As other(s) mentioned : AYREON (2024) *_”The Fifth Extinction (01011001 - Live Beneath The Waves)”_* : ua-cam.com/video/QcES8YpMVv8/v-deo.html Btw Watch Joost playing a Theremin !
I hope you are going to analyze many more Ayreon songs. I recommend The 6th Extinction live The Day that the World Breaks Down (live or official lyric video) Lost Children of the Universe by Star One there are many more.... I was at the Live Beneath the Waves show where this album was performed. It was mind-boggling how they managed to bring that all on stage.
Ayreon in mostly enjoyed when listening to the whole album, as it is story based. If you want single song "ayreon" listen to his othe projects like "Star one" of his solo stuff like Guild machine... PS... They did this live and it was amazing...
The cool thing about Ayreon is that all the albums sort of tie into the same story. It's about a race of humans that give control of their planet to a computer (the 'frame) to help solve an environmental catastrophe, but the computer determines that the best course of action is to eliminate the humans. Ten humans and the robot TH-1 escape the planet on the only interstellar ship they have (the 'Starblade') along with the ships crew and head to an ocean planet. The chemist creates a drug ('The Source', aka 'Liquid Eternity') that allows them to evolve into an 'aquatic race'. The drug also makes them basically immortal and allows them to communicate telepathically. The album ends with the survivors (ten plus the ships small crew) living on their new planet ('Planet Y') in relative peace, but in the final track we learn that TH-1 is becoming a new version of the 'frame deep in the ocean. The next album in the timeline, 01011001 ('Y') tells us how machines have now taken over this new planet, and the humans have basically merged with the machines are losing their emotions and sense of time. They now call themselves 'The Forever', since they are essentially ageless drones at this point. We also learn about how they seeded a comet with DNA and sent it to Earth, where it creates human life on our planet. The Forever believe they can live through us telepathically and that they may regain their emotions by doing so. Some of The Forever believe that we need to advance more quickly, and use their telepathy to give us medicine/technology, but this results in us advancing quicker than our morality can cope with. Eventually The Forever realize humanity is doomed and has to decide if they will give them the technology to reverse their past mistakes. Technically the album "01011001" spans many eons of time, narrating the Forevers' initial discovery of Earth and decision to seed the Human species there as well as the war that ends humanity and the Forevers' recovery of their emotions. in the timeline sits the album 'The Electric Castle'From a summary by Arjen: "At the end of the journey those that successfully dealt with their personal demons find out that the voice belongs to an alien named 'Forever of the Stars', a member of an alien race living in a distant galaxy. These aliens created planet Earth and its people as an experiment so they could study, and hopefully one day experience emotions, as they themselves lost feelings eons ago." That's only three albums (less than half!) but I believe those three give you a solid foundation for how the story plays out. Also, I highly recommend any of the Electric Castle Live videos; They are just so fun to watch, plus John de Lancie ('Q' from Star Trek) plays the 'Forever of the Stars' character, which Arjen said he originally based on Q.
Thorough 👍! NOTE though: the alien race is called simply *_'Forever'_* - that is, _without an article._ This is evident from the *Ayreon* albums and all liner note text that gives further insight into the songs. Normally, the English language grammar would indeed require us to call them "the Forever", but Arjen has chosen not to do so, possibly because the alien race is losing its sense of identity. The album *_01011001_* opening track *_Age of Shadows_* Part II is called *_We are Forever_* [sic]. 'Forever' simply _are_ (as in "exist")-a terrifying state of being. Also, maybe add some paragraph breaks (Shift+Return on PC, and even easier on a smart device, ↵) to make your Comment easier to read?
I mean, I would love to explain why this is a wonderful, great, majestic track. But it's exactly as you said, the whole 1st CD is more catchy, poppy, almost every track lives by his own. I can tell because even at a first listen long ago I loved it. The 2nd CD, at the opposite, works almost as one, it takes me longer to understand at appreciate it whole. When I did it I appreciate it way more than the first, it's a fucking CD working together, but it's also all or nothing (still good, but). While the 1st CD explain various aspects, moments and actions of Forever, the 2nd CD is a tales of how all the journey has gone (kill dinosaurs, develope human, watch 'em die in the sixth extinction). I never thought it, but I agree that they could have added more emotions, change the tone after the instrumental section. It would have been interesting, but sad story, Arjen's divorced before and we can feel the depression he was going through (idk if he divorced before the 2 nd or before the whole album). Another reason to add emotions, free your rage Lucassen! 😂 Fun fact in this album we have 16 different singers, 10 Forever and 6 Humans. This is also the more sci-fi sounding ayreon's album, it resumes the whole concept of the albums he wrote before (with the exception of the second). It's an interesting musical project
Thinking about it they did it in the sixth extinction, last track of the album. After the solo in the middle they changed the tone and developed 2 different emotional moments, but you'll hear it :D (It still feel different ideas glued together)
During the recording of this album, Arjen has said that he had lost the sense of taste, and that might be related to the depression you talk about. He had to re-learn to cook and eat differently.
