jrmusic's Podcast

Episodio.16...BRAVE.(MARILLION)

Brave was released in 1994.

After trying and failing to reach a wider audience with Holidays in Eden, 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 a news story Steve Hogarth heard on the radio about a girl who was taken into police custody after being found wandering the Severn Bridge. She did not know who she was, where she came from and refused to even speak. This inspired Hogarth to write a fictional story about this girl and what might have led to her being on Severn Bridge in this state.

The band relocated to Marouatte castle in France for the duration of the recording of Brave. The influence of these surroundings can be heard throughout the album in a lot of haunting atmospherics. They even went into a cave which lay in the nearby area and taped some cave sounds which were used as background ambiance on the album. This recording concept was later used by Radiohead for their OK Computer album, which was also (musically) greatly influenced by Brave. As engineer, they got Dave Meegan, who 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 who 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.

Brave is regarded by many fans to be one of Marillion's best albums. It was, however, no public hit due to EMI's lack of promotion and the fact that it had no real single potential. However, three singles were released: The Great Escape. (February 1994), The Hollow Man (March 1994) and Alone Again In The Lap Of Luxury (April 1994).

The 2-LP vinyl release of Brave features a double groove on the second side of disc 2. The first groove plays 'The Great Escape' as heard on the CD, followed by 'Made Again'; the second groove plays 'The Great Escape (Spiral Remake)' and 20 minutes of water noise. This provides 2 different endings to the album story, depending on where you drop the needle.

Track listing
All music by Hogarth/Rothery/Kelly/Trewavas/Mosley.
All lyrics by Hogarth except as indicated.

Side one
01 Bridge – 2:55
02 Living With The Big Lie – 6:46
03 Runaway (Hogarth/Helmer) – 4:40

Side two
04 Goodbye To All That – 12:26
05 Hard As Love (Hogarth/Helmer) – 6:41

Side three
06 The Hollow Man – 4:08
07 Alone Again In The Lap Of Luxury – 8:13
08 Paper Lies (Hogarth/Helmer) – 5:47

Side four
09 Brave – 7:56
10 The Great Escape (Hogarth/Helmer) – 6:30
11 Made Again (Helmer) – 5:02

Current Lineup:

Steve Hogarth (aka "h") - vocals and lyrics, additional keyboards, guitars, percussion
Steve Rothery - electric and acoustic guitars
Pete Trewavas - bass guitars, backing vocals, additional guitars, samples and effects
Mark Kelly - keyboards, samples and effects, backing vocals, programming
Ian Mosley - drums, percussion

play it loud with the lights off

This episode is available in emule & Ares net searching "jrmusic Podcast - 16 Essentials 01 - BRAVE (Marillion) (320)"