If anything, Porcupine Tree seen to be getting MORE popular with time. I discovered them in 2004, just shortly before Deadwing came out. I started college the summer after that album was released. And yet, for all the fellow prog rock heads that I talked to who loved Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, and ELP...Porcupine Tree fans were rare. They were just a name that they heard of but only as a footnote to be passed off. Beyond the name, I hardly met anyone who gave their music a serious listen or were even fans at all. And then beginning in the 2010's when Porcupine Tree went on hiatus, a paradigm shift occured. I don't know what it was. Maybe Steven Wilson's solo work got more attention. But they did start catching on to more and more people. Even Rick Beato has recoginzed Steven Wilson as a genius in the world of music production and did an interview on his channel...a channel that he usually reserves for classic rock and other mainstream staples. And even recently, I stopped by Exclusive Company and talked about prog rock and Krautrock with a really cool sales clerk and as soon as I talked about Tangerine Dream and how Zeit is Steven Wilson's favorite album, him and I got into a very vivacious convo on Porcupine Tree. And a a special treat, as I checked out my CD, he played Sleep of No Dreaming and Lazarus and had me smiling ear to ear. It was a GREAT day!
Great video. I often come back to this album, it's so on point with today's social conditions. I hope we will get more Porcupine Tree/Steven Wilson videos
The album came out the same year as the iPhone, 2007. That wasn't a long time ago, and we were very online, just on forums and file sharing platforms instead of RUclips and social media.
True, it came out a few months before the iPhone but SW was probably conceiving it ever since reading Lunar Park back in 2005. I still feel though that the tech addiction really started exploding with the advent of Instagram and all the other social media apps that suddenly became so easily available thanks to the smartphones. We were very online in 2007, but it sure wasn't as easy as it is now... just reaching to your pocket and getting your social media dopamine dose. Thanks for watching!
Despite this album basically being about me as I was a teenager in the mid 2000s, I cannot fully relate. Yes I spent a lot of time behind the computer and most of my friends were online. But looking back, most of the happy moments were behind the PC. Yes, stuff like music and movies were easily available by downloading without effort, but there was still lots of meaning to be found in different things. I had many online friends and it is how I got into programming (my current occupation still), which I did in my free time. I think that from Wilson's perspective, whose life basically revolves around music, it is sad to see kids having access to so much content without effort. But there is more in life then just music for most people, so he might also be a bit biased. I think the vision of the album is way more relevant now. Back then, the internet was different, way more spread out. You were maybe part of some niche forum and corporations were still figuring out how to use the internet to its full (capitalist/consumerist) potential like it is today. You were not yet bombarded with information from a gazillion social media websites which you did not want to watch/read but you do anyway somehow as if hypnotized.
I've been personally observing everything spiraling into madness as a side effect of this. Parents give toddlers phones to get them to shut up instead of parenting, then they hand them off to a school that teaches them who knows _what_ , but I suspect is more to condition them to not think for themselves. The ubiquitous phones are paired with content that plays straight into an inherent addiction feedback loop by presenting something that provides a little brain chemical boost a time or two, but becomes stale almost immediately, while leaving a desire for that chemical that will never be sated. Nothing in society is promoting internal growth except for the fleeting grandparents who remember how there used to be value in hard work and humility. And now I'm seeing the side effects of it. Incompetence plagues all facets of life. All of us in my family are having to learn how to do more and more things because it's the only way to get it done right. I see a failure coming in something I have _no experience_ in while the supposed expert gets blindsided by it. And here's the part that's going to make anyone who's nodding along with this comment do a complete 180 and call me the idiot; it's all happening because the world has rejected God and He's destroying it.
FOABP is definitely one of my favorite albums of all time. However, while I think the concept is strong, the lyrics can be pretty cheesy at times, and they definitely don’t get better with time. The specific references to Xbox, iPod, etc. to me just sound out of place for such a well-constructed album. As a whole though, it’s surprising how relevant it still feels.
Most likely a nod to the book Lunar Park on which FOABP is loosely based. The book is told from the perspective of a father who has a teenage son who considers himself "a professional video game player." FOABP flips things around and tells it from the perspective of the son. I understand your point though about naming specific gadgets by name might risk dating the music... for bad or for good. Many thanks for watching!
