New PoP is ArT cd "Epiphany" now available!!!!!!!
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Pre Order the new PoP is ArT cd; Epiphany now and recieve a bonus gift when it ships!
only $13.99! |
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| Listen to the Epiphany Podcast: In this interview with singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Scott McGinley, Scott talks about the recording and inspiration behind the recording of Epiphany, and plays samples from the album. |
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Check out the Epiphany promo here or on MySpace.com |
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Here's what people are saying about Epiphany: |
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| "This is what the Beatles would have sounded like if they had stayed together for 5 more years and had a different producer. This is rich, textural music that feels good to listen to and I love it!"
-Senior Product Manager, Microsoft Windows |
I've been listening to the new album since the disc arrived a couple of days ago. I'm going to say, here and now, even before you've dotted the "i" and crossed the "t" in "Hit" that this is going to be one of the biggest pop releases of the year. You've delivered a masterpiece-level work full of invention, great Beach Boys harmonies and inventive arrangements, not to mention an album's worth of simply superb songs that must be heard. Bravo!
-Alan Haber Pure Pop Radio/ www.buhdge.com |
One of the best things I've heard in a LONG TIME! ....a GEM!
-Steve Turnidge; Ultraviolet Studios |
PoP is ArT-Epiphany album bio
Whew! This album has really taken some time to complete, but I’m really proud of the result! It’s been just over 2 years since “In The Beginning” came out and the response to that album has been great. So I was inspired to push the boundaries a bit. Between the sometimes intense instrumentation and vocal arrangements, playing out every week, and our new baby arriving last November, it’s been a very busy few years!
I’ve always loved albums that connect songs or have more of a conceptual flavor to them, but I also love straight ahead pop, so I decided to combine those 2 elements for this new cd.
The cd Starts off with ALL I KNOW, which is a song i started writing in Thailand when on tour there. I could never quite find the right direction to go with the song until now ( it even was demoed for the BLISS album, but just wasn't quite right). I had forgotten about it, until finding an unlabeled tape while cleaning. I popped it in and gave a listen to the ALL I KNOW demo, and it suddenly dawned on me what to do to finish it. The new version fit right in with my new more experimental direction. That’s why it starts of as a straight power pop song then by the end is fully orchestrated.
Let Me Be The One is track 2. This (as is ALL I KNOW) is a love song to my wife. This one is from the point of view of the beginning of our relationship. I wanted this one to have a stripped down sound reminiscent of early Beatles or Beach Boys recordings, so the instrumentation is drums, bass, guitar, acoustic guitar and vocals (without a lot of added bells and whistles).
The 3rd track is ARE YOU A BOY OR A GIRL?. This one was also started in Thailand as kind of a joke. In Bangkok, there are so many “Ladyboys” that it doesn’t even raise eyebrows on the street! I even had a Ladyboy as my “butler” while staying there. I jotted down the chorus idea and forgot about it. When beginning this project, I rediscovered it and started to record it as a way of working through writers block (more below on that). I didn't consider it a serious candidate for the cd, so I thought I could work on it with no pressure, to get back into the swing. The song took on a new life because of 2 things: we would sing it around the house when we found out we were pregnant, but didn’t know yet what we were having. Also, although I had never really been serious about recording the song, and always looked at it as a novelty song, as i started to produce it and put vocals on it, I really started to like it more and more. It took on a whole life I never expected it to have! ...Plus-Tim Reeder plays a wicked drum track on it!
Here Comes The Music came from a really strange idea. When Vicky (now my wife) was traveling with me while touring in Asia, she was just starting to speak English. It’s always been amazing to us how well we understood each other when we couldn’t communicate much with words! One day we were chilling out in our hotel room and she said to me “Comes the music”, I knew right away that she was asking me to turn on the cd player so we could listen to music, but I thought it was an interesting phrase. I sat down and sung the chorus of "comes the music" into my little tape recorder. Then while doing the writing for this album, I was having a writers block, so I decided, in order to work through it, I would write a song about having writers block. As it turned out, it’s a bit about writers block, but more about the magical way that music can touch us all, and how amazing it is that with only 12 notes to choose from, musicians can keep coming up with unique combinations of them! I was so happy I could use the phrase Vicky coined as the chorus of the song.
Misled Starts off the connected “side” of the album, and the rest of the album is somewhat conceptual. It follows a loose story line from Misled (about a bad relationship, and the feeling of being lonely, even though you're lying next to someone) to Higher (self medicating to escape the pain of life and bad relationships, and feeling sorry for yourself) to Father Father pt 1, (a brief realization that maybe there is something more to life, but not yet having the desire or the energy to find a better way). “The Other Side (a requiem for phebe)” is about the death of someone near. It's actually the 2nd half of the full song, but the 1st half was just way too sad and it really made the "connected side" feel too dark.Then Father Father (reprise)/ Wake Up! is again realizing there is something more and actually asking spiritually for help to find it. It's also about how we are all connected spiritually. Angry Young Man follows a young man that is always striving for more instead of appreciating what he has accomplished (and appreciating where he is now), mounting the pressure in his life and still being unable to figure out why he's not happy. He thinks "if i just get this then I'll be happy" but by the time he gets it he wants something else. Then the middle section Avarice is about greed and blame, but ends with the character having an Epiphany about his life; that happiness is about giving, not getting and life is lived in the present moment. Finally the “side” ends with Smile!, which is just a reminder that “everyone has problems but try to keep smiling-things will eventually get better.”
I am very pleased with the way the musical themes tie together and reoccur.
I really wanted this album to be my version of things I grew up listening to (Beatles, Beach Boys, ELO, Supertramp, Pink Floyd), so I decided I was going to take a “live” approach, which means: no drum machines, or short cuts and the use of authentic instruments whenever humanly possible. So I brought in vocalists for some back ups and the choir, strings, horns, banjo, Drums, Percussion and Bass, While I myself did my best on Electric & Acoustic Guitars, Vocals, Synthesizer, Wurlitzer Piano, Rhodes Piano, Clav, Grand Piano, Mandolin, Accordion, Bass Harmonica, Percussion, Tubular Bells, Vibes, Organ, Indian Percussion, Theramin, mouth Harp, String & Choir Arrangements and literally the Kitchen Sink! I also managed to include one REAL guitar solo since a question I’m regularly asked is “you’re a good guitar player....why don’t you feature guitar more on your cd’s?” (my answer being: “I’m all about the songs!”)
I also really feel I’ve made strides ahead in production after working with the great Keith Olsen on the BLISS project. He is such an amazing producer, I’m still kicking myself for not video taping every moment of the 3 months we spent recording the BLISS cd!
I hope you enjoy this cd and I look forward to hearing your reactions! There are quite a few strong songs recorded but left off this album, so with a little luck it will not take a full 4 years until the next POP IS ART cd! :-)
Thanks for listening!
Scott
