autopilot.

As for words...I can't at all connect with Morse's lyrical content, but then again I can't connect with most lyrical content so there you go