As in most Floyd songs, there would appear to be a formula at play: the general spacey-ness you might expect is reined in by heady lyrics you'd be well advised not to allow yourself to get too spacey to pay attention to. There is a sadness, a melancholy, continuously being harassed by an underlying sense of anger and menace, the source of which can be reliably traced back to the lyrics. "Fearless" doesn't try too hard to achieve any of this. Its components simply blend into a musical ambrosia lightly dyed with delicate shades of terror brought on by breathless harmonic changes and mind-bending keyboard effects delivered at precisely the right moment. It's a tonic that might cure something but might also make you sick, a simultaneously soothing and unnerving lullaby delivered by a band that - in their best moments - knew as well as any that came before or would come after what sounds good together.
Pink Floyd's craftsmanship was first rate, but more importantly, they used only top shelf parts.
"Just wait a while for a right day..."
#304) "Silent Lucidity" by Queensryche - Because of "Silent Lucidity", I got into the habit of referring to Queensryche as the "poor man's Pink Floyd", which was neither accurate nor fair to either band. "Silent Lucidity" isn't as polished as any Floyd song, but it was a foray into something new for Queensryche, so probably needs to be graded on a curve. It's a song that does try too hard to be whatever it is it's trying to be, as though you can hear the brushstrokes while the picture is being painted. But there's definitely a general similarity, and I've always thought much of the song's sweeping orchestral arrangement comes straight from the Floyd arsenal. In fact, there are a few short measures in which I swear I can hear "Vera" from The Wall … but hey, I could be wrong.
I first heard this song when I was eighteen, working at McDonald's in the winter of 1991, the tail end of the hair metal era. A co-worker came up to me and asked what the word "lucidity" meant, then directed me to the TV in the break room, on which the video for the song was playing.
I don't know that "Silent Lucidity" holds up for me all these years later, but I still enjoy listening to it. It reminds me of my senior year in high school if nothing else, being moved to find out what "lucidity" meant and intrigued by a song that sounded different, "tasted" different than others of the day. It almost seemed like Queensryche had a notion to take the hair metal genre, specifically the "power ballad", in a different, more introspective direction. Of course, within months, Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" would start blowing up the airwaves, and that would be that for nearly all things musical that weren't "Smells like Teen Spirit". Overnight we were looking back on the whole hair metal scene the way Baby Boomers, by then in their mid-30s, were looking back at bell bottoms and tie dye - with a deep cringe
"I'm standing next to you in silent lucidity..."
