A Retrospective on The Orion Experience
My senior year was a hectic yet high note to end my youth. After a brief attempt at online school, where I had a hard time migrating due to the lack of many key benefits of online learning, I moved to an in-person school. I was surrounded by a lot more representation, learned about many new philosophies that shaped up my ideas, and I was able to make friends and invite them places, which I haven’t done in so long.
From the time I went there to my graduation, I started learning to enjoy full albums, such as Demon Days and The Wall. Many bands I had the full discography of on my MP3 player were Kraftwerk(soundtrack of my trip to Seattle), Yellow Magic Orchestra(R.I.P. Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi), and of course, The Orion Experience.
For me, The Orion Experience is the one band that I was continuously listening to in high school, almost like a soundtrack to my day, getting to school, walking to class, eating lunch, working on homework, among other things. However, after my graduation, it started to sound stale, and I lost interest…just in time for things to turn sour.
Kitty In The Tree: Pre-Orion
Before the experience, Orion started in the Tree with the album “Hello Kitty”. I like this album probably more now than I did when I first listened to it then. Some songs I really liked from this one are “Starf**ker”, “Galaxy Holiday”, “Together”, and “The Dotted Line”. “Galaxy Holiday” is especially great, with very memorable singing and a style that reminds me of “Sunset Strip” by Custard. There are even songs that you can say is proto-Orion Experience, such as “She’s My Heroine” and “C’mon”.
Some of the other songs didn’t catch my attention as much, but this album can still be fun and at times. I feel like it’s a good prototype to the rest of Orion’s career, and I’d even go as far to say that it has much more character and charm than The Orion Experience.
Speaking of which…
Cosmicandy: A Sweet Beginning
Cosmicandy was the first album I listened to. Listening to it now, it still sounds just as good as it would have been in 2006(Yeah, same year as The Black Parade, that old!). It was released under Sweet! Records, which I believe is Orion’s own record label in the same vein as Third Worlds for Death Grips and A-F Records for Anti-Flag.
One thing to note is that it’s not just Orion that sings on this album. There is also Linda XO, and she either sings with Orion in a duet like in “The Cult of Dionysus”, or one of the two would sing alone at times like in “Like Sexy Dynamite”. This gives the album a double-perspective like in “Adrianne” and can even be used to present a well-done effect like in “There’s No Love in February”. Not to mention, this will be the only time you’d hear the talent of Marcus Farrar and Kareem Lamar.
The first two tracks are already pretty well done. “Queen of White Lies” is a great beginning track, giving us a groovy beginning to the album as well as lyrics describing something of a questionable relationship being described through playful banter. “The Cult of Dionysus” is a more pop rock oriented piece, describing a cult where free love, hope, and hedonism is afoot. Being their most popular song, I haven’t enjoyed this one as much.
The tracks “I Love The Stars”,”Like Sexy Dynamite” and “Your New Boyfriend” never kept my interest as much as “Adrianne”, a song about a gender-ambiguous fellow Orion and Linda knew. “There’s No Love In February” is my personal favourite due to me feeling lonely throughout my senior year. It still stands as a pretty solid work by the band.
The album ends on two very activist-friendly tracks, “We Are The Ones” and “Blood and Money”. The first one, while I understand the message and it’s very danceable, feels a bit extreme. I like to call the second one a progressive anthem, one that seems to take a jab at punks and anarchists for violence(despite the fact that there are some that are, in fact, pacifists.)
Now, there is one track I have not mentioned, mainly due to how much it stands out from the rest of the album. “Obsessed With You” comes out of left field entirely with it’s upbeat tone and lyrics from the perspective of a stalker. I remember recommending the band to a co-worker and her telling me the next day that someone next to her heard her listening to that song. They gave her a weird look, probably due to the lyrics, and this reveals the one thing that makes The Orion Experience somewhat special to some: they get serious about some topics, but others are just them messing about. However, a lot of the time, listeners would have a hard time distinguishing what is meant and what is not, unless the listener is already familiar with the band. Needless to say, if you get easily offended, this song, as well as some works from the band, won’t be for you.
Children of the Stars: Love Saves the Day
While Cosmicandy was the first album I listened to, the first song I listened to by the band came from this one. This is a much more segue-heavy album, containing interludes as well as seamless transitions between songs. There is only one well known song from this one, “S.T.A.R. Child”. This is the first song that I heard from the band, and the best way to describe this song is “Sounds like something out of an Adult Swim skit”.
The rest of the album has other songs that make you want to dance in some way, such as “Children of the Stars”, “Electric Moves” and “Heart in My Pocket”. The other half of the album has songs more meant to send a message, such as “Win It All”, “Heaven”, and the concluding song, “Love Saves The Day”. “Win It All” is especially uplifting and important to me, becoming the one song that I listened to the most from the album and the one that encouraged me throughout my senior year to switch jobs and achieve as much as I can. With the exception of “Dandy”, the weakest track on the album, all the others are interludes.
My biggest complaint is that it’s positivity can wear off pretty quickly, and at times, it can feel a bit overbearing. I would recommend this album mainly for those who REALLY need some positivity in their lives. Anyone else would find it kind of sappy.
Sugar Deluxe: A Compilation.
This is a compilation that mixes two of their EPs, Heartbreaker and NYC Girl, kind of like The Powers that B by Death Grips. I didn’t listen to this one much, but now I did, and I don’t like it that much.
