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Post by Treecat on May 8, 2008 22:22:41 GMT -5
It was the album that introduced Enya to the world. It remains, to me, the standard by which all other Enya albums are measured. It's loaded with Gaelic melanchology, it has the anthemic Orinoco Flow, and wonderful instrumentals. This is the album that started a new genre of music--it made the world sit up and listen.
Okay.. it's my favorite Enya album, and I'm admittedly 'way biased toward it. 20 years after buying the cd, it amazes me every time I hear it.
Any thoughts album the first big Enya recording?
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Post by oregonwinebaby on May 8, 2008 22:41:52 GMT -5
I think if Watermark was any different, Enya would not be where she is today...plain and simple.
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Post by riene on May 8, 2008 22:56:02 GMT -5
The album has a good mix of musical styles. Exile and Evening Falls have a shadowed solemn melancholy. Storms in Africa is diametrically opposed to them--hot sun and bright rhythm. On your Shores is a love song, full of puzzled longing. Cursum Perficio has a grimly driven sound--I always imagined a vengeful painted Celtic army, before I saw the translation of the lyrics.
River, Longships, Miss Clare, and Na Laetha Geal M'oige are soothing calm waters. And then we have Orinoco Flow, the song that seemed to introduce Enya to the world. I had fun once, looking up the regions mentioned.
It's a good album overall, with a workable mix of languages, styles, cadences, and rhythms. I still play it often.
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Post by Treecat on May 9, 2008 8:38:43 GMT -5
ENYA and Watermark are the two most original albums she's done, IMO. Before them, her background was writing to order for The Frog Prince, some incidental music for awards shows, contributing backing vocals and keyboards to folk groups that Nicky produced. Essentially, she was a clean slate free to follow her ideas.
You can see how SM builds on Watermark, and how TMOT is a natural progression from SM. I think of WM - SM - TMOT as forming an arc, from the experimentalism of WM to the production tour-de-France .. er force .. of TMOT.
Then, ADWR comes along, showing a more accessible, contemporary Enya. I wonder if ADWR and Amarantine will be followed by a third album that'll complete an arc in this cycle?
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Post by Moe on May 9, 2008 12:51:33 GMT -5
You can see how SM builds on Watermark, and how TMOT is a natural progression from SM. I think of WM - SM - TMOT as forming an arc, from the experimentalism of WM to the production tour-de-France .. er force .. of TMOT. Then, ADWR comes along, showing a more accessible, contemporary Enya. I wonder if ADWR and Amarantine will be followed by a third album that'll complete an arc in this cycle? This is a good analysis imo. There is a natural progression, with each album building on the one before it. To me, The Celts will ever mark the emergence of "Enya" into a "genre" (whose name we can never agree on, it seems) of her own. SM and TMOT added to that genre, but I found, like others, that ADWR was more "contemporary" in sound, a "new" Enya if you like. Amarantine is, to me, a follow-up of ADWR, but, unlike the latter, it has songs (though few in number) that don't speak to me as deeply as the songs on previous albums. I hope that next album (not a Christmas one, but a "real" album) will show us an Enya trying something new, even experimental, while never forgetting her roots. It's a difficult challenge: to move onwards without leaving behind the "stuff" that your fans have been reared on. I think Enya can pull this off.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2008 15:50:42 GMT -5
Thumbs up,and my alltime fav album after all these years!!!
As some of you know,I can't stay too long away from the sea,my element and source of inspiration.It happened that I've listened to Watermark while sailing,on a seashore,over a cliff and the effect of those melodies was something beyond words 'till now. I cannot dissociate Watermark and the ocean.
20 years passed by,with ups and downs,Enya matured and moved towards other directions,but the song and the magic remains the same...
My fav song is Na Laetha Geal M'Γ³ige,for reasons I won't post here.
Ahrod B.
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Post by marie on May 14, 2008 15:24:50 GMT -5
Watermark is one of Enya's best. It got lher where she is today.
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Post by draoicht on Jul 14, 2008 13:11:02 GMT -5
I find that Watermark is very rooted in Ireland, not necessarily in Irish/Trad music, but in the land itself. The album fits very well with the landscape here, the mountains, rivers, lakes.
When I am out walking I love to listen to WM and admire all the views aroung me. No other Enya album sits with me like this. I never feel that SM, TMOT etc are inherently Irish but WM just fits so well with Ireland, perhaps Donegal in particular.
