Marillion - The Hogarth Years

Introduction

The Albums, An Overview

• Seasons End (1989)
• Holidays In Eden (1991)
• A Singles Collection (Compilation) (1992)
• Brave (1994)
• Brave, The Movie (Full Brave Movie and Documentary) (1995)
• Afraid Of Sunlight (1995)
• Made Again (Live) (1996)
• Best Of Both Worlds (Compilation) (1997)
• This Strange Engine (1997)
• Tales From The Engine Room (Remix Project with Positive Light (1998)
• Radiation (1998)
• Unplugged At The Walls (Accoustic Live) (1999)
• Marillion.Com (1999)
• Marillion Singles Box '82-'88 (2000)
• Anoraknophobia (2001)

These are what I consider to be essential releases. For a complete discography, I'd advise you to head over to The Official Marillion Website
where you can get the latest news and updates of all things Marillion, plus complete lyrics for all songs. They have accumulated a well of information throughout the years, and I will also take the time to point you in the direction of The Official Freaks Mailinglist which is the official mailinglist for Marillion. They also have alot of information, plus it is a nice starting point for visiting fan sites.

The Band, Lineup

After Fish quit the band, they began auditioning singers to replace him. The choice fell on Steve Hogarth after a while, and the lineup of the band to present day is this:

• Steve Hogarth (Vocals, Keyboards And Occational Rythm Guitar)
• Ian Mosley (Drums, Percussion)
• Steve Rothery (Guitars)
• Pete Trevawas (Bass)
• Mark Kelly (Keyboards)

The Albums, A Description And History

The EMI Years

• Seasons End (1989)

Seasons End was the first album recorded by Marillion after the split with Fish in late 1988. The boys started to audition singers meanwhile writing the new album, and they eventually chose Steve Hogarth whom was the former keyboard player and singer in The Europeans. He was born in Kendal, UK on 14 May, 1959, and at the age of 17 he bought his first piano and learned to play by himself. From there on, he focused on how to get into the music business. After a couple of guest appearances with several bands, he joined The Europeans and released one record, Dry Land, with this band. This record went relatively quiet by the public, which is a shame because it certainly has its moments.

The album were mostly finished by the time Steve joined the band, and only a couple of songs on it has actually some pieces written by him. The first single to be released were Uninvited Guest, quickly followed by Easter and Hooks In You. At this point in Marillion's career, the band were still huge and had a much larger worldwide following than it has today. The first ever concert with Steve as the new lead singer was in a small pub somewhere in Aylesbury. The band wanted it to be some kind of rehersal before going out on the world wide tour later that year. The band put out the word that they were going to do a small gig for only a couple of people in that pub, and when they arrived on the day of the gig, they quickly found out that alot more people had found the venue than they had anticipated. The crowd were so big that the band actually had to climb out of the back window when the gig was over because the crowd had no intention of letting them slip out. This was the first positive experience Steve had with the band, and from there on, things only improved. The band opened their tour in a sold out venue in Paris later that year, and through the concert, the public were so loud with excitement and cheering that the band actually had to wait in between songs for them to settle down a bit.

Steve Hogarth later said (loosely quoted from the From Stoke Row To Ipanema video):

"It was an incredible experience. The crowd went absolutely ballistic on us, and there was this one time in the middle of the show when they cheered so loud that it was impossible for us to start with the next song. For fully two minutes we just stood there and accepted it. It almost brought a tear to my eye."

The new frontman were fully accepted by the fans, and the Seasons End Tour is the biggest tour Marillion has done with Steve as the bands singer.

• Holidays In Eden (1991)

When it was time to regroup from the Seasons End Tour which had lasted almost a year, the band went into studio to record their next album. This album, Holidays In Eden, is widely regarded by the fans as a setback from all the previous albums due to its high "poppy" factor. This album is more of a pop album than any previous and most of the latter albums. It is considered the weakest album they've done in the latter years by the fans, and this also showed in the album charts as it wasn't a hit even though the album has alot of shorter songs that could easily been number ones had the promotion from EMI not started to vane. This is quite a mystery because the band were still huge in the music world.
The most notable songs on this record includes Splintering Heart, Cover My Eyes (Pain And Heaven), Waiting To Happen and The Rakes Progress Trilogy (This Town, The Rakes Progress and 100 Nights).

• A Singles Collection (Compilation) (1992)

This is a collection of singles from both the Fish era and the Steve Hogarth era. It also includes a cover of Sympathy which was released as a video at that time. Not much to say about this record except that it includes all the bands most successful singles of the Fish era, plus all the Steve Hogarth singles up to that year. It was released in two versions, one UK and one US edition. Only the name were different as far as I can tell. This record is quite a nice startingpoint for any new fan who wants to listen to Marillion's known hit singles. However, I will point out that this record really does not depict the band very well because, apart from the hit singles, they have released much music which isn't singles material and it is that material which shows what the band actually stands for.