For the Heartbreaker songs, they skipped on Nice Guys Finish Last, which I will link down below. But the rest of the songs are pretty well done. “Sugar” is like a villain song by a candy shop owner made to sound alluring, and You’re So Cool” is a very positive song straight out of High School Musical, but “Heartbreaker” isn’t all that interesting, but the use of an acoustic guitar is pretty good throughout.
However, the songs from NYC Girl range from next level to hit and miss. Sure, “Vampire” and “NYC Girl” are very enjoyable and have instrumentation straight out of something made in the 70s, but the other three, while I can see the mood they are going for, don’t have the best execution. The one that struck me the most is “Emerald Eyes”, which is Orion trying to imitate Elvis Presley and other 50s acts, but the chanting parts feel a bit complicated, and the instrumentation later adds too much to make it feel as danceable as the classics. The other two songs, “Sweet Friend” and “Rollercoaster”, don’t catch on and end up becoming forgettable.
Now, if you’ve been doing the math, they only included 8 songs from the EPs, and there are only two others: one at the beginning and another at the end. The first track is like a throwback to their earlier works, which is a pretty good way to get people dancing and feels like something out of the beginning of a teen movie for TV. The last track, however, doesn’t hold up as well.
Overall, I don’t care much for this album, but there are some gems here.
Fever Dream: Intriguing Synths, Though
By far their shortest album, this is also their weakest in my opinion. The two songs I really care about here are “All Dolled Up” and “Roll With Me”, but the rest don’t have much to offer.
“Digital Affection” and “Cosmicandy Girl” are very good and danceable, the latter somewhat reminding me of Steven Universe, but “Night Eyes” and “I Can Read Your Mind” don’t have a lot to excite, though I found the first few seconds of both very enjoyable. “Honeysuckle Kisses” is a good showcase of Linda XO’s talent, and the chanting and other repetitive parts in the song are pretty fun.
In the end, there is “Fever Dream”, probably their most progressive and even experimental work. At some moments in the song, you hear footsteps and doors open, almost as if we were entering some new, surreal world. This is one to definitely listen to entirely on your own. You’ll see once you hear the end.
The Wane Before The Storm
After I graduated from high school, I listened to The Orion Experience less and less, probably because they didn’t connect with me as life started to look up for me. Also, I started getting into more experimental and abrasive music, so it didn’t have the same feeling to me as it did before.
However, like when I deleted my Twitter account, I got out at just the right time for shit to hit the fan. I started finding videos and posts around the Internet accusing Orion of grooming minors over Instagram with screenshots of some of the conversations he had, as well as some alleging that he sung about his victims in his songs. It mainly made the rounds on TikTok, but I was able to learn about them on YouTube and other articles.
At first, I thought the allegations were phony. But after doing some research, I found the conversations quite alarming. However, I still remain skeptical due to all the sources being mainly from individual posts and questionable sites, such as an Australian celebrity news website, one TikTok account ran by the victims in question, a Tumblr post, and a Change.org petition. I really do hope that the victims can talk with their families to hire an attorney and sue Orion to bring about real justice once they’re done posting videos on TikTok about the lyrics and organising campaigns to flood the band’s social media with information regarding the allegations(no hard feelings).
I think the best way to sum up my thoughts on the whole thing is this response to an edit on Wikipedia:
But it doesn’t matter what I, or this guy thinks about the whole ordeal, because Orion apparently tried to apologise and failed miserably, later deleting his TikTok probably because he was attacked. It wouldn’t be too long before these allegations would affect their business deals. Needlejuice Records, the company that presses their physical copies, officially cut ties with the band and destroyed their stock inventory.
Side note: One thing I noticed is that on any of The Orion Experience’s videos, you won’t find any comments mentioning the allegations. This is mainly because their comment section is heavily moderated, and sometimes they reply(even the particularly vague ones!). But when I go to a video not posted by them, like a sped up version of the song, I see a whole myriad of comments related to the allegations, and some of the positive comments end up with someone saying “hey just letting u know they’re a gr00mer”. So, that’s interesting.
Conclusion
The Orion Experience hasn’t gone away, surprisingly. They still put out songs, even some solos, and have been preparing a cover album coming out in May, which I have no interest in waiting for because I don’t want to listen to a whole album dedicated to other people’s songs being covered by one band.
Although the frontman of the band was “revealed to be a horrible person”, I credit this band as being the one that got me to enjoy more positive music. My main tastes involve me listening to something dark, heavy, and experimental like Death Grips, Xiu Xiu, or the works of Aphex Twin. But if I want to wind down, I can relax and enjoy something like the Bluey soundtrack, which I have been enjoying a lot recently.
I might not like the band as much as I did in my senior year of high school, but for me, I think it’s best to look back on those times and think “yeah, I had fun.”.
External Links:
Nice Guys Finish Last: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvU2qVAs9tA
PopTopic.au covers the allegations: https://poptopic.com.au/news/the-orion-experience-singer-accused-of-grooming-more-by-11-year-old/
Tumblr post by Anarkiddo: https://anarkiddo.tumblr.com/post/678945555955793920/orion-simprini-of-the-orion-experience-is-a
Project Artemis(For the love of God, don’t harass them.): https://www.tiktok.com/@project.artemis?lang=en