WM is special because of this.
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Post by Treecat on Jul 16, 2008 7:36:53 GMT -5
I can see what you mean, Draoicht. One day I'd like to play Watermark while taking a hike in Donegal. I once had WM playing on a visit home (a rural area--lots of pine trees, fields, old country houses, small churches) and the music fit in so well during the drive. It's the album for me. I love the rest of the albums, but WM has a very special place in my heart.
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(C)arl
Member
If you're not confused, you're not paying attention.
Posts: 202
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Post by (C)arl on Jul 17, 2008 3:19:24 GMT -5
SM is my all time favorite Enya album, immediately followed by WM. I agree with you, TC. WM, SM and TMOT are Enya's triplets. They are a trilogy. It is interesting to think about the unfinished ADWR and Amarantine trilogy. The next chapter of this trilogy is yet to be written.
Moe also mentioned that 'The Celts' mark the emergence of "Enya" into a "genre." Indeed. As a matter of fact, I see The Celts/Enya as a sort of expreremental springboard.
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Post by Treecat on Jul 17, 2008 7:57:00 GMT -5
Carl, it's so good to see someone else thinking of ADWR and Amarantine as the start of a trilogy, and wondering what the next studio album will be. A new studio album is an exciting idea--like stepping off into the unknown. I feel like ADWR and Amarantine are part of a set, so what's the finish going to be like? ENYA/The Celts: I love this album, because it is so experimental. When I first heard the music to it, which I did before I heard anything from WM, it wasn't like anything else I'd heard on the radio.
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Post by Moe on Mar 28, 2009 15:08:17 GMT -5
OK, I've been listening a lot to the early Enya albums of late, and I do keep coming back to Watermark. And now, as I listen, I think I see a bit better why Enya's music was set into the "New Age" slot, for better or for worse.
There are so many tracks on that CD that just defied contemporary music trends, and still do after 20 years. Cursum Perficio, for example, must have appeared like the weirdest new agey kind of thing for many people - yet I adore this song. I think it was the uniqueness of this album that garnered so much attention - a musical bolt out of the blue.
It's a bolt that still stands out, still has power.
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Post by eternity on Mar 29, 2009 15:25:40 GMT -5
I like Watermark, and I try to think about it as what it means in 1988. It was revolutionary indeed, but it is not my favourite one. I rarely play it. There were a lot of evolution since than. I'm still deciding between The memory of trees, Amarantine, And Winter Came. If it was only for Last Time by Moonlight, that one will win. The memory of trees also have qualities of WM: gaelic (not so much), latin, her best title-track (TMOT), hits like AI and OMWH, and why not say... Hope has a place. I think the favourite album has something to be like the listener was at that time. For me, the "big nΒΊ 1" of Enya as an album it was Shepherd Moons. It was the album that, knowing that Enya existed in WM, the people said: "She is a great singer / composer!" But, in the meantime we discuss all this, the best thin is to make a kind of "maraton" and play all Enya albums in a row... just to help to decide. Ideas... ideas... Have you made an "Enya maraton" (played all albuns/songs in the same day?) More ideas... ;D Inspired by the "planet hour", we may try to made The Enya hour (playing, for example, Less than a Pearl at the same time, all over the world... why not may 17?
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eclipse
Member
Forever learning.
Posts: 196
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Post by eclipse on Mar 29, 2009 21:10:48 GMT -5
The Watermark SHM CD is a must own. The sound quality is amazing. I have an Ebudae marathon every year on my birthday.
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Post by phantas on Feb 18, 2011 12:48:47 GMT -5
As I was compiling an "extended" edition list of Watermark (which I posted just a few minutes ago), I couldn't help but notice how much of the music on Watermark also makes me think of Clannad.
It may sound strange, but River could have featured on Atlantic Realm, and other tracks have a certain 'murkiness' that would not have stood out on any of the older Clannad albums.
As I read this thread again, I noticed Draiocht's comment about how Irish this album is. I think this album may well be rooted in Eithne's own experiences and family history....and even though years have passed between An Tull and ENYA/The Celts seeing the light of day, I can imagine that Orinoco Flow may well be Eithne's own way of 'stepping out' in terms of cutting loose the bonds of family to explore her own future.
It's a great album - not essentially my favourite, though a close one, but I still love it, and every song sounds as fresh as though you've heard it for the first time (okay, maybe not all of them
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