What you are saying makes a lot of sense, this song for instance wasn't picked as one of the stand alone song that would work in their "Best of" live show Ayreon Universe but a fragment of Age of Shadows was But for the whole album live experience that was performed and released just a couple of months ago this was played of course Some other strong stand alones from this album are Waking Dreams, Comatose, Ride the Comet, and of course the epic finale The Sixth Extinction
Try listening to the whole album. In order. Each song is like a chapter to the story. You're missing some context from between Age of Shadows and The Fifth Extinction. Then come back and re-evaluate. It might be the same, it might not, on how you feel about the song. Good luck! Edit: Oh, yeah. This album is basically also a chapter in a much bigger story. Just letting you know If you feel up to hearing the whole thing someday ;)
I think your criticism are fair. I always thought this album was way too long and gets dragged down by the long sections of vocalists back and forth that seem to just be there for story purposes. Plus the story is, IMO, kinda impossible to understand anyway. The human equation story is at least understandable! In that way the live versions are far more entertaining because you can watch the vocalists act out the lines to an extent. Plus its just a massive spectacle that Arjen puts on that's highly entertaining. It's a shame because there are some great songs and music on this album that stand alone really well. The moody ballad 'Comatose', hard rocking 'Liquid Eternity', Jethro Tull esq 'River of time' are all really great.
6:25 - About the "folk element" standing "out of place", I respectfully disagree. I prefer to think of it as contrast or counter point. I mean, does anything drive the sci-fi theme home better than pairing it with music from days of old? But maybe that's what you meant?
As other(s) mentioned :
AYREON (2024) *_”The Fifth Extinction (01011001 - Live Beneath The Waves)”_* : ua-cam.com/video/QcES8YpMVv8/v-deo.html
Btw Watch Joost playing a Theremin !
Yay more Ayreon. Love the honesty and analysis.
Thank you!
Bryan, I'm glad you enjoyed the video with lyrics; It's actually just my fan-made video that I did for most of Ayreon's albums :)
I hope you are going to analyze many more Ayreon songs.
I recommend The 6th Extinction live
The Day that the World Breaks Down (live or official lyric video)
Lost Children of the Universe by Star One
there are many more....
I was at the Live Beneath the Waves show where this album was performed. It was mind-boggling how they managed to bring that all on stage.
Ayreon in mostly enjoyed when listening to the whole album, as it is story based. If you want single song "ayreon" listen to his othe projects like "Star one" of his solo stuff like Guild machine... PS... They did this live and it was amazing...
Ayreon in mostly enjoyed when you live through Ayreon Univerce
The cool thing about Ayreon is that all the albums sort of tie into the same story. It's about a race of humans that give control of their planet to a computer (the 'frame) to help solve an environmental catastrophe, but the computer determines that the best course of action is to eliminate the humans. Ten humans and the robot TH-1 escape the planet on the only interstellar ship they have (the 'Starblade') along with the ships crew and head to an ocean planet. The chemist creates a drug ('The Source', aka 'Liquid Eternity') that allows them to evolve into an 'aquatic race'. The drug also makes them basically immortal and allows them to communicate telepathically. The album ends with the survivors (ten plus the ships small crew) living on their new planet ('Planet Y') in relative peace, but in the final track we learn that TH-1 is becoming a new version of the 'frame deep in the ocean. The next album in the timeline, 01011001 ('Y') tells us how machines have now taken over this new planet, and the humans have basically merged with the machines are losing their emotions and sense of time. They now call themselves 'The Forever', since they are essentially ageless drones at this point. We also learn about how they seeded a comet with DNA and sent it to Earth, where it creates human life on our planet. The Forever believe they can live through us telepathically and that they may regain their emotions by doing so. Some of The Forever believe that we need to advance more quickly, and use their telepathy to give us medicine/technology, but this results in us advancing quicker than our morality can cope with. Eventually The Forever realize humanity is doomed and has to decide if they will give them the technology to reverse their past mistakes. Technically the album "01011001" spans many eons of time, narrating the Forevers' initial discovery of Earth and decision to seed the Human species there as well as the war that ends humanity and the Forevers' recovery of their emotions. in the timeline sits the album 'The Electric Castle'From a summary by Arjen: "At the end of the journey those that successfully dealt with their personal demons find out that the voice belongs to an alien named 'Forever of the Stars', a member of an alien race living in a distant galaxy. These aliens created planet Earth and its people as an experiment so they could study, and hopefully one day experience emotions, as they themselves lost feelings eons ago." That's only three albums (less than half!) but I believe those three give you a solid foundation for how the story plays out. Also, I highly recommend any of the Electric Castle Live videos; They are just so fun to watch, plus John de Lancie ('Q' from Star Trek) plays the 'Forever of the Stars' character, which Arjen said he originally based on Q.
