And for sure, it has its moments: "State of Independence" is catchy (and, oddly, covered on Donna Summer's eponymous 1982 album), "Italian Song" is pretty and of course there's the off-the-wall noir of "Friends of Mr. Cairo" (which includes Peter Lorre and Jimmy Stewart impersonators). And this being Vangelis, there's a shitload of wonderfully wobbly CS80 textures throughout.
Of course, with Jon's pseudo-mysticism and chants in myriad foreign languages, it's utterly ridiculous as well and, hence, consigned to the guilty pleasure department. Despite its silliness, though, I kind of enjoy it. A sometime guilty pleasure...
― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Monday, 14 November 2005 04:44 (twenty years ago)
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Monday, 14 November 2005 04:51 (twenty years ago)
― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 14 November 2005 05:23 (twenty years ago)
I d/l'ed Vangelis' See You Later yesterday - never listened to it before - and it's now one of my Top 5 V records. Almost like Vangelis was trying to pull a Moroder: arpeggios, drum machine disco patterns, a vocodered Jon Anderson on the first track. Odd and gorgeous.
― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Tuesday, 28 February 2006 17:34 (twenty years ago)
I got The Friends of Mr. Cairo in the mail yesterday, I'm really loving it. I hadn't really listened to any songs by them except "I'll Find My Way Home" and "So Long Ago, So Clear" before, and I thought this would be much more proggy, but it's really a lovely set of over-blown synth pop tunes. Their attempts to be funky are mostly not, and the lyrics are sincerely ridiculous, but those things just add to the charm. I've tried to listen to Private Collection too, but it sounds kinda more proggy and less interesting. Are the other two albums worth checking out?
― Tuomas, Friday, 9 November 2007 12:14 (eighteen years ago)
Actually, "over-blown" is perhaps a bad word; what I really like about this album is that Vangelis mostly keeps the instrumentation to the minimum instead of building these synth-walls-of-sound, like some other synth-pop artists do. The exception of course is "I'll Find My Way Home", but the crescendo effect really works there.
― Tuomas, Friday, 9 November 2007 12:19 (eighteen years ago)
yo guys, i am having a late nite listenin to shit from my past and reviving old ilx threads about the stuff that i really wanna gush about. anyways both "friends of mr cairo" and "best of jon and vangelis" are dope af!!!
i'm super down with "state of independence", "i'll find my way home," and "friends of mr cairo." but "outside of this" is like my fav song guys. if you wanna give it like favorable hashtags you could call it dreampop then it'd be cool... anyways the track is on some other shit entirely and i'm hella glad it exists.
also am i reading too much into a small sample or does the wire have like this running joke about jon anderson being wack? i've seen them be like entirely dismissive at times which is a little o_O... i mean i understand jon was sort of a weird funky uncool dude but that hasn't stopped music media from reclaiming weirdos as outsider musicians or whatever. i srsly think if these jon & vangelis tracks got rebranded with more zeitgeist-friendly hashtags: dreampop, outsider music... maybe like mention that emeralds cribs a bit from this stuff... ppl could get really into it
― oneohtrix point zero (fennel cartwright), Friday, 11 November 2011 12:01 (fourteen years ago)