Victor

For years women have wondered what Victoria’s Secret genuinely was, but now it is in the end time to expose the famous secret. Since Roy Raymond, who was in the first place opened up the firstborn Victoria’s Secret store, opened his initial store in the San Francisco area in 1977, women all over the world have wanted to know the secret.

Lingerie stores all over the world owe a great debt of gratitude to originator of Victoria’s Secret, Roy Raymond, who started his basi store for the same reasons a good deal of lingerie buyers may relate to thirty years down the road. It seems he felt embarrassed attempting to buy lingerie for his wife in public and he felt awkward in division stores. Sadly, numerous would say that the atmosphere he tried to create, which was a comfortable environs for men with wood paneled walls, Victorian details, and helpful sales staff, has only resulted in public and awkward stores in malls.

The debt of gratitude owed to Victoria’s Secret, which was purchased by Limited Brands in 1982 is that Victoria’s Secret did succeed in creating a dramatic modify in the publics sensing in regards to beneath garments, lingerie, bras and panties. Think back to the days before Victoria’s Secret, and you will have to agree that the lingerie foundation business was well rather boring. Almost single handedly Victoria’s Secret changed the surroundings in which lingerie was sold, such as places like Sears Roebucks and Company as well as J.C. Penney’s and calling it sexy was a stretch.

Women wore lingerie, bras, panties, and foundations prior to Victoria’s Secret, but it was not specially likeable to look at as the crucial colors were nude and black and white. The lingerie departments of that era were much like they are today, but numerous had women in uniforms merchandising bras, panties, girdles, and robes and had an unforgiving attitude to a heap of men who dared crusade into their territory.

If all Victoria’s Secret gave us was colorful lingerie, that would be an accomplishment, but Victoria’s Secret genuinely brought to the United States market what most of Europe had experienced for numerous years. Many persons think the finest lingerie comes from France, Italy, and other elements of Europe and they are in general correct. What existed prior to Victoria’s Secret was the United States version of lingerie, which was largely bland, colorless, and not particularly comfortable or fashion forward. Through selling genius, evolution of women’s needs and desires and the use of visual media, Victoria’s Secret tapped an emergent market.

In 2007, Victoria’s Secret is a household name as the mention of the name in public is not linked to anything private or shameful. The company which posted sales of five billion dollars in 2006 is a big presence in the retail market in the United States, not to mention being the big dog on the porch in the intimates market. Due to it is clever use of emergent and mainstay fashion models, Victoria’s Secret has sculpted a sexy, youthful, and safe effigy taking into account it is marketing bras, panties and sexy underwear. Some of the most well known and pretty female models have walked down the runway for Victoria’s Secret, such as Heidi Klum, Tyra Banks, Stephanie Seymour, Karolina Kurkova, and Gisele Bundchen, who are just a few that have glided down the runway in their panties and bras.

The stores he founded led an evolution in women’s intimate apparel and exposed sexy underwear to millions and the atmosphere helped get started opened up the sale of lingerie to malls throughout the world. To the extent that Victoria’s Secret met Roy Raymond’s stated goals they is worthy of enormous credit. Where the evolution stopped was in creating an atmosphere where men, women, and couples may buy sexy lingerie, (erotic|sexual pleasure|sexually arousing clothing, plus size lingerie, and even sexy shoes in a non threatening environment.

Victor Photo

Victor Image

Victor Picture

Victor Picture

Most helpful client reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
Suprising, difficult and decidedly NOT Rush….
By Kriselda Jarnsaxa
I’ll confess upfront that I am rather pre-disposed to like most anything Lifeson does – even though not to the extent that I think he may do no faulty (see below). Still, it is harder for him to disappointment me than a great deal of other musicians. That said, “Victor” is one of my favourite albums – altho it’s definately NOT what I had expected an Alex Lifeson solo project would sound like.

