Here’s a prime example of what happens when record store employees who have no business recommending music, actually do so and when stupid record store customers should ignore those aforementioned recommendations, but don’t.A classmate, not more than a few years older than yours truly, began to strongly encourage me to consider buying the new Planet P Project album.
“You like Floyd, don’tcha?” He asked
“Yeah…”
“Well,” he continued, “this is like The Wall of 1985.”
Now, understand that The Wall to a high school junior is the equivalent to The Bible. So in continuing on with that analogy, and to give you an idea of how Pink Word rates against something like The Wall: The Wall is to The Bible as Pink World is to the Book of Mormon.
Pretentious and overblown, it is the work of former Rainbow keyboardist Tony Carey, who scored a minor hit a few years prior using the Planet P Project moniker while working with a renowned German producer Peter Hauke.
Nothing these two conjure up come anywhere close to Pink Floyd. Hell, nothing they muster comes anywhere near fucking Rainbow, unless you want to bring up shit like Difficult To Cure, of course.
Bad example…
With no frame of reference, and with the idea of forking over money for a fucking double album, I protested to the clerk that I probably would pass on the purchase. Nearing defeat, he pulled out the last enticement: It came pressed on pink vinyl.
Indeed, the song samples did seem a little better on those colored groove and at the very least, I rationalized, the limited edition nature of the release would only increase in value if I later tried to sell it.
Ripping open the gatefold sleeve at home, I learned that my copy did not have the pink vinyl that I saw at the store. I also learned that the songs I heard on side one caused the album to quickly spiral into a shitstorm of side two, three and four.
There’s an unbelievably weak plot of a boy named Artimus who lives in some bizzaro world of suppression, strife, and nuclear annihilation. Musically, Pink World features layers of synthesizers, retarded studio effects and horrifically dated production values. It’s supposedly garnished a few fans over the years, and it sickens me somewhat consider the notion that it may become a revered cult item.
Knowing that I was stuck with a shitty synth/prog rock double lp, I took a razor blade and cut a clean slice in the grooves of track one and created a skip so prevalent that their fancy-pants Technics player wouldn’t be able to track over it.
It worked: I was refunded my money and it was immediately spent on something worthier.
Tony Carey later found success as a solo artist (“A Fine Fine Day”) before semi-retiring in Germany. The last I heard about him was that he did not own a computer and the only way to get in touch with him was through a fax machine.
Now there’s a subject for a concept album.
Tony Carey was born on this day in 1953.
