Greatest Lovesongs Vol. 666
| Greatest Lovesongs Vol. 666 | ||||
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Studio album by 
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Publication |
November 20, 1997 |
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| Label (s) | Great Sonic, Gun Records | |||
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Format (s) |
CD |
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Title (number) |
66 |
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running time |
66:06 |
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Studio (s) |
Finnvox, MD, Peacemakers |
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Greatest Lovesongs Vol. 666 (English for: " Biggest Love Songs Vol. 666 ") is the first studio album by the Finnish rock band HIM . The debut album was released on November 20, 1997 in Finland and, as the first foreign release, in January 1998 in Germany.
Album title
According to Valo, the title Greatest Lovesongs , with the addition of Vol. 666 , should represent a kind of antithesis to each other, similar to Yin and Yang , as the light and dark side of love. On the other hand, one shouldn't take the title of the album very seriously:
“With that record title it is strange that some people really took it seriously. Because that has lots of irony in it. How can you take it seriously, a Finnish rock band making their debut album and calling it the Greatest Lovesongs vol. 666 ? It's quite humorous, you know. We're more into black humor than religious or philosophical concepts. "
“It's strange that some people took this album title really seriously. Because it contains a lot of irony . How can you take it seriously when a Finnish rock band makes their debut album and calls it The Greatest Love Songs Band 666 ? It's pretty humorous, you know. We are more into black humor than religious or philosophical concepts. "
Album cover
Each HIM album has a different color on purpose as a color concept. The cover artwork of the debut album is kept in red, the CD itself has a metallic-red sheen. It was intended not to use a standard band photo as the cover because it is too little noticeable. The concept was to create an iconic cover that is reminiscent of a suffering figure from a religious painting. HIM frontman Ville Valo is shown on the cover . He is heavily made up, his hair is strictly tied back and you can see his bare torso. The HIM lettering can be seen at the level of his chest (the three letters of the word HIM are connected by a horizontal line). It can be said that this combination of the photo in connection with the horizontal line of the scriptures subconsciously suggests the image of the crucifixion of Jesus. The background is red and should probably remind of hell, at least back then there were posters on which the same album cover was shown, but there were also blazing flames at the bottom of the picture. Janne Uotila from Neo-Geo designed the cover, while Vertti Teräsveuori designed the cover photo.
History of origin
The album was recorded in the summer of 1997 in the youth center of the Helsinki district of Munkkiniemi and then in a studio in Jokela. The recordings lasted 15 days in total.
On the album it is not Antto Melasniemi who played keyboard at the time, but Ville Valo keyboard because Melasniemi was "not a very ambitious musician" according to producer Hiili Hiilesmaa .
Ville Valo cites DJ Enright's The Oxford Book of Death as the source of inspiration for the band's first songs . He said this book was like a Bible to him then and gave him many ideas.
Publications and chart placements
Although this record did not bring the band's international breakthrough, but rather served as a springboard, it was quite successful with 120,000 copies sold (in Germany) and made HIM known above all in the metal scene. In Finland the disc reached number 4 in the charts, in Germany it was number 50.
After the album reached gold status in Finland and the first two singles made it into the top 10 of the charts there, the group got a contract with Gun / Super Sonic and the album was released in Germany. Due to this success, the group played their first international concerts on August 29, 1998 at the Summer Horizon Festival in Gelsenkirchen as a support act for The Sisters of Mercy and on September 12, 1998 in Bochum at the Crossing All Over Festival.
Four singles were from the album in Finland decoupled ( Wicked Game, When Love and Death Embrace Your Sweet Six Six Six, It's All Tears ) in Germany but appeared only Wicked Game , a Chris Isaak - Cover and When Love and Death Embrace , for which music videos were also made. Besides Wicked Game, there is another cover on the record with (Don't Fear) The Reaper (actually by Blue Öyster Cult ). Ville Valo sings this song and For You in a duet with Finnish singers Sanna-June Hyde ( (Don't Fear) The Reaper ) and Asta Hannula ( For You ).
Only in Finland was the album released in digipak with a different sequence of titles. In Germany, however, a limited version with the additional song Stigmata Diaboli appeared later .
Information on individual songs
- Wicked Game: Is a cover version by Chris Isaak . Ville Valo had the idea to cover this song when he heard it in the movie Wild at Heart - The Story of Sailor and Lula . Even before it was published on Greatest Lovesongs Vol. 666, a "coarser" version of Wicked Game was published on EP 666 Ways to love: Prologue , from 1996. The record company wanted to have it on the album as well (most likely because the EP was only around 1000–2000 copies).
- The Heartless: There is also an older, longer demo version of The Heartless . It is one of the first songs that Ville Valo wrote. It's about how as a teenager he fell unhappily in love with a girl who got together with his best friend. The song was written around 1994 and was later reworked by the band a few times.
- It's all tears: At the end of It's all tears it sounds like the CD is damaged and the song suddenly breaks off. That was the idea of producer Hiili Hiilesmaa , who used this "effect" on the song.
- The Beginning of the End: In this song you can hear the sound of tin can lids as a sound effect. Valo said about the song in 2002 that it is much more progressive than the pieces of music they make now. It's one of the toughest HIM songs.