Man I dunno about "prophetic". FOABP doesn't really make predictions of any kind, it just does the Steven Wilson thing where the lyrics half-fictionally revolve around stuff that's happening on the news. I've always had kind of a contentious relationship with this one. I think it's an album that does correctly point out emerging problematic social trends of the time, and it is relevant today because the issues it touches on are absolutely still around. But let's be clear here, it's not an album about cyberbullying or porn addiction or body dysmorphia; these are related modern phenomena, but I think you might be retroactively giving Steven a bit much credit here. Arguably, the album is just about the youth becoming apathetic and suffering from dubious effects of overstimulation and overmedication. Not to say that this isn't an important and unsettling topic, but it does feel like a product of its time to me personally. Also, I never understood why people claim Ok Computer is about technology. It really isn't. It lightly brushes against topics of transporation, I guess, but it's hardly the main theme. Do they just hear the name of the album and ignore the lyrics? I definitely find it commendable of Steven to revolve this album around such an unsexy topic, but as a young lad of the "blank" generation, I honestly have to say I've never been able to connect to it conceptually. Musically? Fuck yes, it's damn great. But in lyrics man, it tends to come across as melodramatic. Lasse Hoile's photography also leans into this aesthetic so heavily. Steven has this thing where (and he has stated as much in interviews) he likes to write about topics or people he doesn't understand, but he does it in the first person perspective, be it serial killers or teenagers, and it makes for sometimes oddly unrelatable and impersonal lyrics. That said, it also has some of my favorite SW prose. My Ashes is such a gorgeous song, and I love the imagery in the final act of Anesthetize. On the whole it's a real mixed bag for me, but I'm happy it was a purportedly very creatively fulfilling album for the band to make and so many people seem to love it. Cool video!
Thanks for watching and your thoughtful analysis. You’re right that FOABP might not be specifically about body issues, cyberbullying or porn addiction etc, but to me these issues are all symptoms of the underlying cause - mental illnesses caused by the lack of real world activities, instant gratification, tech addiction (in FOABP’s case iPods, xbox, download culture...) Of course the world was different back in 2007 and these problems were way less severe than they are now, but I think through Wilson’s lyrics we got a glimpse of what was to come: a surge in attention deficit disorders and ADHD medications, school shootings, gaming/porn-addictions, alienation… kids closing themselves off and living their lives behind a screen. Just by addressing these issues at the dawn of social media and packaging it in such a slick, poetic way that Wilson did I think was a stroke of genius. I haven't come across any other musicians at the time speaking about it this evidently, so to me it feels like Wilson tapped into something profound. Regarding OK Computer, I think it’s up to interpretation. Clearly they are acknowledging the impact of technology in many different aspects, from androids to airbags saving lives, computer generated voices telling us how to live, the album title referencing hitchhikers guide to the galaxy etc. I see it as an album about humanity’s struggle to cope with a modern, rapidly changing world. This new world, includes a lot of new challenges, technology not being the only one, but an important one nonetheless. So the theme of technology is definitely there but it’s not exclusive.
Yeah, it's a very 2000s album - if anything, it missed the whole media debacle around GTA, school shootings and Ritalin by a few years. Steven Wilson is a great musician, and as a lyricist he's more than capable of conveying emotions, but all his attempts at being socially conscious (FotBP, parts of To the Bone, The Future Bites) have always been falling flat to me. This album in particular feels to me like it's coming not from someone who's experienced any of the social alienation or those staring-blankly-at-the-wall moments of depersonalization, but someone who's been watching talking heads on the TV talk about teenagers. That people identify with the album is because the topics it's talking about are real and exist, both then and now, the problem is that they aren't conveyed in a relatable way.
I absolutely agree. While I love this album, growing up I started to realize the lyrics of Wilson's more "socially conscious" songs are pretty superficial and lack a real understanding of the things he speaks about in them. Still I think you can make the case that FOABP still paints a picture of the time in which it was conceived. I still love it, but I much prefer his more personal songs lyrically.
