Fundamental Album
Beverly Zielonko
Fundamental or Fundamental As Anything is the fifth studio album released by Australian rock/pop group, Mental As Anything.[2][3] The album was produced by Richard Gottehrer and was released on Regular Records in March 1985.[2][3][4] It peaked at No. 3 on the Australian Kent Music Report albums charts.
Cash Box magazine said "Another strong album from this powerhouse Australian band. Variety is the key here, as the music runs the gamut from the gritty sensualism of "Hold On" to the depth and richness of "Date with Destiny"'."[6]
Fundamental is the ninth studio album by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys. It was released in May 2006 in the United Kingdom, Europe, Japan and Canada. It was released in late June 2006 in the United States. The album entered the UK Albums Chart at number five on 28 May 2006. In the US the album peaked at number 150 selling 7,500 copies in its first week.[citation needed] As of April 2009 it had sold 46,000 copies in the US and 66,000 copies in the UK.[12] Fundamental earned two Grammy nominations at the 2007 Grammy Awards for Best Dance/Electronic Album and Best Dance Recording with "I'm with Stupid".[13]
The album was produced by the Pet Shop Boys and Trevor Horn and it features eleven new Pet Shop Boys compositions, and "Numb", written by Diane Warren (Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe originally planned to have "Numb" be one of two new tracks on PopArt, but opted instead for "Miracles" and "Flamboyant").
The liner notes show that the album is dedicated to two executed Iranian gay teenagers, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, who were hanged on 19 July 2005. Some reports have suggested the two may have been executed for engaging in homosexual behaviour, though the official Iranian report was that they were hanged for raping a 13-year-old boy. The album was very well received by critics, some considering it to be their best album since Very, but its sales failed to improve much on the sales of their last two albums.
Specific contemporary issues discussed in the lyrics include tensions and fears in the United States caused by the War on Terrorism, addressed in songs such as "Psychological" and "Luna Park"[15] ("Luna Park" being the name of various amusement parks around the world). Other songs refer to the politics of the band's home country; "Indefinite leave to remain" refers to an immigration status in the United Kingdom, while "Integral" criticises the Identity Cards Act 2006. (A statement from a band spokesman cites the issue as the reason that Tennant ceased his well-publicized support of Tony Blair's Labour Party.) "I'm with Stupid", meanwhile, touches upon both countries by satirizing Blair's alliance with George W. Bush. (See also special relationship.)[16]
Other subject matters are dealt with as well. "Casanova in Hell" is about the 18th century historical figure Giacomo Casanova, and how he immortalized himself by writing memoirs about his history of sexual seduction of numerous women. Tennant refers to, specifically, the book Casanova's Homecoming by Arthur Schnitzler as his inspiration for the song.[15] (It was sung by Rufus Wainwright at its very first live performance, at a private concert recorded for BBC Radio 2 at the Mermaid Theatre on 8 May 2006.)[17] "The Sodom and Gomorrah Show" references two of the biblical cities of sin, Sodom and Gomorrah, in saying that to learn to 'go where angels fear to tread' (i.e. to sin) is to learn to live freely.
The album is Pet Shop Boys' first collaboration with Trevor Horn since the 1989 single "It's Alright". Its sound bears the producer's heavily orchestral style (also present on that song), most frequently associated with the 1982 ABC album The Lexicon of Love as well as the 1984 Frankie Goes to Hollywood single "Two Tribes" and subsequent album Welcome to the Pleasuredome. Horn was also musical director for the Radio 2 concert, which featured the BBC Concert Orchestra.[17]
The album's personnel included many of Horn's frequent musical collaborators, including Anne Dudley, Tessa Niles, Jamie Muhoberac, Phil Palmer, Steve Lipson, Lol Creme, Tim Pierce, Earl Harvin, Frank Ricotti, Luis Jardim, Lucinda Barry.[18]
Special limited editions of the album include a second bonus CD called Fundamentalism. The disc includes remixed tracks with contributions by artists such as Alter Ego. "In Private", here presented as a duet with Elton John, was originally a Dusty Springfield song written and produced by the Pet Shop Boys. First released as a single in 1989, it was later included on the 1990 album Reputation. The powerful opening track "Fugitive" contains lyrics suggestive of a dialogue between a male terrorist and a person who has a close relationship with him - originally conceived by Tennant as the terrorist's sister, but later re-cast in his thoughts as either the terrorist's sister, his brother or a close friend[19] - thus continuing the political themes of the main album.
