#this one got so long 💀

[surrealisticduvet]

Album Review - The Prison: A Book With a Soundtrack (1974)

The Prison - Michael’s first album to be released under his own record label, and the first album maybe ever to be released with its own novella. The Prison’s concept is hard to explain (you either over-explain it or over-simplify it) but in a nutshell, it is about a man (interestingly named after Michael’s second son) who lives in a prison which he discovers is not real - he can walk out at any time he likes, and the prison will fade away. This is an allegory for the troubles of society; when one is entrenched in it, it is real, and constraining; when you leave, which you can do at any time, at great personal cost, you discover that it has been, all this time, a fabrication. The book itself is very interesting, but this review is about the album, and the music it contains; let us begin.

Favorite parts of the album:

It’s clear, between the album itself and the way he spoke about it, that this was a monumental production for him. It’s very different from his previous work, and much of his post-Prison work is influenced by it. The lyrics are very strong and poetic – which makes sense, considering that writing was his focus with the book. The instrumentation is wonderful too (I love the guitar and subtle pedal steel - yes, of course Red is on this record!). although the higher level of production can make it sound a little stiffer and more impersonal at times (compared to, say, And the Hits… where he did a huge chunk of the playing himself). I don’t think the album suffers for that, however - it’s a soundtrack, so the production is perfect. 

“Dance Between the Raindrops” is probably the catchiest song on the album - starting here, and continuing in other tracks, is the trend of using a subtle background melody to drive your reading along. Amidst the lyrics and the music itself, it’s easy to get a little distracted at times, but having that baseline to keep you grounded is nice. This happens again in “Hear Me Calling,” where he utilizes a sort of “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” western shuffle deep in the background of the song. (He uses this again in the next album I’ll be reviewing – I’ll rave about it then.) 

“Walking Mystery” is another hit in my book (to be clear, none of these songs are “hits” - they would never make good radio songs, except perhaps on an easy listening station.) It has a mystical, ethereal quality and ambiance, which is again wonderful for reading along. This song and a few others almost have a touch of that dreamy 80’s synth - six years before the decade rolled around. 

Overall, the album flows beautifully, and is in fact long enough for you to read the whole book while listening. Which brings me to my critiques…

Critiques:

It may be my fault, for rushing out of fear that I’d run out of music before I ran out of pages – but in fact, it was the opposite: I finished reading long before the album ran out, and I certainly didn’t digest it well enough. Having read through once, I ought to go back and savor it this time, reading slowly and feeling the music throughout. I do believe that while reading, you miss a little of the music (I enjoy it much more when I listen on its own), although Michael said that if you’re experiencing this issue, you might just need to practice. That could be true – or maybe the songs just aren’t as memorable as some of his others. Perhaps; they weren’t made to be stand-alone hits (he had to change “Marie’s Theme” quite a bit for it to sound like a standard track on the Ranch Stash re-release), and they’re not as easy to sing along with as the rest of his discography. 

My next critique is about the book itself, which isn’t very fair to the music, but they are intertwined – it’s very theoretical and a little preachy (a symptom of his present state), which doesn’t ruin the experience for me, but I see why it wouldn’t necessarily be critically acclaimed by a casual listener/reader. Oh well. 

Finally – and this is the big one – Michael here is entering his “hamming it up” era, which gets better as the 70s fade out, but never really gets cured. For some reason, there are many lines which he sings in a half-spoken, comical manner, something that would be natural for “Mama Rocker” but absolutely not for a lot of these songs and those that he performs live or on other albums. (This phenomenon is extremely bad on Live at the Palais, which I’ll get to in a few posts…) I guess it doesn’t ruin the experience for me, but it does make me cringe. 

Conclusion:

I truly wish that, first of all, we had a recording of the ballet (?!) that was performed for this album (if I remember correctly from Infinite Tuesday) and that, second, he was not so insecure/embarrassed about this album in the years after it came out. In live performances he apologizes for making people listen to songs off of it (albeit surely half-jokingly) and teases himself about the outro of “Marie’s Theme” (that it repeats 602,417 times at the end so you have time to catch up on some reading, etc.) 

Overall, The Prison is not my favorite album of his ever, although I do really appreciate it – it’s just not one I tend to listen to often. But I think it was a very important one that paved the way for a lot of his later work - a definite timeline shift. His later work was obviously influenced and inspired by it, and it seemed to be a culmination of what his earlier work was leading up to, philosophically (if not so much musically - sort of separate schools going on there – but he was all about that sort of unexpected, conceptual genre-melding approach to music… and that’s why we love him!)

