Sure, you know that Elliot Scheiner, Frank Filipetti, and other producer/engineers are fans of surround sound. But among artists, you'll find no bigger champion of multichannel music than Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson.
For Richard X. Heyman, a pop savant rooted in the fertile loam of the Sixties, the first disc of his new double album is quite literally a labor of love. He takes pains to note that Tiers isn’t a rock opera, but rather a pop opera — or “popera,” for short.
And in an instant, lo, a hole in the sky appeared, and then it hit me like (bang bang) Maxwell's Silver Hammer when "Get Back," the Beatles? 1969 classic song to roller-coast by, cued up on my iPod during one morning's commute. As Paul McCartney's lead vocal embraced the song's galloping melody line, a great revelation emerged: I can sing Black Sabbath?s "Paranoid" to the same tune! Black Sabbath, the dark lords of melody . . . revealed!
Watch out, hip-hop: If you don’t stay on top of your game, you might get bumped out of the limelight by other forms of pop music. That’s the meaning behind the title of Jay-Z and Kanye West’s brash, lavishly produced collaboration, as Jay himself has acknowledged.
