Changing the order of tracks and/or skipping some

David_D wrote: AlanB wrote: When I bought my first copy of Argus by Wishbone Ash it was on cassette. For some reason I don't understand, sides one and two were reversed and for years I thought the album started with The King Will Come and ended with Blowing Free. That actually made sense to me because The King Will Come is an obvious opener for live shows and Blowing Free was often the show closer or encore. It was only when I replaced my cassette with a vinyl copy that I realised that Time Was was the opening track but I still think the cassette order of songs is better. This reminds me of Judas Priest's Sad Wings of Destiny (not on PA). On the original release and early reissues, side 1 and side 2 were on the cover list the opposite of those on the vinyl itself, and this order makes best sense to me. For it means that the album opens with "Prelude", has imo better flow in its entirety, and I also find "Dreamer Deceiver" and "Deceiver" to be best final tracks.

Either order is fine but yes that might work better since that album loses it's steam after "Tyrant" in my opinion, the last three tracks being meh.

Just thought of another good example:

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is one of my Top 5 favorite Genesis albums, but...

1) I ALWAYS skip over "The Waiting Room".
2) 95% of the time, I skip over "The Lamia".
3) On very rare occasions, I've skipped over "Ravine" and that bizarre instrumental overture to "The Colony of Slippermen".
4) I've NEVER skipped over "Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats", because I absolutely LOVE that brief atmospheric masterpiece in spite of other listeners always complaining about it.

Steve Wyzard wrote: It's been a LONG time since I've listened to Judas Priest, but I always liked "Epitaph" on Sad Wings of Destiny. It was such a change of pace on an otherwise intense album and Halford's vocal is wonderful.

I was never a fan of that song. Although oddly enough I remember seeing that song on some professional greatest prog rock songs of all time list scratching my heads thinking "how is this prog?" and "why this and not King Crimson's Epitaph?"

When TFTO first came out, I used to listen to Side One (Revealing Science of God), flip the disc to Side Two (The Remembering), and then move on to another band like Genesis. Basically, I was "Yessed out!"

I actually never heard sides 3 and 4 for some time!   As far as I’m concerned, an ideal revised TFTO would be either sides 1 and 2, or sides 1 and 4.

I really love “The Remembering,” although I know it is not the favorite of many on PA.

cstack3 wrote: When TFTO first came out, I used to listen to Side One (Revealing Science of God), flip the disc to Side Two (The Remembering), and then move on to another band like Genesis. Basically, I was "Yessed out!" I actually never heard sides 3 and 4 for some time!   As far as I’m concerned, an ideal revised TFTO would be either sides 1 and 2, or sides 1 and 4. I really love “The Remembering,” although I know it is not the favorite of many on PA.

I really love all four sides. They are each different legs of the journey and bring their own personality, but they have a synergy as well. I listen to most Yes sparingly now because I've heard them so many times, and I subscribe to the "absence makes the heart grow fonder" theory perhaps. But they never disappoint.

cstack3 wrote: When TFTO first came out, I used to listen to Side One (Revealing Science of God), flip the disc to Side Two (The Remembering), and then move on to another band like Genesis. Basically, I was "Yessed out!" I actually never heard sides 3 and 4 for some time!   As far as I’m concerned, an ideal revised TFTO would be either sides 1 and 2, or sides 1 and 4. ...

Hi,

This is strange for me. I grew up on classical music and have always appreciated things that had a lot of length, and you work through them ... and the revenge of the rock'n'roll nerds against the history of music? Dump the parts you don't like, and if you do your own list for the drive, skip the stuff you don't like, or whatever.

There is no way, that anyone, as far as I see and understand, can get a good view and proper understanding of what the music and its design is about, when you skip the parts, and this is the saddest thing about rock music in the 21st century ... it's not about the art at all ... it's about the selfishness of the fan, that doesn't like this or that ... the one who is not the artist deciding what is good or bad.

Go buy the Goo Goo Farts!

It's a matter of time, and someone will cut down Beethoven's 5th or 9th ... I can see it now ... wtfudge is a choral doing here? I can see it now, Tchaikovsky gets his pieces broken down to half their length because so much of it is "filler".

AND WE THINK OF OURSELVES AS PROGRESSIVE AND THE FOLKS THAT HOLD UP ITS HISTORY ... BUT IN THE END WE TREAT IT LIKE THE NUMBERED STUFF THAT IS NOT PROGRESSIVE AT ALL ... and then state the bad things that we are stating here ... do most of you really like the music, or is this just a mask?

Hard to believe that so many folks here consider themselves "progressive" ... you don't rip the music down like the AM radio did a long time ago with a 15 second Light My Fire, and and a 2 minute I put a spell on you ... we're doing the same thing all over again ... and many folks here hate it when I mention history!

