A Hostage and the Meaning of Life is an album by the rock band Brazil that deals with themes of technology, dehumanization, and frustration. Musically, it borrows from complex genres such as progressive rock and classical music, as well as the abrasive aesthetic of punk, and the ethereal guitar sounds of shoegazer pop. It was received warmly by many critics as a masterful debut album from a previously unknown band. The album's single “Escape” received a small amount of college radio play, and the video appeared in rotation in several regional and national music video programs.
The album takes its name from Asimov's Caliban trilogy, although has nothing to do with the story itself.
Read more about A Hostage And The Meaning Of Life: Concept, Recording, The Single, Reception, Track Listing, Lyrical References and Alleged Meanings, Credits
Famous quotes containing the words hostage, meaning and/or life:
“Neither dead nor alive, the hostage is suspended by an incalculable outcome. It is not his destiny that awaits for him, nor his own death, but anonymous chance, which can only seem to him something absolutely arbitrary.... He is in a state of radical emergency, of virtual extermination.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“The novelist’s—any writer’s—object is to whittle down his meaning to the exactest and finest possible point. What, of course, is fatal is when he does not know what he does mean: he has no point to sharpen.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“As life runs on, the road grows strange
With faces new,—and near the end
The milestones into headstones change,
‘Neath every one a friend.”
—James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)