MCB has a free pair of tickets to the Blue October show coming up on May 16th over at The Emerald Ballroom in Mt Clemens.... 1st emailer gets them - gone!!!!!Blue October
Approaching Normal
On the new Blue October album, Approaching Normal, Justin Furstenfeld, moves his band forward into confident new territory as a songwriter and as a storyteller. Steve Lillywhite, the producer synonymous with U2 and five-time Grammy Award winner guided the way and the result is an album that breaks the mold of whatever anyone may think Blue October is.
Lillywhite’s first attraction to Blue October was the voice. “For me, it’s always the voice that gets me first because my opinion on a voice never changes. There are singers and there are expressionists and Justin is both,” says Steve, who quickly adds that just as important is the artistry, “Their music really touches people in a way that the music of great artists do. There is bond of passion and trust between artist and audience.”
Approaching Normal
On the new Blue October album, Approaching Normal, Justin Furstenfeld, moves his band forward into confident new territory as a songwriter and as a storyteller. Steve Lillywhite, the producer synonymous with U2 and five-time Grammy Award winner guided the way and the result is an album that breaks the mold of whatever anyone may think Blue October is.
Lillywhite’s first attraction to Blue October was the voice. “For me, it’s always the voice that gets me first because my opinion on a voice never changes. There are singers and there are expressionists and Justin is both,” says Steve, who quickly adds that just as important is the artistry, “Their music really touches people in a way that the music of great artists do. There is bond of passion and trust between artist and audience.”
“Working with Steve has always been my dream and I learned so much from him…like less is more.” Justin comments, “I was like a painter that did not know how to paint. It’s quite a new step trusting someone with your vision…but hey it’s Steve Lillywhite and I trusted him completely.”
Approaching Normal is the follow-up to the band’s platinum selling breakthrough album, Foiled. Released in 2006, the first single, “Hate Me,” a song that offers a stepping stone from regret to hope, became the surprise modern rock anthem of the year spending 16 weeks in the Top 10 with five weeks at #2. The crossover success of the follow-up single, “Into the Ocean,” propelled the album sales well into the million plus territory in North America alone.
Having a platinum selling album creates pressure and as a songwriter, Justin felt it. Lillywhite helped him along the way by encouraging him to work more deliberately at his craft “He pushed me as a writer. I would have a song written and Steve would say, ‘that part is boring.’ No one has ever said that to me before. Steve would tell me to sit down and work on it and I never did that before. I re-wrote melodies and lyrics that didn’t make sense and now they are gorgeous. He pushed me to be better and that inspired me and I accomplished more than I would of on my own.”
Approaching Normal is a journey; a song cycle that begins with “Weight of the World,” a song that made its first appearance as a spoken word poem on the band’s brilliant live CD and DVD “Argue with a Tree.” The new version, fully orchestrated by the band, finds Justin, as himself, at the peak of his youthful destruction. I blackout in the room again, a busted lip and broken skin. I wake up in the bathroom and dare not bother asking why the mirror's cracked and all I see are shards of glass inside of me. There's voices there to dare me, my father's here to scare me.”
“What the fuck is normal?” concludes Justin, “The album is a play on how everyone’s sense of normal is at risk over something, happiness or sadness or, god forbid, madness. Blue October is a mood. Whether you listen to the words or not, the music sets a tone and as for the lyrics, well, you either love it or hate it.”
“I think that we have made an album that is an artistic statement,” adds Lillywhite, “it’s a journey, but it also checks the boxes of commercial potential. I really love the record.”
Blue October Approaching Normal
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