Search - Richard Thompson & Danny :: Industry

A failed experiment

J. C Clark | Overland Park, KS United States | 01/24/2002

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Heresy in the RT world...I do not like this and rarely play it. Lots of smart people like it, but I think they like its sentiment more than its music.Richard Thompson is in my CD player almost all the time. His best songs, and there are many many many of them, evoke emotion, thought, passion, hope, and despair. This is just a glum, and somewhat anachronistic, look at the mechanized world. I too wish the world were different. But Richard, I've seen you in concert many times, and you don't play stuff from this one very often. I suspect there's a reason."

Work! Work! Work! Whoops!

ewomack | MN USA | 11/25/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"No album about hard work, loss of work, or despair over losing work will likely inspire dancing in the aisles. Nonetheless, "Industry" takes on all of these subjects and still manages to get the feet moving in places.



This is not a party album (not that many of Richard Thompson's albums are). The lyrics deal with some pretty heavy emotional and social issues. "Sweetheart on the Barricade" portrays the level of defiance that desperation can lead to: "My heart it skips a beat/There'll be fighting in the street/But hungry folk forget to be afraid". The narrator fears for his "sweetheart's" safety but respects her immensely at the same time. He never suggests that she go home, or step down, and if the situation turns nasty, so be it. But the worries remain. "Drifting Through the Days" paints a bleak and miserable portrait of unemployment. No work, no meaning. "Lotteryland" depicts a society where the impossible odds of the lottery provide the only hope. "Last Shift" explores the helplessness of workers doing their rounds for the last time. No uppers here. With surprising contrast, "Big Chimney" rocks and swings contagiously. Churning industrial rhythms punctuate the play-by-play of an iron worker's job. Even the lingo seeps in with words such as "Santander", "Blue Billy", "barrow", and "sows". A joyous but backbreaking feel pervades the song. "Saboteur" contains some of the album's most provocative lyrics. A worker attempts to destroy the machine that fills his days. Faced with the monster, he finds that he can't do it. A strange sense of beauty and awe stop him. Some of Thompson's best lyrics are showcased here.



This album's music sounds different than other Thompson projects. Likely the collaboration with bassist Danny Thompson explains this. For one, the album features a lot of horns. It swings more than it rocks. Quite a contrast to Thompson's 1996 "You?Me?Us?" and 1999's "Mock Tudor". Second, out of 11 songs on "Industry" 5 are instrumentals (all composed by Danny Thompson). These provide musical interpretations of the album's theme as well as interesting segueways between songs. All of these, in addition to the experimental nature of the album as a whole and the collaboration, make for a unique, highly listenable, provocative, and yes, a slightly depressing, album."

A fantastic piece of work

Matthew Schwarz | Bridgewater, nj United States | 05/14/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This collaboration between the two Thompsons is wonderful. This is my favorite of the handful of Richard Thompson CDs I own - songs like "Sweetheart On The Barricade" and "Big Chimney" stand among his best, and the jazzy Danny Thompson instrumentals break up the album nicely. A mixture of artiness and catchiness, gloominess and enjoyment."