Music

Made in Hong Kong (And in Various Other Places) by Nightwish
See here for my thoughts on this album.

Listening to Made in Hong Kong set me off listening to a few other Nightwish things, some of which I'd bought but not yet listened to. Normally I wouldn't mention most of these, but I had the following to say...

Dark Passion Play by Nightwish
The album from which all of Made in Hong Kong's live tracks are taken. This is the first time I've listened to it for a while. It's not quite as good as Once, the band's absolute high point in my opinion, but it's a good effort nonetheless. Most importantly, as the first album after the departure of original lead vocalist Tarja Turunen it shows definitively that Nightwish can go on successfully without her.

The Islander (single) by Nightwish
The Islander is one of my favourite tracks on Dark Passion Play, with a nice folkish vibe to it. Here it's accompanied by an instrumental version of Escapist, a track included as a B-side on the Bye Bye Beautiful single and as a bonus track on Made in Hong Kong. This instrumental is great, I think.
Also included is an orchestral version of album-closer Meadows of Heaven. A grand, 7-minute, orchestra-led epic, Meadows of Heaven works brilliantly like this -- not perfectly, as the guitars and so forth are missing, but better than the orchestral version of Ghost Love Score, another brilliant orchestra-led track (from the previous album) which featured guitars so integrally it fails without them.