Mega-popular prog-metal outfit Tool have seen their latest album, 10,000 Days, storm its way to the top of the Billboard 200 chart in the US.
US sales of the album (pictured) - Tool's follow-up to 2001's Lateralus - are double that of the album at number two in the chart, Pearl Jam's self-titled debut for J Records.
10,000 Days has already shifted over 500,000 copies in the US alone. Its predecessor, meanwhile, has sold 2.3 million copies, to date.
Pearl Jam's self-titled effort, their eighth studio album in all, has sold more than 250,000 copies in the US so far, suggesting that (as previously reported here) rock music is well and truly outselling traditional pop material globally, not just in the UK.
Look out for DiS's critical take on 10,000 Days really soon.
here's my critical take
boring. rehashing melodies, production tricks and guitar effects from your last two albums does not a good album make. the first 3 albums all progressed, each one getting better. this is a lazy lazy excuse for an album, and they should be ashamed.
pearl jam
i'm really starting to love the new album. it's so good to hear someone who still knows what it takes to write good honest straight up rock music.
Hmmm...
...have they 'borrowed' that cover from Queen's 'The Miracle'?
Rock
has certainly dominated the last month in the U.S.
suprise f'in suprise
some brilliant news about alternative intresting (and fucking awesome in my honest opinion) music gaining respect on a large scale and we get people taking time out of their sad lives just to post negativity. i loved the album, a real grower and very progressive. also it has the best artwork/packaging ive ever seen.
awesome.
on first listen
I was incredibly disappointed with Tool's new album. That's actually been my only listen because I was that disappointed (and due to the fact that, as usual, its about a day long).
but
I'm gonna stick it on again now and look at porn through those little glasses.
hmmurgh
Never liked Tool and, apart from their building instrumentals, their music is just boring.
http://www.musictimes.com.au
new tool album
sweet.
best go buy it...
ps. why am i not completely shocked that a fan of 'british indie rock' and 'folk rock' doesn't like a metal band?
why even post - i'm not jumping on the hard-house reviews declaring - "nah, i don't really like it" because it's not my cup of tea, i'm not in a position to really say if it's good hard-house or bad hard-house as it's not my thing. :/
Tool
are just devoid of humanity as those awful Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails and all the other "alternative" super-commercialised corporate rock. There is a reason why this stuff gets to number one every time. Do yourself a favour and go and buy the Coachwhips record instead.
Smashing Pumpkins
are a million times better than the Coachwhips
Aren't you
too old for fake teenage angst?
Aren't you
too old to try and force your debatable taste on other people...
oh right
they're succesful so they must be bad... actually this stuff rarely gets to number one - it's usually jack johnson or coldplay or something equally dismal and bland.
To lump Tool (a metal band) in with Smashing Pumpkins (early 90s alterna-rock) and NIN (industrial) is just bizarre.
how are Tool "super-commercialised corporate rock" is it those oblique videos that the band never appear in? is it the too-long-for-radio songs? is it the refusal to release singles? is it the songs about LA being destroyed by a landslide? or the ones about big talking leaders who screw you over? or how about Hooker With A Penis - you know - the song about holier than thou scene soldiers who stride around accusing all and sundry of being corporate rock sellouts? you should listen to that track, you'd love it.
your clique is a corpse - you think it's floating above it all but really it's just riding on the high tide because of all the decaying gases that fill it. pretty soon they'll leak out and you'll sink down into the silt with the rest of us.
ok
They are commercialised because they have mind-numbingly sheeny production and deal in bottom of the barrel-scraping, lowest common denominator angst. These are two traits that have again and again proven to sell records by the bucketload.
You say these things hardly ever get to number one, but their last two albums got to #2 and #1 respectively. Obviously there are not as many bands peddling this pretentious prog as there are teen pop idols, but when it does hit is rarely sells in anything less than millions.
As for having no singles and really long songs, I seem to remember Pink Floyd making a rather lucrative career out of that decades before Tool ever came up with the "idea". And more recently Radiohead with "Kid A". It's hardly the huge risk you make out, especially for a band with an already massive fanbase.
Reznor, Corgan and whateverhisnameisfromTool are interchangable because they all have the exact same pompous, dehumanized, muso-loving approach to making music. The style of that music has little bearing.
I actually heard this record today, I did not like it at all.
so thick, shiny production
and a similar manner of success to radiohead and pink floyd damns them forever?!
i've not heard the new album yet (skint) but aenema and lateralus are not riddled with teenage-angst lyrics.
the singer did do an album of emtional songs about bints with his side-project.
"exactly same pompous, dehumanized, muso-loving approach to making music" i can't respond to this statement because it doesn't mean anything. do you mean the music is too complex/fiddly? i don't get that - apparently tool stuff is difficult to play (or so my guitar playing chums tell me) but not pumpkins or NIN - is that what you mean?
there are shed-loads of prog-bands, but most of them never get a sniff of success - a succesful prog band is a rare beast. i wouldn't really call tool prog anyway. the only succesful modern prog band i can think of is probably The Mars Volta.
as far as production values go, i reckon it's horses for courses - the clumsy live production on tools early releases didn't suit there style. but the dirt-under-the-fingernails production of knifeinthemarathon suits planesmistakenforstars perfectly (to take the first example that sprang to mind).
why don't you lump tool with similar bands - they're aren't loads but old man gloom, cortizone and miocene have all had the tool comparison made.
You don't have to like it - but to treat their work with such disdain because it has been succesful, conveniently lumping it with other musicians you also don't like, seems really harsh.
i'm also really surprised that you made the original, scathing post without even hearing the album - isn't it all about the music?
in fact - just to put the angst thing to bed. this is aenema - the 'breakthrough' album and the one i know best.
stinkfist - song about being a thrill-seeker
eulogy - about opinionated hypocrites taking leadership positions
h - is about smack
useful idiot - instrumental
forty-six & 2 - about a period of introspection leading to personal growth
message to harry manback - wierd dialogue piece in which a mexican insults some geezer for being a yank
hooker with a penis - about a scene soldier telling him tool sold out
intermission - comedy instrumental sending up the intro to the next track
jimmy - not sure - someone told me it was about divorce
die eier von satan - in german, a recipe for making hash cakes without eggs
pushit - about wanting to leave someone but struggling to because they rely upon you (i suppose you could call this angst if you wanted too)
cesaro summability - instrumental
aenema - about how great it would be if LA fell into the ocean (inspired by bill hicks' arizona bay) because LA is rubbish
(-)ions - instrumental
third eye - another hicks inspired one, about taking drugs, reaching enlightenment and contacting god
google "tool lyrics" and you're a click away from the rest. try to look at them with a clear perspective.
if i was going to stick tool lyrics in a genre, i's choose "singer does a lot of drugs" not "teen-angst"
maynard says
I sold out long before you ever heard my name.So...Shut up and
Buy my new record
haha
people debating tool's merits. the ultimate articles on tool are written by something awful's david thorpe. pure comedic class.
something awful
is too afraid of ever being positive, about anything, ever, to be funny.
It's like those high-school kids who are so paranoid about being shown up and getting *it* wrong that they are scathing about everything that has not been stamped by our culture as "warning: beyond reproach".
you know, the shallow ones who gradually alienate all of their former friends...
geeks and celebs - welcome to the world's barn door.