On 22 December 2005, the official Pet Shop Boys website announced an early track listing for the album and gave a release date of 17 April 2006 with new single "Minimal" arriving a few weeks beforehand. This was quickly followed up on 23 December, when pop music fansite Popjustice gave the first review of the album.[21]On 13 February 2006, it was announced that the release date of Fundamental had been pushed back to 22 May, because EMI needed "more set-up time". At the same time "I'm with Stupid" was announced to be the revised lead single. This was followed on 4 April 2006, with news that there would be a limited edition of the new album that would include a bonus CD called Fundamentalism.
Thanks! I got into VCV about 2 years ago without any synth knowledge actually but I remember many sleeples nights struggling to get basic patches and concepts working. If you do this every day for many hours you will progress quickly without even noticing. and I cannot thank enough to Omri Cohen for his tutorials
Well done Mateusz, some great sounds there!I noticed a Bogaudio mixer, so I guess you use non-fundamental modules off-screen too for mixing? What was your process for finishing off the production - did you record into a DAW and then Master there + add effects? Just curious to know how much production was required beyond VCV Rack.Also, how did you achieve the pad-sounding harmonies? The sequencer melodies were easy to track via the patch cables of course, but were the pads just the other oscillators mixed together and going into the delay?Thanks and great work again!
Sometime in the late 1970s, rock music officially reached adulthood. The fans who grew up on rock as a wild, youthful counter-culture were getting older; they had careers, kids, fancy stereo equipment, and whole new sets of concerns. The same went for the stars themselves: Suddenly it was natural for them to look like adults, wear tapered suits, and act like they probably knew a lot about wine and real estate. Think of Rod Stewart, Dire Straits, Mick Jagger at Studio 54, and all those California guys who grew beards and indulged in self-employed guitar-strumming on self-owned houseboats. The British dreamed of an adult high life and the Americans dreamed of white-collar vacations, and they began to make music about those dreams.
By the time Pet Shop Boys came along, pop was fairly adult, and they certainly sold adult-like pop: reserved and witty, even arch. Funny thing about them, though: They're one of the first acts I can think of to have navigated their own career-long growing-up with a form of electronic music. It's been fascinating to watch an act like this become elder statesmen of the British charts, and to bend synthesized dance-pop around the kind of music elder statesmen make-- music that's more careful, eloquent, and subtle, music that's wiser and less demonstrative. Rock guys, after all, usually turn to acoustic guitars and "roots" to pull this off, and plenty of non-rock acts (hello, Madonna) can never quite do it gracefully. But Pet Shop Boys have the qualities to make it possible: Pop music that always came from clever heads, a style that was always a bit distanced, and a sound-- Neil Tennant's clear, airy voice; Chris Lowe's lovable building-block electronics-- that makes them wonderfully, even comfortingly familiar. We don't so much need newness and excitement from them; they can just drop in for a little chat, and we'll be glad to see them, and there'll always be some witty thing they pull that's a true surprise.
Fundamental, as cleverly titled as any of the eight albums that preceded it, should be a prime moment for this duo, and it is without question a grand improvement from their most recent work. Their electro-disco is back in fashion, which lets them return to, umm, fundamentals: Working again with 1980s star producer Trevor Horn, they make tracks like "Integral" pop with a grandiose synth drama half-worthy of Frankie Goes to Hollywood. (Singles and companion discs also get packed with remixes by new-breed electro-disco stars, like Richard X and Michael Mayer.) They're lyrically energized, too, albeit against a nuts-and-bolts target: Much of the album revolves around Tennant's disillusionment with the New Labour government he once supported, particularly Tony Blair's close relationship with George W. Bush (whom some might describe as being a sort of, umm, fundamentalist). In other words, "I'm With Stupid" is about exactly what you'd think it would be; "Indefinite Leave to Remain" is about UK immigration reform; "Integral" kind of goes wide-angle on immigration and security both, with a sarcastic chorus ("If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear") that's nowhere near as great as Tennant speaking coyly after it ("Sterile! Immaculate! Rational!").
There is terrific work here: "Minimal" does a detour into old-school synth-pop, and "Twentieth Century" and "The Sodom and Gomorrah Show" add so much harmony and shine that they can't help growing on you. (The latter is nearly a new "Suburbia.") The best moments seem to come from slowed-down crooners, these moments where we can luxuriate in the fineness and familiarity of Tennant's voice. "I Made My Excuses and Left" is lovely on this front, and "Casanova in Hell" is even better-- if our pop stars were all young, there's just about no chance we'd get to hear piano ballads imagining Casanova as an impotent saddo who wrote seduction memoirs to create his own sexual myth.
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