The Whole of the Moon: The Music of the Waterboys & Mike Scott

Mike Scott, The Waterboys

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 6, 1998)
• Original Release Date: October 6, 1998
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Capitol
• ASIN: B00000C2MO
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #66,486 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pan Within this CD!, April 7, 2001

By	"avrilyn" (Rohan) - See all my reviews

Wow! I'll tell you what, wow! This is the first Waterboys CD I have, and let me tell you that Mike Scott is a major talent! The diversity of his music is amazing! My personal favorites are The Pan Within--it starts out slow, and then builds to an awesome climax *put your face in my window...* and then calms back down to where it was in the beginning. Wonderful use of the violin. It makes the song so eerie. Glastonbury Song--Terrific lyrics, and great melody. The Fishermans Blues--spectacular combination of Irish and a little rock. Love Anyways--I love the lyrics to that song, as well as the instrumental part at the end. This is the Sea--The guitar in that song is amazing! 'Rich' is the only word to describe it. This is a must-buy for all people who think the world is going to bubble gum pop and boy bands. The Waterboys make their music art.

21 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Every precious dream and vision underneath the stars", January 19, 2002

By	The Sanity Inspector (USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

I discovered The Waterboys by chance. I caught half of the Romantic march, "The Whole of the Moon" on a program of Eighties pop during lunch in the car one day, and was impressed enough to go buy this best-of package. After playing it through several times, I'd say I like it a lot, but I wouldn't say this music is the most original that decade had to offer. Mike Scott is a better poet and storyteller than he is a lyricist, and he is a better lyricist than he is a composer. "Red Army Blues" is the most telling example of that hierarchy of gifts.

The closest to an American hit they ever had was "The Whole of the Moon." It's a glorious stab at transcendence, an ode to an artist-who could be anyone from Shelley to Rimbaud to Sid Barrett--overwhelmed by the gods with too many gifts. The song contains a great burst of poetic images, Scott's most successful welding of poetry and rock on this collection:

Unicorns and cannonballs
Palaces and piers
Trumpets towers and tenements
Wide oceans full of tears
Flags rags ferryboats
Scimitars and scarves
Every precious dream and vision
Underneath the stars

It's a wonderfully ingenuous song, as unlike anything else on the radio in the Eighties as The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" was unique in the Nineties. Yet even here I was left wanting more. Karl Wallinger's frigid, "Prince"-ly digital synths may have given it a contemporary feel when it was released in 1985, but I found myself mentally substituting an orchestral woodwinds section and a rack of tubular bells for his parts. Maybe on the Muzak version...

The album covers in the liner notes show Mike Scott's evolution from an Arcadian Adonis to a ramshackle village folkie, mirroring his musical evolution. Indeed, part of the entertainment value of _The Whole of the Moon_ is discerning The Waterboys' roots. Mike Scott sometimes sounds like a nasal Todd Rundgren, and sometimes like one of The Hollies, and, on "She Is So Beautiful", like Bob Dylan. A few of the best songs sound a lot like other songs. "She Is So Beautiful" sounds like Bob Dylan's "Just Like a Woman". "This is the Sea" could be a speeded-up rewrite of Van Morrison's "Listen to the Lion."

It's great that he has such good taste, and it's great that these echoes of those great artists emanated from The Spandex Years. This is a good collection of songs from what was by then a unique band. But given the derivative quality of the music, it's hard to see how The Waterboys could ever have been in the running for Next Big Thing. I'm content to enjoy this as being a reverent musical disciple at his peak, instead.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a huge turn on!, May 17, 2004

By A Customer

Just picked this up on a whim. Unbelievably moving! Both the solo stuff and Waterboys works are powerfula and thought provoking. I cant get enough of this album. I recommend Human Drama a band that turned me on to Waterboys if your looking for more of this style of deep moving rock/folk poetry.