Search - Steve Hillage :: Motivation Radio

Great space-rock by my favourite seventies hero

Tim Burness | Brighton, England | 12/27/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I love all the Hillage solo albums from the late seventies! Although he is now successful as progressive trance act System 7, Mister Hillage and his partner Miquette Giraudy will be remembered by many for several very high quality solo space-rock albums in the few years after he left Gong. This is one of several uplifting Hillage albums from that era.



"Motivation Radio" features all the classic Hillage ingredients. The production is ahead of its time, with Steve and Miquette using sequencers and synthesizers over a decade before their use became common in dance music. The musicianship of the band on the album is also outstanding. Hillage's BRILLIANT, instantly recognizable guitar solos and glissando guitar are liberally scattered throughout the tracks, and the message and feeling of disciplined positive intelligence and loving energy comes across at all times. Some may find the hippy lyrics a bit too much in places, but there is a great sense of humour in there too.



"Radio"(something new begins to grow, you tune your inner radio), "Saucer Surfing" (I still find myself laughing at the ridiculously jolly riff in the verse) and "Searching For The Spark" (there is also a great live version of this on the album "Live Herald") are some of my favourite tracks.



Beats Ozric Tentacles any day!

"

When media barons program their pollution - PUT THIS ON!

Tom Pitsis | New South Wales | 12/09/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Here's another album that would easily make my top 10 of best albums ever made! God, this is brilliant! THIS IS BRILLIANT! Some say the lyrics are hippy - they ARE hippy, but this hippie's intelligent and witty. (THE TITLE OF THIS REVIEW IS BASED ON JUST ONE OF THE LOVELY LINES ON THIS ALBUM) (Oh, and by the way, Hillage/Giraudy can write depressing lyrics: try the "AND NOT OR" drum machine/80's new wave album of theirs.) The positive joy contained in the lyrics as sung with that heavenly voice of Hillage (the cockney? accent only there to remind you that it is an actual human being singing) only colours the joy that you get from the actual music. The drummer on this: Joe Blocker! makes Bruford/Portnoy/Baker/Peart sound like Ringo Starr! and by that I don't mean he bombards us with drums, he just plays what's absolutely perfect for the song and its structure, whilst still playing impossibly difficult drumming. What bliss. WHAT BLISS! The synthesizers are used only for colouring (and puts a good case forward that that's ALL synthesizers should be used for!). But what's the greatest thing about this album? The miracle that is Hillage's guitar playing. There is NO better guitarist than him! Never was, never will be! (And the tragedy is that he now only composes trance music, with very little guitar - but he is a superior soul, and I respect his reasons for doing so. (Oh, and All his other albums are great too, but this one has more vocals and actual songs - and there's something wonderful about the sequence of songs that make this a perfect rock album. PLEASE, PLEASE BUY IT! It will do you no end of good!)"

Wonderful message...essential in today's troubled times...

EtherealCereal | Michigan | 07/21/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This CD, as another reviewer had said, was probably Steve's weakest CD, but in these troubled times of hatred, intolerance and chaos, we NEED music like this to show us that there is a better way than hatred, intolerance, and chaos. With all the mass-marketed hate-your-brother music out there nowadays (not to mention the happy-go-lucky songs by teenyboppers with no real substance), songs like 'Motivation', 'Hello Dawn', and 'Light in The Sky' carry a powerful message about the overwhelming power of love and spirit (not to get sentimental, or anything). If the world is ever going to be a better place, music like this needs to be HEARD, not put on a back shelf somewhere because the people in high places fear for losing their bank accounts. Give it a listen!"