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Showing posts with the label The Crossing

Big Country - The Crossing

For a while producer Steve Lillywhite was a machine. From his earlier work with Peter Gabriel to U2, where I first read his name in their liner notes, the guy was at the helm of some incredible albums. Then in the summer of '83 a very strange song hit the airwaves. "In a Big Country" was big and bombastic and had these melt your face electric bagpipes. A lot of people really liked this song. It was a big hit going top five here in Canada, and the album went platinum here and in the UK and gold in the US. Being the contrarian I treated their hit the way I treated songs by Culture Club. I just turned it off or changed the station. Still there was a begrudging respect. These guys were proud Scots and their mix of traditional and rock music was quite frankly pretty freakin' awesome. One of the cool things now in listening to this album in it's entirety for the first time is how cohesive the songs are as listening experience. I love that the credits actually highlight ...