Before I got into college radio, I had no idea who Peter Murphy
\nwas, nor did I care. Even after a year in college radio, I didn’t
\ncare who he was – he just seemed too weird for my still
\nnarrow-minded tastes.<\/p>\n
Then, I happened to sit down and listen to the copy of
\nDeep<\/i>, Murphy’s second solo album, that had been given to me
\nby the station’s music director. And I wondered… just what had I
\nbeen smoking to have ignored this guy? Even today, almost ten years
\nafter this album came out,
\nDeep<\/i> contains some great music that doesn’t always reflect
\nthe past of Murphy’s old band, Bauhaus.<\/p>\n
There’s no denying that the overall sound on this tape is that
\nof British alternative pop, but it carves out its own niche in that
\nit’s not as dark as the goth rock I had expected, and it leaves you
\nfeeling good. Murphy’s use of the twelve-string guitar on various
\nparts of the album also helps to create a musical texture all its
\nown – and one that still sends chills down my spine to this
\nday.<\/p>\n
Opening up with “Deep Ocean Vast Sea,” one almost feels that
\nMurphy is riding the crests of his own song, and is just allowing
\nhis vocals to be shaped by the melodies. This is a new approach to
\nmy ears – and it works incredibly well. Throughout the whole first
\nhalf of
\nDeep<\/i>, Murphy allows himself to be overtaken by the song.
\nFrom “Sky” to “Marlene Dietrich’s Favourite Poem,” Murphy sets
\nhimself apart from the then-blossoming alternative scene as someone
\nspecial.<\/p>\n
The song that
\nDeep<\/i> is probably best known for, “Cuts You Up,” is still as
\nenjoyable today as it was when I started to hear it on stations
\nlike WXRT-FM in 1990. Murphy quickly shows that he can maintain his
\nmusical integrity while writing songs that are radio-friendly.
\nLikewise, “A Strange Kind Of Love” is a great ballad that is a
\nwonderful mood piece. It also features some great guitar work; I
\nhave yet to figure out some of those chord progressions.<\/p>\n
The only negative I can find with
\nDeep<\/i> is that it gets a little too self-absorbed in the end.
\nWhen you follow up a song like “Roll Call” with “Roll Call Reprise”
\n– I mean, one right after the other – things get to sounding a
\nlittle tedious. It’s still a decent track, but I question the
\ntracks’ placement on the album.<\/p>\n
Still, Murphy was shooting bull’seyes for almost the entire
\nalbum, and
\nDeep<\/i> remains one of the treasures from the “birth” of
\nalternative rock that still is waiting to truly be discovered.
\nEspecially with the re-formation of Bauhaus in 1998, now could be
\nthe time for
\nDeep<\/i> to be re-discovered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6051],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-36128","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-peter-murphy","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36128"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36128"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}