Thorough 👍! NOTE though: the alien race is called simply *_'Forever'_* - that is, _without an article._ This is evident from the *Ayreon* albums and all liner note text that gives further insight into the songs.
Normally, the English language grammar would indeed require us to call them "the Forever", but Arjen has chosen not to do so, possibly because the alien race is losing its sense of identity. The album *_01011001_* opening track *_Age of Shadows_* Part II is called *_We are Forever_* [sic].
'Forever' simply _are_ (as in "exist")-a terrifying state of being.
Also, maybe add some paragraph breaks (Shift+Return on PC, and even easier on a smart device, ↵) to make your Comment easier to read?
I mean, I would love to explain why this is a wonderful, great, majestic track.
But it's exactly as you said, the whole 1st CD is more catchy, poppy, almost every track lives by his own.
I can tell because even at a first listen long ago I loved it.
The 2nd CD, at the opposite, works almost as one, it takes me longer to understand at appreciate it whole.
When I did it I appreciate it way more than the first, it's a fucking CD working together, but it's also all or nothing (still good, but).
While the 1st CD explain various aspects, moments and actions of Forever, the 2nd CD is a tales of how all the journey has gone (kill dinosaurs, develope human, watch 'em die in the sixth extinction).
I never thought it, but I agree that they could have added more emotions, change the tone after the instrumental section.
It would have been interesting, but sad story, Arjen's divorced before and we can feel the depression he was going through (idk if he divorced before the 2 nd or before the whole album). Another reason to add emotions, free your rage Lucassen! 😂
Fun fact in this album we have 16 different singers, 10 Forever and 6 Humans.
This is also the more sci-fi sounding ayreon's album, it resumes the whole concept of the albums he wrote before (with the exception of the second).
It's an interesting musical project
Thinking about it they did it in the sixth extinction, last track of the album. After the solo in the middle they changed the tone and developed 2 different emotional moments, but you'll hear it :D
(It still feel different ideas glued together)
During the recording of this album, Arjen has said that he had lost the sense of taste, and that might be related to the depression you talk about. He had to re-learn to cook and eat differently.
1:51 Yeah, *Taycott* did a lot of work, using the artwork and vocalist portraits from the album when constructing the lyric video!
Given the subject matter I expected something like The Ocean. Was surprised haha
What you are saying makes a lot of sense, this song for instance wasn't picked as one of the stand alone song that would work in their "Best of" live show Ayreon Universe but a fragment of Age of Shadows was
But for the whole album live experience that was performed and released just a couple of months ago this was played of course
Some other strong stand alones from this album are Waking Dreams, Comatose, Ride the Comet, and of course the epic finale The Sixth Extinction
Try listening to the whole album. In order. Each song is like a chapter to the story. You're missing some context from between Age of Shadows and The Fifth Extinction.
Then come back and re-evaluate. It might be the same, it might not, on how you feel about the song. Good luck!
Edit: Oh, yeah. This album is basically also a chapter in a much bigger story. Just letting you know If you feel up to hearing the whole thing someday ;)
I think your criticism are fair. I always thought this album was way too long and gets dragged down by the long sections of vocalists back and forth that seem to just be there for story purposes. Plus the story is, IMO, kinda impossible to understand anyway. The human equation story is at least understandable!
In that way the live versions are far more entertaining because you can watch the vocalists act out the lines to an extent. Plus its just a massive spectacle that Arjen puts on that's highly entertaining.
It's a shame because there are some great songs and music on this album that stand alone really well. The moody ballad 'Comatose', hard rocking 'Liquid Eternity', Jethro Tull esq 'River of time' are all really great.
6:25 - About the "folk element" standing "out of place", I respectfully disagree. I prefer to think of it as contrast or counter point. I mean, does anything drive the sci-fi theme home better than pairing it with music from days of old? But maybe that's what you meant?
🤘
I would’ve hoped your follower would’ve chosen The Sixth Extinction instead. The live one as well
The Sixth Extinction has become one of my favourite songs
I don't think the track is atmospheric, it's more storytelling I guess..
Huh
Hoh