Customer Reviews

Hope: 25th Anniversary

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

...maybe not, but they sure came close! What strange songwriting by this most bizarre of bands. Ranging from psychedelic to hard rocking to progressive to just bizarre--I don't know if listening to this is a guilty pleasure, or if it really is as good as I think it is.
I won't bother with Beatles comparisons, others have written about that. I will say that the music contained here lies somewhere between post-Sgt. Pepper era Beatles, early Alan Parsons Project, Meddle to Animals era Pink Floyd, and (yes) Radiohead. Then again, other songs remind me of other bands: "California Jam"(Beach Boys), "Anus Of Uranus" (Crack The Sky), Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby (The Boston Symphony meets The Muppets). It is just a strange mix of demented music.

What is most amazing to me about this CD is the production of the music. The sound quality is just awesome, with all sorts of effects, guitars and keys swirling around inside your headphones. Now keep in mind that I say this about the double album CD version. I have heard that this is actually a very flawed mix compared to the individual remasters. I have not heard the other versions, but I can say that I think the double album version is great. (I may have to buy them seperately to hear what everyone's been talking about!)

Anyway it is in the production of sounds that draws my comparison to Radiohead. To me, listening to this CD for the first time was much like listening to "OK Computer" or "Kid A" for the first time. There is a lot to listen to, and I mean that in a good way.

At the price that Amazon has this available for, I would recommend the two-fer package. If you want to check the remasters individually, I would recommend the following:

Klaatu: (a.k.a. 3:47 EST) Buy this one if you are more interested in the more rocking "Beatles-ish" sound.

Hope: Buy this one if you are more interested in the "Pink Floyd-ish" sound.

Hope this helps.

This is all about the message. The madman, The lighthouse keeper. I know it all sounds strange and all that, but listen to the words. It may just give you hope!

My father gave me some tapes when I was a little boy. One was a mix of the Beatles, & the other was a copy of Hope ( I listened to them over and over); and it was at the time when MTV started. Soon I was carried away by the flash of my fluttering TV. The Beatles came back into my life again as time passed, but I couldn't remember the name of this album, I had been searching for. I remembered a story album & asked every musician I knew. I did hear the name a couple of times, but couldn't spell it. Finally I found it on my computer. The first time I listened to it, it brought a tear to my eye, and now after all these years understanding it blew me away. The most beautiful story album ever made!

Okay, it's not *actually* an opera, but this classic alternative rock album from the late '70s is a single story told through some exceptional orchestrated rock. I owned a vinyl LP copy back in the day, wore out a cassette copy, and recently rediscovered the CD.

The story of "Hope" is an analogy to the human experience on earth told through a series of songs about those no-long-existing beings on the planet "second from the sun." One can enjoy the music at several levels; as stand-alone classic alternative rock, excellently produced (a la Alan Parsons Project before they were around), or one can dig deeper and get into the message and clever writing within the thematic message of "Hope."

My favorites include the Politzanian national anthem embedded in "Politzania," "The Loneliest of Creatures," a wonderful space-choral piece, "Around the Universe in 80 Days..." Pretty much the whole thing. I rarely listen to bits of this album and tend to prefer it on long drives when I can enjoy the whole thing.

I just bought the original LP (still sealed!) from Canada (through ebay), and I can't wait to get my Rega turntable to caress this one. Of course I have the Bullseye CD, but being a bit on the nostagic side these days... you know. The music is very dramatic, powerful, beautiful and meaningful. A prog-rock-sympho-opera gem!

What you get here is well written pop tunes sung by voices who could have stood in for the Beatles, with long interludes of orchestrated music. There is a theme running through the album holding it all together. This is a high point of Symphonic Rock that belongs with 'Days of Future Past' or many of the Enids albums. Classic stuff, seldom equaled, they don't make them like this anymore sadly.

If you lived through the 70's, it's now almost impossible to fathom some of the commercial hype that surrounded this virtually unknown group of Canadian art rockers. But left in the wake of an age of megastudio wizardry, high gloss production values, conceptual profundity, and operatic instrumental flash (all hallmarks of 70's prog rock), Klaatu's second album can now be heard for what it's really worth: an excellent, if sometimes derivative, fusion of Beatlesque rock art, Floydian psychedelia and classic 70's art rock symphonic posturing. There are some truly fine songs here, from the manic hard rocking "Madman" to the mannered rock baroque of "Long Live Politzania" to the grand cosmic gestures of "Around the Universe in Eighty Days." Even the intricate harmonies of "The Loneliest of Creatures" is a testament to the group's fierce ambition to be taken seriously as rock artists. Even back in the day, Klaatu really had nothing new to add to the vocabulary of rock; however, hearing "Hope" 30 years after its release does confirm the suspicion that what they did say was said with the eloquence of a group of musicians who had mastered what was, at the time, rock's limited lexicon.

this is a strange album i never liked it on vinyl and well the capitol cd and these new releases of this album dont do it any justice. the canadian bullseye releases of these albums are really fantastic.it makes this stange little rock opera almost magical.it no wonder people were led to believe(by capitol records)that these guys were the beatles because the music is very beatle like but only a bit more instrumental than the fab four were.any not the latter beatles but the pscyodelic mid sgt pepper
beatles.however i could not see the mystery reunited beatles doing this type of music in the late 70s early 80s when these albums came out.

I prefer their other albums more, but still excellent music. More of a symphonic sound than the other music that they did.

I remember when this came out; I was in college at the time. I had no awareness of this group then (I was absorbed in acid rock and the Grateful Dead - hey, it was college!) but an acquaintance turned me on to this and I have loved it since.

This record (now CD) is an unsung prog-rock classic that's long been overshadowed by its more popular musical brethren. I do hear influences from SuperTramp, Emerson Lake & Palmer, and Pink Floyd. However, this is also a coherent, musically multi-layered concept album that packs an emotional punch and transcends its influences.

The general idea is that a space-traveling race journeys to a solar system, and encounters the wreckage of the planet Klaatu, a metaphorical stand-in for Earth. The only remnants are a laser-beam lighthouse adrift in the asteroid belt, manned by a single person. The disc is a musical account of the destructive fall of Klaatu's once-great civilization Politzania, and the space travelers' encounter with the dying lighthouse keeper.

The message resonates if you give it a chance. It also has stunning relevance today. If you don't see the similarities between Klaatu's fictional Politzania and Bush's America, then I have to assume you're A) a Republican; B) a musical snob. The tunes "So Said the Lighthouse Keeper" and "Hope" are probably among the most moving pieces of music ever to come out of the prog-rock milieu.

This disc will always have a place in my CD collection. I am so glad it's back in print. If you're interested enough to have read this review, you owe it to yourself to get this.