Editorial: Marillion’s Misplaced Childhood is Worse Than Any Bad Music Today
As the opening line of L.P. Hartley’s The Go-Between reads, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” Nowhere is that more true than in metal fandom, where we look back at the genre’s past with a kind of stunned idealism. We see metal’s development as vibrant and unattainable, a breeding ground of creativity that no longer exists and perhaps never will. And no moment in metal’s history is remembered with more nostalgia than the 1980s, when metal and hardcore sharpened their blades and began taking themselves seriously, spawning hundreds of the genres’ most classic albums. It’s easy to look at that scene, and then look at the scene today, and wonder what the fuck happened.
But there’s something you should never forget: 1985 spawned Marillion’s Misplaced Childhood. And that shit is worse than any deathcore or pop-punk you’ll ever listen to. This boiled turd fell into my lap some weeks ago when I was perusing social media and saw that someone had posted the album’s cover online. I had forgotten about it until today, when I saw a story that Marillion guitarist Steve Rothery was publishing a career-spanning book and thought, ‘Marillion, who were they again…didn’t I just listen to OH GOD THE MISPLACED CHILDHOOD GUYS.’
Here’s some background: Marillion, named after J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, were a UK-based band who are often credited as the defining act in the “neo-progressive” scene, which sought to combine prog, punk, and pop to create edgy experimental music. Misplaced Childhood is their third album, and was a massive success when it was released in 1985, spending 41 weeks on the UK charts. Its singles, “Kayleigh” and “Lavender”, went to No. 2 and No. 5, respectively. The record has since gone Platinum, and is hailed by Classic Rock Magazine as “the cornerstone of the entire ‘neo-prog’ movement.”
But this rehashing of Wikipedia does no justice to Misplaced Childhood–you truly have to hear it for yourself. Meandering, obnoxious, self-indulgent, and dated in its attempted modernity, Misplaced Childhood is like the soundtrack to Creepshow made by a bunch of asshole TV executives rolling on Molly. Anyone who can stick it out through opener “Pseudo Silk Kimono”–that’s right, it’s called “Pseudo Silk Fucking Kimono“–is a hero, but should know they there’s only worse torture ahead. If the ’80s were a house, Misplaced Childhood would be a long-ignored garden, choked with an overgrowth of synths, whiny clean vocals, and soaring guitars that just keep soaring until you want to get some shears out and cut them down. Why our government uses Deicide to torture political prisoners, and not this piece of shit, I cannot fathom.
But it’s not just the music on Misplaced Childhood that makes you want to slam your junk in an illuminated manuscript, it’s the whole package. The record sleeve, as you can see above, encapsulates everything stupid about the ’80s, down to the mushroom cut on the boy in a ringleader jacket holding a bird (an osprey, perhaps? Who knows? Who cares!). You gotta wonder at what point, during a band meeting about album art, one of the members of Marillion said, “You know what really says overcoming the perils of youth to me? A lizard in a birdcage and a molester clown sneaking out a window to nowhere!” When I encountered this art, I thought, “Woah, this album is either a forgotten gem or the biggest pilonidal cyst the music world has ever known. I must hear it.” Then I pulled it up on Spotify to discover it was the latter.
So look: I know the music industry is starved for new and original ideas; Hell, the whole entertainment industry is. I know assholes are releasing five minute-long breakdowns about having more money than you, and J-pop schoolgirls are receiving more acclaim from metalheads than, say, Tombs are. But whenever you’re feeling angry at music and metal, whenever the scene makes you wonder what the fuck is wrong with everyone, just stop and remember that 1985, metal’s most promising year, was when Marillion’s Misplaced Childhood came out. And know that no matter how shitty things are right now, they’ll never be as shitty as that album.
