Oceania is kind of a weird one for me. I loved it when it was brand new and heralded it as the true return of the band after how lame and disappointing Zeitgeist and TbK were. I saw it as Billy maturing; yes, it felt pretty bland compared to their old stuff, but it seemed appropriate to mellow out given his age... plus Zeitgeist tried to be the big heavy rock album and I thought it sucked. Oceania felt like a good album and a firm step in the right direction. I think I thought it was better than Machina at the time, but I would never say that now.
I saw SP three times with the lineup and they went from sounding like crap in 2011 to being one of the best concerts I saw all year in 2012 (and I went to a lot of shows back then). I was really disappointed when Mike and Nicole were dismissed from the band, and found it very off-putting how shady the whole situation felt. No, I was not particularly attached to either of them but I did like that they sounded like an actual band on Oceania, and I thought that maybe they had a chance to get better with a few more albums. I was willing to give Billy a chance to restart the narrative with Oceania, but it felt like he rejected it as an album with the way the band shifted... It really soured me, and then I hated Monuments once it came out. That was kind of my breaking point with thinking SP might be genuinely great again.
I say good shit about ATUM, and I do really enjoy most of it. But when you recognize that SP was putting out elite, decade defining music in the 90s, it really pales by comparison, to put it very lightly. The original SP music I would defend and promote to no end. But, I won't really give that to ATUM. I like a lot of it, because I love Billy's songwriting and approach to melody, but there are dozens of reasons I would expect every day folks to just find it annoying and laughable. Nevertheless, I think I would be more willing to defend ATUM than Oceania. Oceania is pretty good as a full album; it's cohesive, it has a good amount of variety, and the performances and production are fine. However, the individual songs.... just do not do it for me most of the time anymore. They do not have hooks or staying power, and once the excitement of it being a new start for SP wore off, I just found that I didn't really care about it anymore. It is far and away their most boring album, even if it isn't their worst.
Last edited by LoveIsSuicide42 : 02-07-2023 at 11:11 PM.
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