The Elysian Fields

Children by The Mission

This was a ground-breaking album for me. Sure, prior to hearing this I had heard of music labelled goth - one of my cousins might even had played it for me - but I hadn't listened to any of it. Of course, I wasn't about to start with this album any more than anything else labelled goth. Good for me I was tricked into it.

You see, a bass player of my acquaintance knew I didn't like the kind of music he did, but he knew I liked good music played by good musicians. So he didn't tell me this was goth - he said it was good music played by good musicians. Even better, it had a really good guitar player.

I was sold. It only took me forever to finally pop the tape into the player. And hey, it was good music played by good musicians. And the guitar player - probably by no coincidence a bit more noticeable to your average metal guitarist on this album than on others I've heard since - was not just really good, he was a bit better than that.

What finally hooked me was there cover of a very familiar tune by a certain band from Boston - I was more than half way through it before I recognized it. I had to listen to it several times before I admitted they had achieved Cover Tune Perfection: they played the song so it was both recognizable as the original (at least on the chorus or once you realized it!) and yet was perfectly blended into their own original style and the rest of the album.

I've since collected a number of their other works - sadly, not all of them (yet!) - and I definitely consider them one of my favorite bands of any genre. And when I finally did come to listen to a variety of other bands that oft-sounded vastly different from each other but were all labelled as "goth," I discovered The Mission also was considered thusly.

I can't really say they paved the way for listening to goth because I still don't really think of them as goth, but they certainly helped broaden my musical horizons.

After all, this is good music, played by good musicians, and that's all that really matters.