I love this album and it’s concept but I feel some people misinterpret the album as preaching that technology and prescription drugs are inherently bad. But it’s more nuanced than that
I was telling people back then,as I worked in IT/Social engineering.They laughed and said I had read 2 many stories,as they got their 5yr old a new phone from Apple and "can I have an X box 4 Xmas. And the school's getting the power to make your child take drugs to stop them being "rowdy " in school time. And the rest is history. The public want what the public GET.
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April 16, happy birthday "Fear of a Blank Planet"! 16 years old today! What are your thoughts on this amazing album, comment below👇
Steven Wilson is a genius.
Definitely mate, thanks for watching! Do you have a favorite record of his?
@@AlbumAffairs probably Hand. Cannot. Erase. Closely followed by The Raven That Refused To Sing....
@@Dean4471 Those 2 plus the recently released Harmony Codex are top 3 for me. Insurgentes is pretty good too.
It's great to see people still caring about Porcupine Tree. Amazing video!
Thanks a lot! Easily one of my favorite bands, has been for almost 20 years :o Ever since I first heard In Absentia in 2005 :)
If anything, Porcupine Tree seen to be getting MORE popular with time. I discovered them in 2004, just shortly before Deadwing came out. I started college the summer after that album was released. And yet, for all the fellow prog rock heads that I talked to who loved Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, and ELP...Porcupine Tree fans were rare. They were just a name that they heard of but only as a footnote to be passed off. Beyond the name, I hardly met anyone who gave their music a serious listen or were even fans at all.
And then beginning in the 2010's when Porcupine Tree went on hiatus, a paradigm shift occured. I don't know what it was. Maybe Steven Wilson's solo work got more attention. But they did start catching on to more and more people. Even Rick Beato has recoginzed Steven Wilson as a genius in the world of music production and did an interview on his channel...a channel that he usually reserves for classic rock and other mainstream staples.
And even recently, I stopped by Exclusive Company and talked about prog rock and Krautrock with a really cool sales clerk and as soon as I talked about Tangerine Dream and how Zeit is Steven Wilson's favorite album, him and I got into a very vivacious convo on Porcupine Tree. And a a special treat, as I checked out my CD, he played Sleep of No Dreaming and Lazarus and had me smiling ear to ear. It was a GREAT day!
Porcupine Tree became the most popular when they went on hiatus in 2010. Now they are more popular than ever and play huge venues.
I’m late to the party, but wow, the live version is so addictive 🥰👍🏼. Steven Wilson, as has been said, a musical genius .
Amazing musicianship, Anesthetize live is a trip 🤘
Absolutely true. Great album which blew me away when it was released. A true masterpiece with a message for society. Thanks for this vid.
Indeed, thanks for watching!
Great video. I often come back to this album, it's so on point with today's social conditions. I hope we will get more Porcupine Tree/Steven Wilson videos
Thanks a lot! It sure is an album that leaves a lasting impression. It would be cool to do one about PT's other masterpiece, In Absentia! :)
The album came out the same year as the iPhone, 2007. That wasn't a long time ago, and we were very online, just on forums and file sharing platforms instead of RUclips and social media.
True, it came out a few months before the iPhone but SW was probably conceiving it ever since reading Lunar Park back in 2005. I still feel though that the tech addiction really started exploding with the advent of Instagram and all the other social media apps that suddenly became so easily available thanks to the smartphones. We were very online in 2007, but it sure wasn't as easy as it is now... just reaching to your pocket and getting your social media dopamine dose. Thanks for watching!
@@AlbumAffairs There are people who use Instagram?
@@BonzoDrummer Only about 1.3 billion users :)
Fantastic video - this album is an important one to me since the day I discovered it and you analysed it beautifully!
Really left a deep impression on a teenage me as well back in 2007. Thanks a lot for watching mate!
Despite this album basically being about me as I was a teenager in the mid 2000s, I cannot fully relate. Yes I spent a lot of time behind the computer and most of my friends were online. But looking back, most of the happy moments were behind the PC. Yes, stuff like music and movies were easily available by downloading without effort, but there was still lots of meaning to be found in different things. I had many online friends and it is how I got into programming (my current occupation still), which I did in my free time. I think that from Wilson's perspective, whose life basically revolves around music, it is sad to see kids having access to so much content without effort. But there is more in life then just music for most people, so he might also be a bit biased.