TFTO is perfect from the first minute to the last minute, and as I said before when I left the YES concert in 1972 ... it was the end of the music that was important, when all the folks woke up for Roundabout ... it's like the music did not matter, and the artistry was crap ... I still think the audience was crap, and came to hear one song ... not anything else.

cstack3 wrote: Thanks, M, great perspective! It is a matter of taste....I don't like all Bach, nor all Beethoven, etc. I would have been very happy with a two-sided TFTO, with a follow up album later, or perhaps even a live album. I think the work needed some editing, but they chose to issue it as they did, which I accept. Similarly, there are several parts of Lamb Lies Down that I don't care for, and so I don't listen to them. Musicians offer their music to an audience, and we are allowed to make choices.   As a musician and composer, I recognize that. ...

Hi,

My thoughts are that we need to separate the artist from the fan, or buyer. IF, an artist is worried about the work, and its acceptance to the public, I am not sure that he/she is an artist. Living, based on someone else's ideas and tastes is not a good path to doing well in music, or any art.

The thing that hurts, is people wishing to change the work, because of parts they do not like ... and no artist will EVER live to that, and be a slave to the machine that is the public and the commercial side of things. You can't be free, if you are doing what the public is ... or what the advertising is specifying, because it doesn't sound right or is particularly pretty like pop songs with a dancing girl on it!

The hard part, is the appreciation for PROGRESSIVE MUSIC, a lot of its parts being the "progressive part" of the work, and us here, criticizing and not liking those specific parts. Not understanding things in the arts is not a good reason to say that it is bad, or not be appreciated. Music history has always shown us how some things didn't take for a while, and us looking at parts of a piece of music, to destroy it, is a sad comment on the appreciation of music, or the art form in general. It is a comment about the fan ... not the artist ... and this separation needs to be made, but if you don't like the artist for that part in the piece of music, there is only one person that is not understanding or appreciating the music in its totality ... and it ain't the artist!

Who you gonna give the voice to? To the folks that are going to destroy PROGRESSIVE MUSIC and turn it into the pop crap out there?

cstack3 wrote: ... Very deep thoughts, M! Thanks, I'll reconsider! Like many, I've fallen into the "track" mode of listening, vs. encompassing the entire work in one sitting. You make valid points.

Hi,

For me, the thing that we call PROGRESSIVE is important. AND what brought us here was the fact that it continued doing so against the grain and the norm, and specially in America, against radio, and the FM Radio band for some 10 years was immense help.

I got to see the music become REAL, and make a life of its own, and win the battle and the war of the radio waves. AM Radio had nothing to stand up for in the end!

But the sad side of things is this board all falling into the commercial side that all PROGRESSIVE music went against in the early days, in order to create something new ... and you have no choice but to go opposite, or against the grain, if you want to be a part of NEW MUSIC.

It feels like the fans, don't want you to know, or hear the new stuff, most of which would come from experimental and weird parts everywhere, and this is where RW and DG are wrong in trashing their early days ... like they learned nothing then! You know that's a crock of custard! And even worse, RW trashing TFTO ... so his own solo work is thought/considered better ... it isn't! Conventional yes, but original, NO. Thus, not progressive!

We forgot what "progressive" meant and was! Plain and simple!

cstack3 wrote: Finnforest wrote: cstack3 wrote: When TFTO first came out, I used to listen to Side One (Revealing Science of God), flip the disc to Side Two (The Remembering), and then move on to another band like Genesis. Basically, I was "Yessed out!" I actually never heard sides 3 and 4 for some time!   As far as I’m concerned, an ideal revised TFTO would be either sides 1 and 2, or sides 1 and 4. I really love “The Remembering,” although I know it is not the favorite of many on PA. I really love all four sides. They are each different legs of the journey and bring their own personality, but they have a synergy as well. I listen to most Yes sparingly now because I've heard them so many times, and I subscribe to the "absence makes the heart grow fonder" theory perhaps. But they never disappoint. Thank you for responding! As a prog musician myself (I play a Rickenbacker bass in Squire's style), I don't so much "listen" to Tales as I study it intently!! For example, Squire plays a fretless Guild bass with a plectrum to emulate the sound of an orchestra tympani!!   A remarkable musical innovation!! That said, I never completely embraced "The Ancient" as much as the other sides, although it does contain some of the most melodic movements in the entire work. I need to listen to it some more? "Relayer....all the dying cried before you..." What lyrics!!   This is Howe playing his Les Paul Junior during a life performance of "Ritual" in Chicago, the Solo Albums tour!

Cool pic! I saw Howe live in 94 at a nightclub show. Just him on a stool. One of the cooler nights on my concert list. I can't remember everything he played, but Mood for a Day and Turn of the Century were awesome. Not so awesome was listening to him trying to sing Heat of the Moment by himself.