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Old 11-03-2018, 11:09
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Automatik Automatik is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: There By The Grace Of God CD1
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Haven't had time to compose a considered reply to this thread until now.

It must be nigh-on indisputable that KYE and the Cuba phase was the definition of folly. The band self-consciously destroyed the success they painstakingly built-up and peaked with (TIMTTMY and Masses). I seem to remember that the Cuba trip led them into serious financial difficulties, too.

KYE is a glorious mess that I love but I agree that it would have been wiser for them to have been more disciplined, paring that monster into two albums (one political and headlined by Masses and the other West Coast and sombre).

Musically we are for the most part nearly all passionate fans of TBTGOG/Lifeblood eras, so I don't consider that period to be folly at all; but it is very much a commercial hangover to KYE and the band feel that it damaged them. No doubt they look back and see that following up the successful EMG/TIMTTMY formula with its antithesis (KYE) and think that it damaged them in the long term, losing them a great deal of commercial momentum.

For the record, I don't regret KYE. I love it. There is no way the two album-approach to KYE would have been the third EMG/TIMTTMY that the charts and music-buying public wanted anyway. I doubt even a TBTGOG/Lifeblood cherry-picking would have been the third EMG/TIMTTMY.

Every album is a gamble. I am far more frustrated by, for example, PFAYM than I ever was by KYE.
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