Less Is More - Introduction

Introduction: Less Is More is classed as Marillion's 16th studio album, the twelfth of the Hogarth-era.

With the exception of It's Not Your Fault, Less Is More is an album of reworked material from previous albums, and consequently, only that one song has an explanation.

It would be fair to say that Less Is More is generally regarded somewhat disdainfully by a large section of the fanbase, who feel it is overworked and rarely successful. Personally, I feel the songs are, at worse, perfectly ok taken individually, but I don't feel it works well as an album. However, the versions of Wrapped Up In Time and Interior Lulu are both excellent.

The jazzy takes on If My Heart Were A Ball and Quartz strip away the rock of the originals and emphasise the harmonic twists and turns of the songs instead, revealing them as much quirkier beasts than they once were. Memory of Water, once a bit of a dirge, is less stodge and more airy in its new, folkier arrangement (though not a patch on the Big Beat version).

Cover: Being generous, the cover is an attempt at simplicity, deliberately echoing The Beatles' Let It Be. Less generously... Well, perhaps it is better to allow the readers to decide for themselves how to describe it...

Song Listing:

The entire album listing is included for completeness, but only the song with a link has an explanation.

• Less Is More Intro
• Go!
• Interior Lulu
• Out of This World
• Wrapped Up in Time
• The Space...
• Hard as Love
• Quartz
• If My Heart Were a Ball... ...It Would Roll Uphill
• It's Not Your Fault
• Memory of Water
• This Is the 21st Century
• Cannibal Surf Babe

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