Customer Reviews

Stone

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I still love this album. A friend of mine had me hear it and I was just blown away by the dramatic landscapes of the songs! Hard to believe that two former members of Thompson Twins made this album. It is funky in most places, spiritual and emotional in some others. The music is just phenomenal here, loads of rhythms, funk beds and bridges all throughout. I am very surprised that this album was overlooked in 1994, because it was just out of left field that year.

If you liked Ether, you should really try to snag a copy of The Stone. I love most of the tracks, but especially Tribe, Spirit and Beautiful.

If you can find it, get it!

This is a fantastic album. It fulfills in the car as well as the bedroom.

you've read the other rewiews...this album was seriously overlooked. not as obsure as deep forests sound, but this album is a definite must have. im wishing the price was cheaper-my bootlegged cassette copy is becoming worn. good rainy day or romantic evening background music.

Length:: 0:39 Mins

What a great album to chill out to. Very relaxing and soothing to have on in the background. I wish the Thompson Twins or Babble as they were for this album would release some more albums.

This CD replaced one that went missing. Only used copies are available. THE STONE can be used to promote extreme relaxation or vigorous lovemaking. I use it for both.

Back when I first obtained this disc many years ago, I was impressed with how different it was. I still enjoy listening to it even now. The Stone exhibits solid compositions and sounds to me like a combination of New Age and synth-pop. Also, The Stone is Babble's first full-length piece of work, released in 1994. Babble consists of Tom Bailey and Alannah Currie (ex-Thompson Twins). Ten tracks are contained. The album's sound quality is nice, too. Both Bailey and Currie provide vocals. My favorite pieces are "You Kill Me," "Beautiful," and "Space." Bailey sings nicely on the chorus of the laid-back "You Kill Me." I like the mellow "Beautiful" because of its pleasing melodies. The tremulous, gratifying keyboard melody and the tight bass line of "Space" help make it memorable. The disc is just over 51 minutes. The Stone is recommendable.

I picked this up recently, and it's been a pleasure to listen to so far. Definitely different from their earlier work. This one is very tribal, with eastern-influenced beats. An earlier reviewer compared the sound to Deep Forest, which isn't inaccurate, but I was reminded more of Banco de Gaia or Loop Guru. Either way, I'm glad I got it.

After the cruel disregard that most of the world had for their mostly brilliant 1991 album "Queer", Tom Bailey & Alannah Currie ditched the Thompson Twins name and assumed the identity of Babble. It was the first sign for me that they were going insane. "Babble" just wasn't a name I could get behind, it sounded too much like "bubble" and reminded me of a children's game. When I finally heard the album, after much anticipation, they had defied my expectations once again. Here was the same kind of album they'd made with "Big Trash", except injected with something along the lines of a musical barbituate. The track lengths are all mostly extended and the tempos are slow. Yes, they'd succumbed to the dubious trend of "ambient techno" and "chill-out music" that was all the rage for ten seconds in 1994. It's funny, I notice a lot of people tagging this with the label "trance" in their reviews, which it isn't. There is only one track here, "Drive", that features any kind of pulsating dance beat, and you couldn't include any of this in your DJ set unless your name happened to be Dr. Alex Patterson (and even then, you'd probably reject it because there are too many vocals).

There are a few golden moments here, notably "Take Me Away", as fine a pop song as anything the Thompson Twins ever did, albeit much slower. "Tribe" is fairly decent too, although you may find yourself longing for a heavier beat behind it. The production for most of the album is light and airy (code word: 'ethereal'), although a few of the tracks do touch down occasionally for a solid groove. Title cut "The Stone" is a good example of this, an Indian/Middle Eastern flavored melody with tablas and exotic percussion that eventually turns into a full-force club stomp. Alas, you only get to move for a few bars, and then suddenly it's over.

Some of it just sounds a little silly, too, and here I'm talking about the lyrics. A couple of times we lapse into "Big Trash" territory, like on "Beautiful". "Rapper" Q-T lets loose with a stream of nonsense that just gets irritating after a few lines, and the repetitive chorus features Alannah chanting "These are the days, the beautiful days." OK? And?

"Space" features a unique delivery from Tom Bailey, his voice lowered to that of a growl, but Alannah comes back for the one-word chorus: "Spaaaace...". Hmmmm.

Alannah herself takes lead vocals on "Spirit", which is one of the album's highlights. She sounds great on it, giving a childlike delivery that goes great with the track. Then she has to go and reference "Big Trash" again, with the line "Standing naked by the Christmas tree, thought for a minute that you were me." What does it mean, exactly, to look at someone else and think it's you? I don't think it's a good idea to stand naked by a Christmas tree, either, kind of like how it's not a good idea to cook bacon while naked. If someone would have stepped in and re-written lines like this, we might have had a minor classic on our hands.