[chloesimaginationthings]

The FNAF Mikes talk about their extended family..

[fumiko-matsubara]

He got them to join his emo band 😔🤟

The new year's show was a success and it became a yearly thing.

This is kind of a continuation of my headcanon and brainrot posts about Chiba's friendship with Gakushuu and Yukiko, with a bit of my oc Isami bc I'm not really normal about him 🩵

[ilonacho]

cock shame

[heffrondriving]

❝ And KENDALL needs to stop talking back to me after everything I say! ❞

[calamaroo]

Extremely random, but I get absolutely heated over these topics. As the daughter of a teacher, I know PERSONALLY just how awful you pieces of shit can be, and I hope every one of you (WHO ARE UNWILLING TO CHANGE), and your bitchass parents who raised you like this, dies slowly and painfully <3

[bluebird-ascended]

one piece redraw for prideee!!!

og art and headcanons under the cut :D

luffy: aroace and agender. triple threat, he truly doesnt give a fuck

zoro: gay and trans

nami: lesbian

ussop: demiboy, definitely uses he/they

sanji: bi but veryyy deep in the closet. which is ironic because he has horrible fashion sense. hes also tranfemme to me but thats post timeskip 😌

chopper: ally!

robin: trans and bi

franky: trans and straight t4t with robin. frobin canon i said so

brook: he's dead he has no game anyway. but pan

[skrunksthatwunk]

i am losing to the demon trying to possess me (devilman. the 52 y/o media franchise)

>:]

EDIT I FORGOT THIS ONE

[3-aem]

is there anything a beginner should know about having a cat? i was never allowed any pets growing up and wanted to get one once i'd moved out (but i'm also a little terrified of just how small kittens are compared to humans)

i am most definitely not the one to ask bc ive had him less than a year and i know for a fact he is more baby than most cats are.

i personally just binge watched cat rearing videos for a few weeks but once u get one ur gonna realize that every cat is kinda different but they all bite and scratch u no matter what and u just have to

[todayisafridaynight]

no ones ever gonna understand how much i love daigo doin this stupid shit after dissolving the tojo

[tommygotwrittenoff]

confession time!!! can't wait for bt bones

[lieutenantselnia]

Sometimes you just find quotes from historical figures that make you go "yeah, they may not have been particularly the best person ... but the specific thing they point out right there, big mood"

[masquenoire]

"What is that? Wait, no... don't tell me, that's a fuckin' Sundance A25, isn't it?? We're going out on a big mission tonight and you had the bright idea to pick something like that as backup??? You know what that is, that's SHIT! Which is what you are! You are shit, dumbass!"

[shigussy]

i keep getting tiktoks of these younger gen z kids referencing a time they did something relating to fandom in public and now they're embarrassed by it and everytime i see one i sit there thinking over all of middle and high school and having genuinely 0 moments that i feel embarrassed by, like i definitely did a lot of shit these kids would be embarrassed by but i think these are all just really fucking funny

also photographic evidence of the kinda kid i was. these are from 2014/15 when i was in 8th grade

-desolation row one shot(still on wattpad gerard way/reader smut)

-twerk it on (mcr crack fanfic no longer on wattpad but i have another fic in my library called twerking in taco bell which definitely ALSO used for my reading log)

-frank iero must die(a serial killer/assassin frerard fic, still on wattpad)

-hair (really vague maybe a phanfic? nowhere in my wattpad library rip)

my binder i used in 7th grade i had a blue one that looked pretty similar to this for 8th grade but idk where it went, also the parts i scribbled out are my full legal name i had written on it. i wrote it normally and then the big spot is where i wrote my name REALLY BIG in elysian code from the vladimir tod books. also the lines are from when i used an exacto knife to cut up some papers and forgot that my binder was underneath

in conclusion yall can now see why im so shameless about talking about shigaraki the way i do

[yenonnoff]

will be posting ch5 of page turner some time this week! my school workload is insane sry 😓😓 and then upcoming plans will be focused towards teach me how to love :DD

[vadersaber]

and let me just say this too: making the promotion for hotd s2 as team black vs team green has divided the fandom even more & made it worse