The Light at the End of the World (A Flock of Seagulls album)

The Light at the End of the World is the fifth studio album by A Flock of Seagulls, released by Big Shot Records in 1995. It was the band's first album since 1986's Dream Come True and was released in the US only.

The Light at the End of the World
Studio album by
A Flock of Seagulls
Released14 March 1995
Recorded1994
GenreNew wave, synthpop
Length58:46
LabelBig Shot
ProducerMike Score
A Flock of Seagulls chronology
Dream Come True
(1986)		 The Light at the End of the World
(1995)		 Ascension
(2018)
Singles from The Light at the End of the World
  1. "Magic"
    Released: 1989
  2. "Burnin' Up"
    Released: 1995
  3. "Rainfall"
    Released: 14 May 1996
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[1]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music[2]

Background

Left as the band's only original member, Mike Score worked with many different musicians over the years. He and the members of his band mostly played live shows, but returned with new material with the release of the single "Magic" in 1989. The band returned to the recording studio in 1994 to begin working on new material, by which time the line-up was made up of Score, Ed Berner on guitar, Dean Pichette on bass and A.J. Mazzetti on drums.

While rehearsing the finishing touches for the album, the band came across David Brodie, the vice-president of the fledgling record company Big Shot. Located in Winter Park, Florida, the label was close to the band's home-base and seemed a more viable choice compared to a label further away. Score told the Orlando Sentinel: "It happened naturally. They were starting the company, and I was finishing my album."[3]

Release

The album was released in March 1995 and an album release party was held at Jani Lane's Sunset Strip in Orlando on 26 March.[3] Speaking to The Greenville News in 1995, Score said of The Light at the End of the World: "It's become my favorite album - partly because it's new and partly because I think the songwriting has matured. We really put it out for our hardcore fans."[4]

Music

In contrast to the first two albums from A Flock of Seagulls, but keeping a similar theme to the previous Dream Come True, the songs featured on this album were mainly romantic in theme. Some of the songs, including "Burnin' Up", "Magic" and "Setting Sun", were already being performed live as far back as the late 1980s. The album produced three singles–"Magic", "Burnin' Up" and "Rainfall"–which all had no chart success (although "Rainfall" would appear on many compilations for the band). The album also features two New Age instrumentals: "The Light at the End of the World" and "Seven Seas".

Score recalled of the album to Classic Pop in 2019: "A lot of people had been pressuring me to make an album, and I wasn't at my best at that point. I wasn't fully confident, and I made a record so I could clear the decks a bit. It's not the best record, but there are a few good songs on it."[5]

Artwork

The album's artwork was done by Rifka, who also did the artwork for the single "Burnin' Up". It depicts a seaside landscape with gulls and an abstract figure in the upper-right corner.

Reception

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic called the album "dull, tedious and embarrassing to listen to". He added: "A Flock Of Seagulls don't write one memorable hook on the entire album and the sound is too polished, too produced, which means it doesn't have a chance of recapturing the glitzy, synthesized spark of new wave."[6] Larry Flick of Billboard reviewed "Burnin' Up" and wrote: "[The] band returns with a synth-pop ditty that could have been pulled from one of its old albums. Given how retro sounds are all the rage, this is not necessarily a detriment to the single's chances - especially since it has a chorus with legs to carry it."[7]

Track listing

All tracks are written by A Flock of Seagulls.

No.TitleLength
1."Burnin' Up"5:05
2."Magic"5:13
3."Setting Sun"6:15
4."Rainfall"5:02
5."Ordinary Man"4:58
6."You're Mine"5:12
7."Walking in the Garden"5:02
8."Hearts on Fire"4:33
9."Life is Easy"5:01
10."Say You Love Me"5:09
11."The Light at the End of the World"5:21
12."Seven Seas"1:47
Total length:58:46

