Mark must have lots of new songs written, not to mention previous ones not recorded, so I am really looking forward to the new album, maybe he could release his 2nd double album.
I reckon Mark had an awful lot of time to write songs in the lockdown, so I'm sure it will be a great one. He wrote Shangri-La while in his personal lockdown, and it's easily the most consistent album songwriting-wise, each track is a masterpiece, including drummerless ones.
With that said, Shangri-La is perfectly recorded and mixed as well. I'm not a fan of Tracker and Down The Road Wherever mixing as jbaent is, but I'm listening Shangri-La album right now and I can say that Mark's latest albums may be recorded technically better, but they lack that polished feel, Chuck just knows how to do it, this amazingly warm polished balanced feel of recording, where you're absolutely sure it can't get any better than this. Guy is less about perfectionism on the overall picture but in details.
The interesting thing about a polished album. The original Tubular Bells is full or mistakes, in the recording, the playing, the tempo, the instrument tuning, but it is a masterpiece, however, these things always bothered Mike Oldfield, it was a consequence of Mike not really having the time to record the music properly. In 2003 he re-recorded the whole album perfectly, to me it sound great, but he himself acknowledged that it didn't so as well as the original, and what gave the original it's greatness was all the issues it has. So for his latest album, he left in slight errors, although there are very few noticeable to my ears, if any. The point is, I think there is a lot of focus in modern music making on perfection, and there shouldn't be.
One thing is for certain, Mark has never and will never make a bad album. Some are better than others, obviously, and some are growers, but the quality is always high.
Agreed, Mark has never made a bad solo or Dire Straits album.
