An oft-asked question around here is: What would I think of X record if I hadn't heard Y record first?
It comes up again now with my belated acquisition (legal, man) of the second Air long-player, "10,000Hz Legend". Given that it was universally bucketed at the time, including by a person of my acquaintance whose judgment is generally spot-on, I was happy to keep listening to "Moon Safari"That is, until "Talkie Walkie" came along, was written about, in terms that simply could not be ignored, by Marcello Carlin, and promptly changed my life (I hadn't been as emotionally affected by a record since I know not when).
In which context, the only possible response to "10,000Hz Legend" in 2006 is, What was all that about? Critics, and listeners, decided at the time that it was practically unlistenable Prog Rock, with no concessions whatsoever to the audience (who must have been, to a person, dutifully expecting "Sexy Boy Pt II"). Obviously, given what we now know, this was a load of bollocks. It starts off with four unquestionable pop gems that sing in perfect harmony with anything on albums 1 and 3. Okay, it meanders from time to time, and tries a little bit of this and that, but then again neither "Talkie Walkie" or "Moon Safari" were pallid forays into the LCD (i.e., lowest common denominator) mainstream.
But what would have happened if I had listened to the albums in the order in which they came out, therefore being ignorant of the cushion provided by albums 1 and 3 that album 2 now sits comfortably astride. That cushion, retrospectively at least, gives "10,000Hz Legend" room to move. Room that it may not have had when the tunnel did not yet contain light at its end. We will never know. All I can say for sure is, kids, don't make the mistakes in your life that I have made.
Plus, as Led Zeppelin said, it makes me wonder: If there ever is a third Portishead album, will it make "Portishead" clear? (Yes, I still come back to it once every few months, to see if its secrets, which your average seasoned music listener can tell must be in there somewhere, have been revealed. Nope, nope, and nope. Not yet, anyway.)