• Brave (1994)

After the relatively weak predeccessor, Marillion figured it was time to go back to their roots and make a more progressive rock oriented album again. Brave is a concept album, based on something Steve Hogarth heard on the radio about a girl who were taken into police custody after she had been wandering the Severn Bridge. She did not know who she was, where she came from and refused to even speak. This inspired Steve to write a story about her which included terrible things happening to her. They relocated to Marouette castle in France for the duration of the recording of Brave. This can be heard throughout the album by alot of haunting sounds and they even went into a cave which lay in the nearby area and taped some cave sounds which were used as atmospheric background noise on the album. As engineer, they got the incredibly talented Dave Meegan whom had previously worked with Marillion on Fugazi. As for EMI, they really wanted the band to do a "quick record" to gain some revenue, but this project would escalate and escalate. It took the band nine months to write and produce this album, partly because of Dave whom would go through every single new tape made every day each night listening for any riff or melody which sounded good enough to be included in the songs. This hard and tedious work paid off in the end.

Marillion had made another true masterpiece.

This album is widely regarded by most fans to be Marillion's best album ever with Steve Hogarth as frontman. It was, however, no public hit due to EMI's lack of promotion and the fact that it had no real single potential. This was a concept piece after all, but still some singles were eventually released. These include Alone Again In The Lap Of Luxury, The Hollow Man and The Great Escape.

In the liner notes of this record, it is promptly stated:

"Play it loud with the lights off."

• Brave, The Movie (Full Brave Movie and Documentary) (1995)

In the aftermath of Brave, the band wanted to make a video out of the concept they had created. EMI reluctantly agreed to this despite the relatively poor album sales. Richard Stanley were intrigued by the concept and agreed to direct this feature which, in a way, can be somewhat compared to Pink Floyd's The Wall. But only in concept, because they are very unlinke eachother. The movie tells the story in pictures accompanied by the entire Brave record minus the last song Made Again. On the record, it never really shines through that the girl the story is all about commits suicide in the end. On the film, she does. Therefore, Made Again which concludes the story on the record as a happy ending of sorts, is not included.

On the back of the cover of the videocassete, the following can be read:

Brave.. The Movie is a fifty minute concept film directed by cult movie director Richard Stanley. It is Stanley's stark vision of a young life in the 90's inspired by Marillion's album of the same name, which centres around a teenage girl who is found wandering in a state of amnesia on the Severn Bridge, and her consequent search for her past. Although this story bears similiarities to actual recorded incidents in the history of the Severn Bridge we wish to stress that this is a work of fiction.

In addition to the film, the video also includes a thirty-minute documentary on the making of Brave. This movie is a must-have for all Marillion fans, and even if you might not consider Brave to be your favourite, the documentary is very interesting nonetheless.

On the bottom of the cover, the following lines can be read:

"Watch it loud with the lights off."

• Afraid Of Sunlight (1995)

EMI were not happy with the relatively low album sales and wanted Marillion to again try to make a "quick record" to raise the sales. However, this time around, the band decided to go back to The Racket Club studios (the band's studio). This time they meant business. So they set out to create something that by fans is widely regarded as their next-best album ever with Steve as frontman. Steve were in this periode very emotionally stressed and burnt out, while the rest of the band weren't in very high spirits either. This clearly shows on this record, due to its dark emotionally sad lyrics. Many fans say that this is some of the best lyrics Steve Hogarth has ever written, and I tend to agree with them. Once again, they managed in much shorter time this time around, to create a masterpiece. This album is not a concept piece but still bears some similarities to a concept. This might be because Steve (and partly John Helmer, more on him later) has a general fit with the rest of the world, and in that sense, this might resemble something of a concept after all. The highlights on this album are many, but I will only mention a few: Gazpacho, Cannibal Surf Babe, Afraid Of Sunlight, Beyond You and King. King is the most heavy sounding song Marillion has ever done, with a bombastic and truly heavy ending where the climax cuts off short, leaving you not knowing exactly what happened.

• Made Again (Live) (1996)

Made Again is a double CD live album. The first disc contains live material recorded 29th September 1991 in London from the Seasons End Tour. The second, and perhaps most interesting disc, contains live material recorded 29th September 1995 in Rotterdam and 29th April 1994 in Paris from the Afraid Of Sunlight and Brave Tours respectively. The soundquality is very good, but the mix isn't all that exciting. Marillion has certainly released better livealbums in the past and in the latter years. Still, it is the only official livealbum which includes the entire Brave performed live.

