I'll never like this song for the simple fact that they dropped the hook halfway through playing it. If you want to do a tribute to '80s power metal a la Dio, Rainbow, Judas Priest, certain Black Sabbath records, etc, you need to commit to your hook. You can't just drop out the resolution partway through for an ironic deconstruction, or whatever this was. If you're going to do a power metal resolve for the hook, stick it. Don't just give up on it.
It's frustrating because I really like this song, but that hook dissolve is one of the most deflating things I've ever heard in music. It just kills the pacing of the song.
This song will always have a special place in my heart. I put this on the radio driving home from my last 12 hour shift at my first ever 'real' job. I'd accepted an offer as a temp worker at a huge company in a field I didn't know the first thing about. I couldn't have guessed that not only would I get hired on full time, I'd eventually end up leading a team there 5 years later. In that time I moved out to live in my own place for a few years, traveled outside my own country, got to see Protomen play live in Atlanta, and I met my girlfriend who I'm now living with. I couldn't have guessed for a minute just how much my life would change that night, driving home with my windows down and this song blasting on the radio. I'll borrow from the song to send a message of my own: If you can hear my voice outside these walls, if you can hear me sending out this message tonight: There is hope for you, for us, for the future. No matter how dark it feels sometimes, don't turn your back on the city.
I love tuning people in who have never even through *osmosis* heard of the Protomen JUST so I can see their faces/get their reaction to the fact that the main character of the album is about to commit suicide... and isn't even done losing yet.
This has the feel of a Trocadero song from early RvB and I mean that in the best way. Western influenced and moody, punching well above its subject weight to get you invested far beyond what you thought you would. Fading into the first and arguably main song of the album without skipping a beat.
Dr. Light: I lost my father and the woman I love is suffering too. I just love both of them and want to help humanity so no one has to go through this hardship anymore :( Wiley: You fool. You idiot. You absolute buffoon. Are you stupid? Just listen to yourself you blind, deranged coward, you absolute loser. I'll destroy you.
Act I: Protoman and Megaman fight the robot masters from the original game Act II: Dr Light is hunted by a lynch mob O_o Boy. That escalated quickly. I mean that REALLY got out of hand fast.
They dont want to chang this. They don't want a hero. They just want a martyr. A statue to raise. I've given everything I can. There are no heroes left in man. bro was cooookingggggg. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
"And then, things began to change. Streets widened, oil lamps became gaslights, which became electric lamps that started to dot the cities and countryside. The Relentless Progress of Reason they called it; but it was our side losing the Ascension War. Wonder was dying, hope was dying; in the amber color of their streetlights, what was unknown became quantified under the emerging Technocratic Hegemony"
