Portishead - Third

With my love of opera and classical music, friends find it fascinating that I am also passionate and knowledgeable about certain popular music. I remember having a conversation with a friend -- a very important opera singer who sings leading roles on the world's great stages but who, in private life, primarily follows popular music -- about the band, Van Halen. My friend was speaking to another friend in a social environment about loving different Van Halen songs and I asked "which did you prefer, David Lee Roth Van Halen or Sammy Hagar Van Halen?" My friend, with whom I can have several hours of discussion at a time about nuances of Richard Strauss or Verdi or works of the Second Viennese School, was stunned that I not only knew Van Halen's music, but that I would make the David Lee Roth/Sammy Hagar distinction. Unfortunately, I confessed that, though "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love", "Jump", "Hot for Teacher", et. al., which were part of the David Lee Roth period/origins of the band, are, essentially, the classics and the preference of my friend and her friends, I prefer the power of Sammy Hagar's voice. BUT I DIGRESS...

This weekend, I was in the Union Square Virgin Records -- a last holdout of a large, well-stocked music store where so many are fading because of the online purchasing and/or downloading phenomenon (WHERE WILL I GO WHEN THERE ARE NO MORE MUSIC/VIDEO STORES... :-( ) -- and heard a new album on the loudspeakers. When I inquired about the song that was playing -- a richly powerful piece of electronica with passion but the almost semetrical coldness which is often characteristic of that musical genre -- I learned that it was a single off of the new album from the pioneering British electronic band, Portishead. It turned out to be their new album entitled "Third", their first in a decade. It was the track, "We Carry On", which was being played. An awesome, in the dictionary definition of that word, piece of music. The rest of the album is filled with musical diversity. I've not bought a pop CD in a long time but I couldn't wait to get this one into my hot-little-hands, so I made an impulse purchase.

Here, from YouTube, is the video of this extraordinary musical work.