The album is, without a doubt, an experiment. Much has been said regarding the lyrics of galore of the songs, specially “Don’t Care”, which, lyrically, *is* a very harsh and very crude song, and musically, is a harder-edged, more metal-like song than just in regards to anything we’ve ever heard Lifeson do with Rush. When I firstborn heard it, I found it closely shocking and very off-putting, but as I listened to the album more, it struck me more as almost a challenge to the listener – as if by leading off the album with this track Lifeson was attempting to shatter any expected values one might have of what a Lifeson solo project must be like, so that you could then listen to the rest of the album without those pre-conceived notions and prejudices. Once I got past my primary reaction to it, it speedily became one of my favourites.

One thing that will have to be noted is that various of the songs on the album are distinctly attempts by Lifeson to write from the viewpoint of an individual *other* than himself. For example, “Start Today”, sung by Lisa Dalbello, is written from a woman’s point of view, and “The Big Dance” is from the point of view of a young gigolo. It gives the album the sentiment that Lifeson was, in a sense, attempting to get outside of his own head. This same sense exists in the music, also.

To make talking about the music a bit easier, I tend to think of it as having 3 dissimilar ‘types’ of songs – the two Instrumentals, the three “Weird Songs” and the rest of the songs which are beauteous much balls-out rockers.

The Rockers and Instrumentals are, by far, my favourites. They feature a great deal of of the prog-rock tendencies you’d suppose from a fellow member of Rush, but, by-and-large, are much, much louder. They also seem to draw influences from heavy metal, grunge, hard substitute and those “hard to classify” bands such as Tool and Primus (the latter being understandable as Primus bassist Les Claypool provides the bass lines here, too.) And while Lifeson’s lack of fondness for keyboards in Rush is well-known (something that came regarding primarily because for much of the late 80′s and early 90′s, keyboard threatened to overwhelm the guitar on Rush’s albums), he plainly isn’t totally averse to them as there are a great deal of very tasty keyboards sprinkled allround the album.

The Rockers are outstanding fun, and Edwin, former vocalist for “I Mother Earth”, is a perfective match for the mood, intensity and power of these songs. Likewise, the Instrumentals offer a great showcase for Lifeson’s fretwork and have a real spark to them that makes them great for repeated listening. All of these tracks are filled with energy (though in a lot of cases, it is a very dark energy), and hold up well to repeated listens. “I Am the Spirit”, “Mr. X” and “The Big Dance” are all standouts.

The “Weird Ones” are, by far, the MOST experimental of the album, and don’t seem to succeed as well as the other tracks. Two of them, “At the End” and “Victor” are voiced by Lifeson himself, though neither is sung – they’re both performed in a soft, spoken style (though Edwin does provide a lot of moving, sung vocals at the end of “At the End”). This spoken style works best in “At the End”, which is a very sad piece with regards to an elderly widower who can’t find any reason to keep living. Lifeson’s soft, tame voice allows the tragic nature of the circumstance to settle in more deeply than a more inviolable voice would. The song starts with a good deal of very atmospheric programming (done by Lifeson’s son, Adrian Zivojinovich), and as it progresses, Lifeson brings in a heap of building guitar lines that in truth emphasise the mood of the song. Of the three “Weird Ones” “At the End” is, by far, the best.

“Victor” is similar in style to “At the End”, but is far less successful in it is execution. The words for this track are taken from the W.H. Auden poem of the same name, and are regarding a man who falls in love and marries the woman of his dreams, only to discover that she had betrayed him and winds up killing her. The music for the song, however, doesn’t rather manage to convey the sense of menace that it seems to be attempting to create, and Lifeson’s whispered vocals are a bit too light and too high-pitched for a song this dark.

Lastly, there’s “Shut Up Shutting Up” which is an example of Lifeson’s odd sense of humour. It’s features galore INCREDIBLE guitar work, but it’s buried behind Lifeson’s wife and her friend talking about their foilings with their husbands. While a lot of of the observations are amusive the primary time or two, the song does not stand up to repeated listenings. Its one time I wish I could find a way to remove the vocal layer, as it would make for a outstanding instrumental track.

All-in-all, though, the album consistantly ranks amongst my favourites, and I haven’t yet quit hoping for a follow-up someday.

