Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Clannad vs. Enya

Ok, time for something a bit more cheery. My last post was merely to vent my frustrations at college, but this week has so far been better. I got my grades for two tests (history was 94 and government was 97 in a class average of 70), and I'm happy with both of them. Yesterday I saw my Spanish professor Dr. McGlone in the hall, and he said he missed me in his class and that I should continue doing Spanish. It made me feel somewhat guilty for not being his class, as I would love to be in it, but his only Spanish 3 class meets during my required government class. Mom suggested yesterday that while I go to Christ College next fall that I also be enrolled at GGC for Spanish 3 and 4, but we've not decided anything about that yet. I'm also excited because this week I'm going to the Spanish Film Festival. They were showing two movies, but I settled on "Pan's Labyrinth" because it's a movie my family has been interested in seeing. I'm looking forward to seeing it, plus it will get a government project out of my way. On the other side, this morning would have been good except for the fact the sink swallowed one of my favorite earrings, one of the pair that Grandma Linda gave me for Christmas and the pair that had replaced another pair from Arizona that had fallen down the same said sink. However, there's nothing I could do to get it out because it was too far down and Mandy turned the water, pushing it out of sight. Bummer. I think the sink makes me drop the earrings so that it can eat them. Dad says I should stop putting on earrings on front of that mirror, but it's really the only place I can do it and we can't put the stopper in the mirror because it gets clogged up with my hair and Mandy's hair.

Anyway, I'd like to try something different blog post-wise. I mostly give a quick, boring rundown on life around here, but I've been thinking about actually giving a personal musical opinion, hence the title of this post. I mean no offense to either Clannad or Enya in this post, as I am merely comparing them by what I've heard from both and from reviews for both.

I've mentioned Clannad on this blog a few times because I did a paper on them for my music appreciation class last semester. Clannad is similar to Enya in that they both have a similar ethereal sound and similar voices (well, the two female singers are sisters so that makes sense), but that is where the similarity ends. Clannad started out as a traditional Irish band playing folk Irish songs in Gaelic and giving them a more modern makeover, and Nicky Ryan worked with them between 1973 and 1981. However, Nicky Ryan (this is according to an interview with Enya that I read about) wanted to turn Clannad into an 80's pop band but needed to push them in that direction. In 1978, he invited little sister Eithne Brennan to join Clannad as a keyboardist and for backup vocals. Around 1981, just after releasing another album, Clannad decided to get a new producer, and Nicky asked if he could take Eithne with him when he left. Eithne left with him to go solo as Enya. Anyway, so Clannad shot to fame in 1982 with their song "Theme from Harry's Game," which has a very ethereal Enya-like sound except it has authentic voices. They also did work on a soundtrack for a BBC show called "Robin of Sherwood" which is heard on their album "Legend" (which is a very fine album with a perfect mixture of folk music and a more ethereal, mystic sound and a bit of 80's sound). For the rest of the 80's, Clannad remained big mostly in Europe and not much in the US, though they did make an opening there in the early 90's with their "Harry's Game" song. Then they moved away towards 80's pop and began using more electronic instruments and a bit more darker sound. Their album "Lore" is excellent, and "Landmarks" is pretty good too though not as much as "Lore." Enya sprang to fame in 1988, after Clannad had already released an environmental pop album for American consumption, and she grew bigger than they did. I believe that Enya's rise to fame is partially responsible for Clannad's curtained fame though in my opinion she is not as good as they are.

I say Enya is not as good for one reason: she has little to no variety. Clannad, with a career of thirty years, developed from a rustic traditional band to an 80's pop band to a New Age band. This gave them ample opportunity to experiment and try new things, even sometimes giving traditional songs a modern treatment.Their album "Macalla" is a good example of this. You have a dark/malencholy duet with Bono, the Enya-esque "Caislean Oir", lively pop song "Closer to Your Heart", and then the sad "Northern Skyline." Then as Clannad evolves in the 90's you get the soft pop CD "Banba" and then move to more heavier stuff on "Lore." All in all, Clannad has spanned so many genras of music and has done so well in each one. Enya, on the other hand, has not done the same. I did some research on amazon, Rolling Stones, and another music review magazine and watched Enya's reviews. "Watermark" and "Shepherd Moons" got good reviews, however "Memory of Trees" began going down. "Day without Rain" and "Amarantine" were also not good, according to the critics. It is also interesting, reading the comments of fans on amazon who like her recent CDs but seem to agree on this point "can't she try something new? Everything is beginning to sound the same." I have to agree on this point because so many of Enya's songs sound the same, and if she tries stepping out to something relatively new (like her CD "The Celts", where it sounds like fake traditional Celtic music and doesn't fit in with the documentary the music was for) it doesn't work well with her synthesizer and keyboard. I'm in a current stage where I enjoy listening to some select songs of hers, but listening to her earlier stuff and comparing it with her more current stuff, it almost seems that something happened, like the music suddenly began sounding watered down and not of good quality of her early CDs. I'm not sure how to explain it, but I never felt the same way about Clannad; the more time Clannad spent in the music industry, the better the music became. Maybe I feel that way because Enya has a specific song position where everything sounds similar and Clannad's songs are all so different and unique, but I don't know. Part of the problem may be is that Enya has no band, as 99% of the time she plays all the instruments and does everything herself, while Clannad is made up of four central musicians and then a background band like a drummer and an occasional saxophone player. Because Clannad uses all these different instruments, they can afford to experiment with new genras and styles, but Enya can't because she uses the one same instrument she's used for just over twenty years. Another reason I think Clannad is better is because they can actually perform live while Enya lip-synchs. Despite their Enya-esque sound, Clannad can perform it live with acoustic instruments and still sound wonderful (there is a video on youtube on a recent concert of theirs where they play a medley of songs from "Legend" and it sounds excellent), which is one reason I'm looking forward to their new acoustic album that's coming out hopefully within a year. However, I've watched two "live" videos of Enya performing on TV shows, but both versions, filmed about fifteen years apart, are lip-synched and sound exactly like the studio recording. A pet peeve of mine is that if an artist can't perform without lip-synching then they must have something wrong with their real voice and are trying to hide it.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts on comparing Clannad and Enya. I still enjoy listening to both of them, though I prefer Clannad's variety and better, "heavier" sound over Enya's lighter sound. I'm not trying to bash Enya's music, but I do wish she'd try something new with other real instruments besides the piano and the rare use of uillean pipes and not sticking to the synthesizer all the time. It'd be nice if Enya and Clannad worked aside the bitter family differences and came back together as one band again; I think they could produce something beautiful together like they did on their earlier traditional works with her, but that is just me. I don't know if I bored you to tears, but if I did, speak up because I don't want to post things that no one likes reading.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Finally someone who agrees with me! The variety thing is the big point!