I think the vision of the album is way more relevant now. Back then, the internet was different, way more spread out. You were maybe part of some niche forum and corporations were still figuring out how to use the internet to its full (capitalist/consumerist) potential like it is today. You were not yet bombarded with information from a gazillion social media websites which you did not want to watch/read but you do anyway somehow as if hypnotized.
My all time favourite album. Thanks for this vid
Fantastic album, thanks for watching!
I've been personally observing everything spiraling into madness as a side effect of this. Parents give toddlers phones to get them to shut up instead of parenting, then they hand them off to a school that teaches them who knows _what_ , but I suspect is more to condition them to not think for themselves.
The ubiquitous phones are paired with content that plays straight into an inherent addiction feedback loop by presenting something that provides a little brain chemical boost a time or two, but becomes stale almost immediately, while leaving a desire for that chemical that will never be sated.
Nothing in society is promoting internal growth except for the fleeting grandparents who remember how there used to be value in hard work and humility.
And now I'm seeing the side effects of it. Incompetence plagues all facets of life. All of us in my family are having to learn how to do more and more things because it's the only way to get it done right. I see a failure coming in something I have _no experience_ in while the supposed expert gets blindsided by it.
And here's the part that's going to make anyone who's nodding along with this comment do a complete 180 and call me the idiot; it's all happening because the world has rejected God and He's destroying it.
Great vidéo pal
Merci beaucoup!
FOABP is definitely one of my favorite albums of all time. However, while I think the concept is strong, the lyrics can be pretty cheesy at times, and they definitely don’t get better with time. The specific references to Xbox, iPod, etc. to me just sound out of place for such a well-constructed album. As a whole though, it’s surprising how relevant it still feels.
Most likely a nod to the book Lunar Park on which FOABP is loosely based. The book is told from the perspective of a father who has a teenage son who considers himself "a professional video game player." FOABP flips things around and tells it from the perspective of the son. I understand your point though about naming specific gadgets by name might risk dating the music... for bad or for good. Many thanks for watching!
hats off ✊
Nice one!
Thanks for watching! 🤘
Lovely video essay! I find it a bit too "adulating" by the end, but that's an understandable decision.
Thanks a lot!
For those who really know music PT ARE THE GREATEST BAND OF THE LAST THREE DECADES
Facts
Man I dunno about "prophetic". FOABP doesn't really make predictions of any kind, it just does the Steven Wilson thing where the lyrics half-fictionally revolve around stuff that's happening on the news. I've always had kind of a contentious relationship with this one. I think it's an album that does correctly point out emerging problematic social trends of the time, and it is relevant today because the issues it touches on are absolutely still around. But let's be clear here, it's not an album about cyberbullying or porn addiction or body dysmorphia; these are related modern phenomena, but I think you might be retroactively giving Steven a bit much credit here. Arguably, the album is just about the youth becoming apathetic and suffering from dubious effects of overstimulation and overmedication. Not to say that this isn't an important and unsettling topic, but it does feel like a product of its time to me personally. Also, I never understood why people claim Ok Computer is about technology. It really isn't. It lightly brushes against topics of transporation, I guess, but it's hardly the main theme. Do they just hear the name of the album and ignore the lyrics?
I definitely find it commendable of Steven to revolve this album around such an unsexy topic, but as a young lad of the "blank" generation, I honestly have to say I've never been able to connect to it conceptually. Musically? Fuck yes, it's damn great. But in lyrics man, it tends to come across as melodramatic. Lasse Hoile's photography also leans into this aesthetic so heavily. Steven has this thing where (and he has stated as much in interviews) he likes to write about topics or people he doesn't understand, but he does it in the first person perspective, be it serial killers or teenagers, and it makes for sometimes oddly unrelatable and impersonal lyrics. That said, it also has some of my favorite SW prose. My Ashes is such a gorgeous song, and I love the imagery in the final act of Anesthetize. On the whole it's a real mixed bag for me, but I'm happy it was a purportedly very creatively fulfilling album for the band to make and so many people seem to love it. Cool video!