9 of 9 humans found the following review helpful.
Unique solo debut by Lifeson.
By Michael Stack
If you were expecting a Rush sound on Alex Lifeson’s solo album, you’ll be sorely disappointed– I recognise I was shocked when I firstborn spun this CD almost ten years ago now– a loud, aggressive, angry sound emerges– Lifeson’s melodic playing was pushed isolated for a muscular stance, and Edwin’s vocal, a wailed, angry beast, countered Lifeson’s guitar.

Now mind you, the entire record isn’t rather like that, but my eyes popped out of my head. Still, having had time to evaluate the record for a long while since then, it is not a bad undertake at a solo record, but in the long run it is success is limited. Still, credit to Lifeson for choosing to pursue a direction well outside of the expected values of Rush’s guitarist.

The main band on this album comprises of Lifeson on guitars, bass, and synths, guitarist Bill Bell, drummer Blake Manning, and vocalist Edwin (of I Mother Earth). Together, this ensemble develops five songs (although Lisa Dalballo sings one of them) and further joins Lifeson and his son, Adrian Zivojinovich (programming) on two further tracks. The songs featuring the band are in general straightahead rock, with a decidingly substitute bent. Many of these songs sound rather a bit like material from “Counterparts” or “Test For Echo”, but with a heavier bent and more guitar drive. Edwin’s voice is night-and-day from Geddy Lee, which furthers the distinction (Dalballo sounds rather a bit like a young Lee at times, however). The material is somewhat successful, “Promise” is both the most straightforward of the songs and the most successful, with a great driving backbeat and killer riffing courtesy of Lifeson. “Sending a Warning” is likewise a great song, Edwin seems particularly vested in this one, the energy behind his vocal is stunning. The rest of the material is harder edged– almost as if Rush had never abandoned their metal sound but sort of met the Melvins halfway instead. Its ok, but not spectacular.

Beyond this material, the two songs from Lifeson’s son are a bit more interesting– fundamentally Lifeson uses a heap of programmed rhythms and synth sounds his son assembled and overdubbed his band. “At the End” is in truth interesting, a story of a man lost after his love’s death, spoken by Lifeson and featuring some stunning, layered harmonies at the end.

Similar in tone to “At the End” is Lifeson’s “Victor”– setting Auden’s poem to music, it is another largely electronica piece with Lifeson doing a spoken word narration, he actually captures the feel of the poem wonderfully, and this may be the most successful piece on the album.

There’s also a pair of decent instrumentals that showcase Lifeson’s guitar playing and feature rhythm section Peter Cardinali on bass and drummer Blake Manning, the second of these two, “Shut Up Shuttin’ Up”, features a bizarre spoken rambling by Lifeson’s wife and her friend when it comes to habits their men have. As bizarre as it sounds (and as obnoxious as the guitar playing references are), the song is spectacular and Lifeson pulls all the stops on the guitar. One last piece is an instrumental duet amidst Lifeson and Bell (“Strip and Go Naked”) that kind of plods and never actually gets anywhere.

Overall, the album is decent, if not exclusively satisfying. It has sufficient good stuff on it to make it worth tracking down, peculiarly for a Rush fan.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
An Accomplished Album of Hard Prog-Rock
By D.A.Knight
Although this CD is the solo album by Alex Lifeson of Rush, it is not one thing like that band’s efforts. There is an even harder edged sound on Victor than Rush’s Counterparts album, but like that album, the mutual theme is one of relationships.

“Start Today,” with Lisa Dalbello, and “I Am The Spirit,” with Edwin, formerly of I Mother Earth, have more or less positive views of relationships, while the rest are reasonably angry, or sombre. This leaves all interpretations of the album as a whole, with the listener. A conception album for a break-up or a mid-life crisis, if you will.

Mrs. Lifeson handles the vocals on “Shut Up Shutting Up,” as well as the lyrics it seems. The title track, puts the poem of the same name by W.H. Auden to atypically eerie music. “Strip And Go Naked,” is my favourite instrumental from the album, with a hint of Celtic-influence, in a wash of keyboards, and some shredding guitar work.

Not as deep as Peart, but a lot less pretentious for it. And surely not so distinctively left-wing as numerous Toronto artistes!

See all 38 client reviews…