DRASTIC MEASURES

I find it interesting how seriously so many people take this album, as if the band members themselves were in on the idea of "selling out" and trying to make a profit off this album. Don't you people get it?! It's only so obvious the band's situation on the creation of this album: the record company pushed them to create this sort of abomination, so the band members wrote a tongue-in-cheek messages to their fans throughout the album of how much they hated the music they themselves were forced to create. The album title is "Drastic Measures" for a good reason: they were taking drastic measures to appease the record company. Apparently these messages, throughout the lyrics, were completely missed by the fans themselves. In fact, I'd go as far to say as this is a sort of concept album, making fun of what the music industry at the time had become (during the 80s, of course) and a culture that now valued money as a source of wealth rather than a means to an end from one's own talents. This album is all a big joke, people, and quite intentionally. The band members are smart composers and know exactly what their doing and how stupid all of it is.

Indeed, as many have pointed out, the music here is nothing but eighties mainstream pop (not even very good in that context...), with a few prog moments here and there. This, I believe, was completely intentional; the band was making a point that they could write so much more interesting music but were forced to write a load of meaningless pop crap, probably so the label wouldn't drop them, I suspect. The lead singer uses his voice in such an incredibly cheesy nasally way, he just has to be making fun of that sort of singing by slightly overdoing it (but of course not to the point the record company knew what they were doing, heh). Just look at some of these lyrics: "They all want to know Do you make a lot of money, Will you change your name, What's it like to be a rock star." "It's so predictable and everybody judges you by the numbers that you're selling... Just Keep it simple boys, it's gonna be alright as long as you're inside the MAINSTREAM!" Seriously, guys, don't you get it? Their taking low blows at the corporate monsters who want to earn a profit off someone else's talents. The entire track of "Mainstream" is just chalk full of cultural bashing, as is much of the album. Even many of the musical elements are a mockery of the band making fun of their own music... there's no way you can make music that over-the-top cheesy without it being on purpose.

I hope I cleared up a lot of confusion with that review, it's irritating to see people taking this album as if it was a serious attempt by the band to make money, even though it was the first of their albums to not hit any charts or even go gold. This album was made in 1983 as a mockery of the music industry and the corporate strangle-hold that snuffed the life out of any band that dared to make something beautiful and artistic, and that's all there is too it. This is easily one of the worst albums I have ever heard come from a prominent prog band, and I'm glad I gave it it's full listen so I can rest the album in peace for its atrocity with this review. This is seriously a terrible album, quite intentionally, and is a mockery of itself and its own nature. Get this album if you want a few laughs... I know I never want to hear it again.

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