- (Don't Fear) The Reaper: Is a cover version of Blue Öyster Cult . The idea of doing a cover of (Don't Fear) The Reaper came to Ville Valo while watching the movie Halloween , in which the song is played. The (Don't Fear) The Reaper cover was only included on the album because the album would have been too short without this song (approx. 32 minutes). Since there was no more time to write and record new songs, the band decided to add the approximately seven-minute cover. This is just a demo version that HIM had recorded some time before. HIM have never played (Don't Fear) The Reaper live.
Information about the video clips
When love and death embrace was filmed by Mikko Pitkänen in a disused psychiatric hospital in Nikkilä. Not much happens in the video, but like the piece of music itself, it is reminiscent of the mood from David Lynch films. Ville Valo represents three different people in the video, one is a woman.
Wicked Game exists in three different versions, both musically and visually:
- The very first HIM video clip was shot by them in a park in Helsinki and edited by a student. The video clip was made in 1996 for the EP version of Wicked Game and only shown once on Finnish television. Only years later this video became available on the DVD Love Metal Archives vol. 1 published.
- The second video clip was made for the German market when Greatest Lovesongs was released in Germany in 1998. The film was shot in Germany. The director was Markus Walter. The keyboard player at the time, Antto Melasniemi, only appears in a short scene (as "Snowman"). In the video, the band plays in front of a theater-like backdrop, a Gothic church ruin. An angel with black wings makes the weather go crazy. The visual imagery is very haunting.
- At the time of the second album Razorblade Romance , the HIM record companies decided on the Razorblade Romance version for southern Europe, two old songs from Greatest Lovesongs vol. 666 , in newly recorded versions, to put on the album (because Greatest Lovesongs had never been released in these countries before). That's why there is a third video clip from Wicked Game , which was shot in London in 2000 under the direction of Bill Yukich. The action takes place in a dingy strip club where an old woman strips. There is a version in which you can see her naked and a "more decent" version.
Others
- Strictly speaking, the album has 66 tracks, with a running time of 66 minutes and 6 seconds. A nice gimmick to reach the number 666 in the display of CD players, after all, tracks 10 to 65 contain no music. However, song 66 plays the melody from The Heartless of the second demo tape.
- At the end of 1998, HIM in Finland received the Emma Award , a renowned Finnish music prize, for Best Newcomer .
- Viva2 filmed an appearance by HIM as part of the VW Sound Foundation's winning talent competition on December 7, 1998. The appearance took place without an audience and was shown on the program Overdrive . HIM played 7 of the 9 songs from Greatest Lovesongs vol. 666 (they didn't play The Beginning of the End and Don't Fear The Reaper ). Antto Melasniemi was already replaced by Juska Salminen (Zoltan Pluto) as keyboard player. The performance is now one of the best in the band.
Track list
The pieces without further information were written by Ville Valo.
- Your Sweet Six Six Six
- Wicked Game (Chris Isaak)
- The Heartless
- Our Diabolical Rapture (Valo, Lindström, Järvinen)
- It's All Tears (Drown in This Love)
- When Love and Death Embrace
- The beginning of the end
- (Don't Fear) The Reaper (Donal Roeser, Sandy Pearlmann)
- For You (Valo, Lindström)
...
- (666) (instrumental ghost track)
Individual evidence
- ↑ from a video interview with Mige and Ville for Swiss television (either MTV or Viva) in 2000; www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2_0Hpvmud4; Video title: Ville Valo and Mige interview Swiss MTV; Quote from minute 1:40
- ↑ [1] , video, at the very beginning of the video you can see the poster with the blazing flames
- ↑ see booklet Greatest Lovesongs vol. 666
- ↑ a b c d e f Juho K. Juntunen: Synnin Viemää. WSOY, 2002, ISBN 951-0-27304-X , Chapter 8 = pp. 68-77 (Finnish)
- ↑ Juho K. Juntunen: Synnin Viemää. WSOY, 2002, ISBN 951-0-27304-X , Chapter 8 = pp. 82–83 (Finnish)
- ↑ a b Juho K. Juntunen: Synnin Viemää. WSOY, 2002, ISBN 951-0-27304-X , Chapter 15 = pp. 140–149 (Finnish)
- ↑ [2] , interview with Astan-Magazin, from minute 17:44; 2004 in Cologne; last accessed July 3, 2015
- ↑ [ Archived copy ( memento of the original from July 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ], Album charts from HIM on musicline.de; last accessed on July 1, 2015
- ↑ a b [3] , Finnish chart positions by HIM; last accessed on July 1, 2015
- ↑ See inside of the booklet of Greatest Lovesongs vol. 666
- ↑ [4] , "Ville Valo -London Pub Interview (part 1)" Year: 2000; from minute 4:13; last accessed on July 3, 2015
- ↑ a b c d e Juho K. Juntunen: Synnin Viemää. WSOY, 2002, ISBN 951-0-27304-X , Chapter 8 = pp. 80–81 (Finnish)
- ↑ Reinhardt Haydn: HIM - His Infernal Majesty. Plexus Publishing, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-85965-392-3 , p. 22
- ↑ Reinhardt Haydn: HIM - His Infernal Majesty. Plexus Publishing, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-85965-392-3 , p. 48
- ↑ a b c d e f Juho K. Juntunen: Synnin Viemää. WSOY, 2002, ISBN 951-0-27304-X , Chapter 24 = pp. 234–237 (Finnish)
- ↑ [5] , HIM at the Finnish Emma Awards 1998; last accessed on July 1, 2015
- ↑ Special Edition Sonic Seducer: 101 Icons ; No. 02/07; P. 52
- ↑ [6] , location of the date: setlist.fm