Shortly after the release of this fine album, EMI dropped the band from their rooster, and Marillion went Indie.

• Best Of Both Worlds (Compilation) (1997)

The Best Of Both Worlds compilation is a collection of the best material from both the Fish era and Steve Hogarth era. This was put together by Lucy Jordache (Hi Lucy!) who was working for EMI at the time (more on her later). This release came after the band were dropped from the EMI roster, and it was a close collaboration between Lucy and The Freaks Mailinglist. The record contains two discs. CD 1 is from the Fish era and the second disc contains material from the Steve Hogarth era. I won't go into detail about this disc simply because it contains no previously unreleased material.

The Indie Years

• This Strange Engine (1997)

This is the first disc which were released on Marillion's new label, Castle Records. This album received good critiques from several journalists and the fans were delighted to see that the band would continue to release studio albums even when they were short on funds. The album is brilliant, with the title track, the fifteen-minute epic This Strange Engine as my favourite. The first single released from this record were the brilliant Man Of A Thousand Faces, the opener on the album. This song rocketed straight into first place in one of Germany's largest hitlists and stayed there for many weeks. A video were also released of this track. The second and third singles from this album were Eighty Days and Memory Of Water respectively.

It is worth mentioning that Marillion could not afford to go on tour in the US this year. So the Freaks Mailinglist organized a tour fund. The greatest effort by any fan of a band ever. Fans all around the world paid a small amount of money to be given to Marillion so they could come over to the states and do a tour there. The tour fund stands as the greatest collaborative effort of Marillion fans ever. The fans raised over $60,000 dollars which they donated to their favourite band. The Band played the states, and later on released a double live CD from the concerts. This CD is limited to the amount of people who contributed to the tour fund. It will never be pressed ever again.

• Tales From The Engine Room (Remix Project with Positive Light (1998)

This release is basically a remix of This Strange Engine with a few exceptions and one extra addition. It was conducted by Marc Mitchell and Mark Daghorn of Positive Light. Both Marillion fans, so they approached the band with this remix of the previous record which were still in the rough stages and asked them if the band would give them go to complete it and release it. The band were delighted of what they heard and gladly gave them the green light to complete the project. The remixes are wonderfully done and well worth checking out. In my own humble opinion, I think that some of the tracks off of this record is equal if not better than Marillion's original songs. Especially Eighy Days and Memory Of Water comes to mind. A single were released prior to the release for the club scene, Memory of Water. If this record were played in clubs or not I cannot say.
It was released on Eagle Records.

• Radiation (1998)

Another year, another studio release. This time around, Marillion got Steve Wilson of Porcupine Tree fame to help them out in the production area. Steve had previously worked with Fish on his superb Sunsets On Empire. They set out to make a quick album due to money and time limits and this somewhat shows on the album. Radiation is by no means a bad album, but once again Marillion aimed for a more "poppy" approach to their writing and many fans regard this CD as pretty weak, exept for some very good songs like Three Minute Boy and Cathedral Wall. The latter is my favourite on the album closely followed by the mystical and somewhat spiritual track A Few Words For The Dead, the closer of the album. The only single from this album is These Chains.

• Unplugged At The Walls (Accoustic Live) (1999)

This wasn't even an intended release in the first place, but is by far Marillion's most interesting live release in the latter years. It is recorded in a small restaurant in Oswestry 25 and 26 June 1998 as a strictly accoustic set. As quoted by Steve:

"We offered to play a gig in there for a free meal and some beers."

• Marillion.Com (1999)

Another year, another record. Inventive as always, Marillion sent out an e-mail offering every Freak (what the fans call themselves) on the planet to send in a pass-photo of themselves to be included in the booklet. As always, the dedication of the fans showed yet again what a powerful force they might be and sent in a total of 732 photos. The Web Holland fan-club carries a "Who's On The Dot?" webpage. They are now on display on the inside of the Marillion.Com booklet. As for the booklet/case, it exists in both a special cardboard slipcase and a standard jewel box.

The music of this album has yet again evolved from Radiation and the sound is still very polished, but more songs stands out on this record. Go! comes to mind. A brilliant little song which must be my favourite Marillion song in a long while. Others include House and Deserve. The rest might be regarded as somewhat weak except for the brilliant 15-minute epic Interior Lulu. The rough cut of Interior Lulu later appeared on Marillion.Christmas 1999 fan-club only release, and this is by far my favourite version of this excellent track.