It took a few listens for it to grow on me. Actually the whole album took a few listens. The songs that made me keep coming back were actually the final four.
It took a few listens for it to grow on me. Actually the whole album took a few listens. The songs that made me keep coming back were actually the final four.
The opera is set in the year 2056; 26 years after an epidemic of organ failures devastated the planet. Out of the tragedy, the Bio-Tech Company GeneCo, run by Rotti Largo, emerged to provide organ transplants to the needy populace on a financial plan, making it affordable to anyone who needed one. Through his efforts, Rotti also got approval to create the Repo Men, assassins dispatched to deal with customers who default on their payments and made his company become a megacorporation, having influence from politics to fashion. In the present time, 17 year-old Shilo Wallace explores the cemetery where her mother is entombed. Hiding from GENcop searchlights, she runs into GraveRobber, a dealer of an addictive, expensive, painkiller called Zydrate. Encountering GENcops, Shilo passes out and awakens in her house, where her overprotective father, Nathan, has kept her locked all her life. Shilo has been suffering from an apparent blood disease inherited from her mother, Marni, who died taking a “cure” invented by Nathan, Shilo's father. While Shilo believes he's a doctor, Nathan is actually one of GeneCo’s Repo Men.
Meanwhile, Rotti Largo, who is dying, views Shilo as a possible heir. He refuses to consider his bickering children, Luigi, Pavi, and Amber, viewing them as “vultures and ingrates.” Rotti, formerly Nathan’s rival for Marni’s affections, and secretly, her killer, asks Shilo to meet with him at the cemetery. When they meet, Rotti tells Shilo of a cure for her condition before introducing her to his GeneCo Genetic Opera’s star singer, Blind Mag. While Mag announces her retirement to the public, Shilo is taken to a tent to be guarded by Rotti's henchgirls. Unfortunately, her father calls her during work to remind her to take her medicine, which almost causes Nathan to come home early.
GraveRobber appears and helps Shilo escape from the tent and introduces her to Zydrate, a popular drug for surgery addicts. Amber, a Zydrate addict and, ironically, spokesperson for the rehab center, "Zydrate Support Network", arrives to take a hit of the drug. Amber reveals that since Mag's eyes belong to GeneCo, her retirement means that she defaults on the agreement she made to sing in exchange for her sight. Afterwards, Amber will replace Mag as the star of the opera. The arrival of GENcops causes the group to scatter except for Amber and her valets, who hold her up as she passes out in a drug-induced haze. Meanwhile, Nathan receives his next target from Rotti – Mag, but refuses his order, since she was Marni's best friend. For his insubordination, Rotti places a hit on Nathan's head.
Arriving at Shilo's house to invite her to the Genetic Opera, Mag reveals to her that she is her godmother. After she warns Shilo to not make the same mistakes she did, Nathan arrives home and kicks Mag out. This prompts an argument between Nathan and Shilo, which ends when Nathan slaps her, causing her to pass out. Later that night, the characters converge at the Genetic Opera. At the performance, Amber’s stage debut bombs when her face falls off. Soon after, at the end of her solo, Mag gouges out her own eyes and is dropped to her death by Rotti onto a wrought iron fence. After convincing the audience it was part of the show, Rotti instructs Shilo to capture the Repo Man for her cure.
After attacking him backstage with a shovel, Shilo discovers, to her horror, that the Repo Man is her father. Rotti then reveals to Shilo that her condition was caused by “medication” provided by Nathan, who says that he did so to keep her from the outside world. When Shilo refuses to accept Rotti’s offer to inherit GeneCo by killing off her father, Rotti shoots Nathan himself before expiring from his disease. After she and her father exchange final goodbyes, Shilo leaves the stage, free from her genetic destiny. The following day, as revealed by GraveRobber, Shilo declined to inherit GeneCo. Instead, Amber took over and auctioned off her face to charity. Pavi won after Luigi killed the top 3 bidders.
Quirkiness works if it just ... happens and you aren't trying for it (see: Split Enz's Frenzy album, especially Hermit McDermitt). When you're consciously trying to be quirky, it's not the same, and some of this seems consciously quirky.
Are we even listening to the same song? Rarely do we disagree so strongly, but I just found that downright irritating musically. Pretty much Hermit McDermitt if it were made by people not good enough to be in Split Enz.
Are we even listening to the same song? Rarely do we disagree so strongly, but I just found that downright irritating musically. Pretty much Hermit McDermitt if it were made by people not good enough to be in Split Enz.
Alas, I didn't have my hopes up for you agreeing with me there. The synth (or whatever it is) effect can be annoying, I guess, but I just love it...the lyrics, the catchiness, everything.