Thanks for watching and your thoughtful analysis. You’re right that FOABP might not be specifically about body issues, cyberbullying or porn addiction etc, but to me these issues are all symptoms of the underlying cause - mental illnesses caused by the lack of real world activities, instant gratification, tech addiction (in FOABP’s case iPods, xbox, download culture...) Of course the world was different back in 2007 and these problems were way less severe than they are now, but I think through Wilson’s lyrics we got a glimpse of what was to come: a surge in attention deficit disorders and ADHD medications, school shootings, gaming/porn-addictions, alienation… kids closing themselves off and living their lives behind a screen. Just by addressing these issues at the dawn of social media and packaging it in such a slick, poetic way that Wilson did I think was a stroke of genius. I haven't come across any other musicians at the time speaking about it this evidently, so to me it feels like Wilson tapped into something profound.
Regarding OK Computer, I think it’s up to interpretation. Clearly they are acknowledging the impact of technology in many different aspects, from androids to airbags saving lives, computer generated voices telling us how to live, the album title referencing hitchhikers guide to the galaxy etc. I see it as an album about humanity’s struggle to cope with a modern, rapidly changing world. This new world, includes a lot of new challenges, technology not being the only one, but an important one nonetheless. So the theme of technology is definitely there but it’s not exclusive.
Yeah, it's a very 2000s album - if anything, it missed the whole media debacle around GTA, school shootings and Ritalin by a few years. Steven Wilson is a great musician, and as a lyricist he's more than capable of conveying emotions, but all his attempts at being socially conscious (FotBP, parts of To the Bone, The Future Bites) have always been falling flat to me. This album in particular feels to me like it's coming not from someone who's experienced any of the social alienation or those staring-blankly-at-the-wall moments of depersonalization, but someone who's been watching talking heads on the TV talk about teenagers. That people identify with the album is because the topics it's talking about are real and exist, both then and now, the problem is that they aren't conveyed in a relatable way.
I absolutely agree. While I love this album, growing up I started to realize the lyrics of Wilson's more "socially conscious" songs are pretty superficial and lack a real understanding of the things he speaks about in them. Still I think you can make the case that FOABP still paints a picture of the time in which it was conceived. I still love it, but I much prefer his more personal songs lyrically.
People tend to hate on Steven Wilson bc he's "Fake deep" and "pretentious", so it's hilarious when he turned out to be right about society lmfao
Which prog rock band hasn't suffered those accusations? Prog isn't for everyone, those who get it get it. :)
Yeah no. The internet and smartphones were already ubiquitous by 2007. Good album, but I prefer their less metal/less-whiney era.
I love this album and it’s concept but I feel some people misinterpret the album as preaching that technology and prescription drugs are inherently bad. But it’s more nuanced than that
I was telling people back then,as I worked in IT/Social engineering.They laughed and said I had read 2 many stories,as they got their 5yr old a new phone from Apple and "can I have an X box 4 Xmas. And the school's getting the power to make your child take drugs to stop them being "rowdy " in school time. And the rest is history. The public want what the public GET.
I bet they're not laughing anymore... crazy how insane it's got in just the span of 5-10 years.
One of my favourite album of all time! Thanks for this video. ❤👍🏻
One of my favorite metal albums for sure! Thanks for watching, nice profile pic! 👌
Surprised you didnt mention the song normal, it perfectly sums up all the points you made but other than that great video.
I narrowed it down to FOABP in this video but yeah Normal, and the Nil Recurring EP, are great as well! Thanks a lot for watching!
Great video for the GOAT lp
Many thanks for watching!! 🤘
And I do believe that human being by nature, don’t appreciate things that comes easily to them.
This hits so hard.
True and wise words, no doubt.
Wow. This is an amazing video.
Amazong video, love Steven Wilson and all his projects so much, so glad to finally see him and PT get more attention :)
SW - genius musician! Thanks for watching! :)
Love pt and this album. Cool video, well made 👏
Thank you!
Thanks Adam for your video! well described :)
Thank you!
Ta, enjoyed that.
Thank you!