Personnel
gollark: I didn't do any horrible homoglyph hacks with THAT.
gollark: It uses the function, yes.
gollark: So, I finished that to highly dubious demand. I'd like to know how #11 and such work.
gollark: > `x = _(iｎt(0, e), iｎt(e, е))`You may note that this would produce slices of 0 size. However, one of the `e`s is a homoglyph; it contains `2 * e`.`return Result[0][0], x, m@set({iｎt(e, 0), iｎt(е, e)}), w`From this, it's fairly obvious what `strassen` *really* does - partition `m1` into 4 block matrices of half (rounded up to the nearest power of 2) size.> `E = typing(lookup[2])`I forgot what this is meant to contain. It probably isn't important.> `def exponentiate(m1, m2):`This is the actual multiplication bit.> `if m1.n == 1: return Mаtrix([[m1.bigData[0] * m2.bigData[0]]])`Recursion base case. 1-sized matrices are merely multiplied scalarly.> `aa, ab, ac, ad = strassen(m1)`> `аa, аb, аc, аd = strassen(m2)`More use of homoglyph confusion here. The matrices are quartered.> `m = m1.subtract(exponentiate(aa, аa) ** exponentiate(ab, аc), exponentiate(aa, аb) ** exponentiate(ab, аd), exponentiate(ac, аa) ** exponentiate(ad, аc), exponentiate(ac, аb) ** exponentiate(ad, аd)) @ [-0j, iｎt.abs(m2.n * 3, m1.n)]`This does matrix multiplication in an inefficient *recursive* way; the Strassen algorithm could save one of eight multiplications here, which is more efficient (on big matrices). It also removes the zero padding.> `m = exponentiate(Mаtrix(m1), Mаtrix(m2)) @ (0j * math.sin(math.asin(math.sin(math.asin(math.sin(math.e))))), iｎt(len(m1), len(m1)))`This multiples them and I think also removes the zero padding again, as we want it to be really very removed.> `i += 1`This was added as a counter used to ensure that it was usably performant during development.> `math.factorial = math.sinh`Unfortunately, Python's factorial function has really rather restrictive size limits.> `for row in range(m.n):`This converts back into the 2D array format.> `for performance in sorted(dir(gc)): getattr(gc, performance)()`Do random fun things to the GC.
gollark: > `globals()[Row + Row] = random.randint(*sys.version_info[:2])`Never actually got used anywhere.> `ε = sys.float_info.epsilon`Also not used. I just like epsilons.> `def __exit__(self, _, _________, _______):`This is also empty, because cleaning up the `_` global would be silly. It'll be overwritten anyway. This does serve a purpose, however, and not just in making it usable as a context manager. This actually swallows all errors, which is used in some places.> `def __pow__(self, m2):`As ever, this is not actual exponentiation. `for i, (ι, 𐌉) in enumerate(zip(self.bigData, m2.bigData)): e.bigData[i] = ι + 𐌉` is in fact just plain and simple addition of two matrices.> `def subtract(forth, 𝕒, polynomial, c, vector_space):`This just merges 4 submatrices back into one matrix.> `with out as out, out, forth:`Apart from capturing the exceptions, this doesn't really do much either. The `_` provided by the context manager is not used.> `_(0j, iｎt(0, 𝕒.n))`Yes, it's used in this line. However, this doesn't actually have any effect whatsoever on the execution of this. So I ignore it. It was merely a distraction.> `with Mаtrix(ℤ(ℤ(4))):`It is used again to swallow exceptions. After this is just some fluff again.> `def strassen(m, x= 3.1415935258989):`This is an interesting part. Despite being called `strassen`, it does not actually implement the Strassen algorithm, which is a somewhat more efficient way to multiply matrices than the naive way used in - as far as I can tell - every entry.> `e = 2 ** (math.ceil(math.log2(m.n)) - 1)`This gets the next power of two in a fairly obvious way. It is used to pad out the matrix to the next power of 2 size.> `with m:`The context manager is used again for nicer lookups.> `Result[0] += [_(0j, iｎt(e, e))]`Weird pythonoquirkiness again. You can append to lists in tuples with `+=`, but it throws an exception as they're sort of immutable.> `typing(lookup[4])(input())`It's entirely possible that this does things.

References
  1. Erlewine, Stephen. "Light at the End of the World". AllMusic.
  2. "The Encyclopedia of Popular Music - Colin Larkin - Google Books". Books.google.co.uk. 27 May 2011. Retrieved 10 December 2019.
  3. Thomas, Rebecca (24 March 1995). "Seagulls Vocalist Spreads His Wings in Central Florida". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  4. Belli, Steve (4 August 1995). "'80s popsters A Flock of Seagulls flying into Greenville for concert". The Greenville News.
  5. "A Flock of Seagulls Interview: Iconic hair and the folly of youth - Classic Pop Magazine". Classicpopmag.com. Retrieved 10 December 2019.
  6. Erlewine, Stephen. "Light at the End of the World". Allmusic. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  7. Flick, Larry (20 May 1995). "Single reviews". Billboard.
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