#trafalgar notes

[ifthepuppetmakesyousmile]

checking in on trafalgar 5 years after hating it the first time i listened to it

i've listened to it so many times, guys. so many times. it is a deeply complex and beautiful album that pulls at emotions i didn't know i had and the harmonies are so deep and sincere and the instrumentation and orchestration is unbelievable. i cannot believe how good this album is. i used to think "how can you mend a broken heart" was out of place but when you see it as the introduction to the story of heartbreak that trafalgar tells, it's a contemplative stroll into memories and nostalgia and sadness and walking back from waterloo is literally about coming through the other side of a literal war. as bookends, they are a phenomenal juxtaposition of the range of human emotion. there's almost a fondness for sorrow in how can you mend a broken heart, it's gentle, it's thoughtful, it's romantic. in walking back from waterloo, we are beaten up by pain and trudging home broken and forever changed. we've survived and there is a dark, bitter hope at the end, that the war is over, the scars remain, but there is in fact a home, a tomorrow, and a way to mend a broken heart.

trafalgar has become one of my all-time favorite albums. it's remarkably mature and emotionally intelligent for a bunch of men in their early 20s who had just come back together after their family exploded violently. i have listened to it six times already this weekend.

[ifthepuppetmakesyousmile]

In the continuing saga of karyn listening to and having opinions on Trafalgar

Headphones makes a tremendous difference and this album is a spectacular piece of art and the production and orchestration are everything and barry is killing it on so many tracks

There isnt like, a happy one. This album is dramatic. This album is painful. This album is gutting and glorious. Album version of hcymabh is really different and good. Their vocal blend is really stellar at points. Mo's leads are emotional and powerful. There is a quiet sadness, and a loud sadness. It is layered.

I still hold that this album is miserable, but not in quality or artistry. It is full of pain, sorrow, regret. It is way more emotionally mature than anything they'd done up to that point, and even much of their later work. This record is something really unique in the bee gees canon.

[ifthepuppetmakesyousmile]

one more set of trafalgar thoughts before i think about something else instead:

the albums is VERY LOW on just...harmony vocals. usually bee gees tracks are full of supporting vocals and that comprises a really huge amount of what i like about their sound and style, but trafalgar gets almost all of its support from the orchestra. a VERY different choice for a bee gees album. it really adds to how lonely the whole thing feels as a piece--the less they sing together, the more, in turn, they each sing apart. walking back to waterloo is haunting in this regard--robin is what, 21 at the release of this record? how can he present such dramatically and devastatingly lonely, desperate vocals. barry’s vocals show a great deal of frustration and anger, mo’s carry a huge feeling of loss and memories of the way things used to be but can no longer be again. i complained a bit about vocal technique on the previous listen, but upon weighing the performances against each other, i definitely come down on the side of it being wholly intentional artistic expression, even if it’s rough for my pedagogue ears to listen to--it’s supposed to be rough because this album isn’t trying to be fun. trafalgar is a real musical feat and is not there to be shallowly consumed and enjoyed. it’s supposed to be felt and understood.

[ifthepuppetmakesyousmile]

okay i’m gonna give trafalgar another listen today to see what i can pick up now that i’ve heard it once before. if i die it’s because of barry gibb holding my head underwater for 47 minutes until all the life is drained from my body.

[ifthepuppetmakesyousmile]

final trafalgar thoughts probably

okay. “trafalgar” complete. guys it’s just a real downer. it’s well-composed for sure, has great flow as an album, but is overwhelmingly sad. crushing, in a way. they all sound like they’re in legitimate pain, emotional and sometimes physical, singing through the songs. “lion in winter” in particular sounds physically painful for robin to sing. surely it was an artistic choice, and they were relying on his ability to just make you FEEL things with his voice, but there is a point maybe where it no longer has the desired musical effect and just sort of hurts. it sounds like maybe it just sort of hurt. all three brothers had their vocal abilities really pushed on this album. barry had to really sell “i don’t wanna live inside myself” and pulled it off well. closest comparison from their catalog is “i was the child” but without the charm of walking around and touching every bit of woodwork in a castle. 

the orchestration really adds a lot to the feel of the album, creating cohesion between the tracks. as i said earlier, big moody blues vibes at times. i really appreciate the musicality of it, but again it is just...sad. it feels heavy and sad and like a weight on my chest, shades of giles corey. 

it’s hard to pick highlights for this one. i usually find three or four tracks that really jump out at me as special. “trafalgar” is probably the best song on “trafalgar,” followed closely by...idk something else? everything just sort of runs from one sad thought to the next without any breaks. knowing that allegedly “how can you mend a broken heart” and “lonely days” which appeared on two separate albums were written in the same afternoon, i have a lot of questions about how those two albums were built and produced. also knowing that mo had an unreleased solo album get kind of absorbed after “cucumber castle” and before “trafalgar,” which may have had some music repurposed into compositions appearing on “trafalgar” makes me incredibly curious to hear the unreleased album in its entirety. anyway if you need me, “trafalgar” has dragged me to the bottom of the ocean to let the weight of the sea crush the very air from my lungs. 7.8/10

[ifthepuppetmakesyousmile]

if “dearest” had been the last song on the album everyone in 1971 would have died of abject misery

[ifthepuppetmakesyousmile]

“trafalgar” is a really emotionally heavy album. so many songs feel like they carry a really deep unhappiness. that might just be me? even barry is selling the sad boy hours today and i never believe his sad boy hours. i’m not all the way through it yet, but i’m chewing on that. the orchestration on this one adds so so much. “don’t wanna live inside myself” hits surprisingly hard, and moving right into “when do i” feels like a knife gliding down the side of my face.

[ifthepuppetmakesyousmile]

i hear the roots of “boys do fall in love” in “remembering”