11-19-03 @ 2:35 am EST

It's a sorry state of affairs when Enigma releases a new album and you don't even know about it until you go looking for an album by Enya and accidentally find Enigma's new album in the process!

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000C7PQK/

Whatever happened to the days, really, whenever somebody like Enigma put out a new album and one of the songs actually made it to popular radio? I'm STILL peeved that nothing from The Screen Behind The Mirror ever received any airplay in my area. "Gravity Of Love" and "Modern Crusaders" were both EXCELLENT songs. Even "Silence Must Be Heard" and "Push The Limits" had good background beats you could dance to, certainly better than anything by Kelly Clarkson or Uncle Kracker or J-Lo or however you spell her name, or most of the other crap that receives airplay. To this day I always associate "Silence" with Mackinac Island as I was listening to it on the way home from the trip there with my brother and sister-in-law. Dee-dink-dink-dee-doo. Dee-dink-dink-dee-doo. The last time I remember hearing anything of Enigma's on the radio was way back from the The Cross Of Changes album--his SECOND. Voyageur is his FIFTH. (BTW, I find it very odd that the album doesn't seem to be called Enigma 5: Voyageur; he seems to have broken his pattern. Hm.)

Anyway. The album isn't quite as good as Screen but it's better than Cross and MUCH better than Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi! (otherwise known as Enigma 3). IMO Screen has been Enigma's best album since the first, MCMXC AD--you know, the one with all the Gregorian chants. The Cross Of Changes has at least one good song, "Return To Innocence" (which would make a good theme for Return To Manitou Island, both because of the title and because of the lyrics and the bonus of the Indian-style chant). I don't much care for anything else on the second album though. And Le Roi is just...blagh. I don't really like anything from it at all. Then along came The Screen Behind The Mirror, which as I remember I ALSO found on accident, at Amazon, while...looking for Enya's latest album!! (I guess it's fortunate that their names both start with "EN" else I would NEVER know when Enigma has anything new out. >_< ) Enigma 4 is a very good album. According to the review of Voyageur at Amazon, they think IT is better even than Screen, with which I do not agree. But at least it's better than Cross and MUCH better than Le Roi.

You have no idea what I'm even talking about, do you?...

Anyway. It was only after I got the CD home and opened it that I noticed that the bottom part of the jewel case is all cracked and broken! Bother! At least the CD inside was okay, though I still wish I had an unbroken jewel case...just call me anal. :/ And I can't simply replace it with an empty case because I have like only fourteen or fifteen CDs so far to my name, the cases of which are all already in use, plus the case has the album artwork on it...and it's very ugly. I would not have even recognized it as an Enigma album if I hadn't seen the name "ENIGMA" on the edge while looking for ENYA! It's some kind of...black and yellow thingie...with dragonflies...or moths...I think. Who knows. Additionally bothersome is that the CD jacket is in the SHAPE of a CD itself, round with a hole in the middle, and unfolds horizontally rather than by pages, and...it keeps falling out...ugh. Enigma, why did you not just make a normal CD jacket? With the lyrics included?? *sigh* Well, that's Enigma for you, I guess. And yes, I know his name is really Michael Cretu but shut up because I'm talking about Enigma here. *cough*

Anyway. Like I said, Voyageur (the title caught my eye because that is what Francois LaCroix is, a voyageur!) is not as good as Screen but it's MUCH better than Le Roi. "Boum Boum" (which IMO should be entitled "(My Heart Goes) Boum Boum Boum," but that's just me, and anyway I would spell it BOOM but I'm not French, or whatever the hell language "Boum" is supposed to be...) and "Following The Sun" in particular have gotten to be quick favorites of mine. The rest of it is...so-so. But at least there's nothing really cringe inducing, and most of it is stuff that you can tolerate in the background. While assembling jigsaw puzzles. I realized while first listening to it that Enigma music would make a good backdrop to just about any investigative scene in CSI, did you ever notice that? When they're picking things apart and looking at things under microscopes and analyzing DNA and there's always weird music playing? Couldn't you totally envision Enigma music playing in such scenes? It would really fit right in. Especially anything from the Voyageur album. I am really probably the only person who has ever considered this. But maybe Enigma would finally get more airplay if he offered to do background investigative music for CSI.

Anyway. I looked up the lyrics to "Boum Boum" and "Following The Sun" as I wished to know them, but there are no official sites available; even www.michaelcretu.com is not an official site. So the only lyrics I could find were unofficial, and possibly incorrect, ones. In fact it does sound to me as if a few words are wrong here and there, but I can't ever be sure; he and Sandra (the woman who does the vocals) almost always whisper, and usually in French, at that. IMO "Sun" would be a very good song for RTMI as well. It sounds like a nice romantic song for Charmian and Thomas, even if, on reading them, the lyrics make no real sense to me. Oh well. The TUNE is good, and I have never understood most songs by Enigma anyway, even when they are in English. Probably nobody else really understands them either.

FOLLOWING THE SUN
Enigma

Following the sun, to find the one
Who's giving you the wings to fly
Following the sun, the golden one
Losing sense for space and time

Can you feel the waves of life
(Can you) hear the sigh of love
Do you believe in it ?

Following the sun, just for the one
Till you'll find the door you thought
Following the sun, like everyone
Searching for a sign of hope

Have a look up to the sky
See the billion stars above
'Cause (maybe) on one of them
You'll spend your further life

As I said already, I'm not sure if those are even correct. I was CERTAIN she was saying "the golden ball," not "the golden one." Hey, the sun is a golden ball when you think about it. Hm. Oh well.

Anyway. There were some other lyrics I wished to share as well, from Vertical Horizon's Go album. Remember THAT one? *gasphuffpantdrool*

Major YEE

I have since ended up really liking "When You Cry," "Goodbye Again," and "Echo," and "Forever" is starting to grow on me. The rest besides the obvious "I'm Still Here," eh...don't much care for them. Oh well. They can't all be winners. I wished to include the lyrics to "Echo" as IMO it sounds like a very good song for socially anxious people such as myself...uh-oh, there I go identifying with Vertical Horizon lyrics again. Somebody shoot me.

The liner notes omit one verse, but Matt Scannell is coherent enough that I believe I correctly figured out what he was saying; that verse is in red.

ECHO
Vertical Horizon

Chorus
Echo, echo
We come and we go
No I don't want to be just another
Echo, echo

Everywhere I go
There's something that I really need
Everyone I know
Is someone that I want to be
Even though
I don't really know me

Better pick it up
Before I let it slip away
Better stick it out
Before I take another day
Hand to mouth
And every single word I say fades out

Chorus

Can I open up your eyes?
Only when the clouds break
Can I feel alive?
Even though the world shakes
Every night
Here in my quiet satellite

Can I hold you close?
Till we're out of focus
And everything I know
I don't even know this
When it all falls through
I'm here and I hear you

Chorus

Bridge
Do you hear me?
Do you hear me?
'Cause I need to
Just to reach you
Can you hear me
Come in clearly?
Am I hollow
Just an echo?

Chorus

(Hello)
(Hello)
(Do you hear me?)

It's just another day
And every single word I say fades out

Don't you just want to sigh? *sigh*

Well I know once more I had more to blither about but that's all for now...if anyone even still reads this ratty old thing...tar.