YES - Tales from Topographic Oceans

richardh wrote: ... irate at Mosh's comments about it being a 50 cent album and only worthy of the bargain bucket end of prog even though he may have been meant a bit tongue in cheek. ...

Hi,

At the time, I was already busy with IMPORTS, which was about all the foreign bands that we mention here on various lists from the time.

I think my job at the time was cooking somewhere, for like $4.50, or something like that ... and my finances were limited ... and I couldn't help it ... choice between AD2, Can, Le Orme, Ange, Banco, PFM ... was a much better deal for me, so I never bought the RW stuff ... didn't have enough money for it. But when I saw it in the used bin, for that price, it came home ... and the album was not "new" for me, like the other stuff as imports, and Guy was already in the station and it played some of it, so I was familiar with it, and I wanted the stuff that I didn't have, or in this case we didn't have, in order to help Guy with his show better.

But all in all, RW FOR ME, is not as valuable as many others that have done much more meaningful and far out work. As I mentioned, Vangelis, Ryuichi, Keith, rank further up for me, if I have to make a call on favorites. But RW is not a "visual" composer per se, like those three were, and as was the case with my days in theater and some film, I was on the side of the experimentalists, and had been since the days I discovered "surrealism", though it had a tendency to go to a level that was a bit on the ridiculous side at times. But the music those 3 created, and two of them have Oscars for it, was immense and special ... again, I constantly show folks how Keith was much more of a contemporary composer than a simple rock keyboard player, and all you have to do is listen to Rachel Flowers do TARKUS on a piano, or an organ by herself ... it was a magnificent Piano Concerto. I can't say that I have found or enjoyed RW's work to that level, and a piece of music named for this person or that person is idealistic at best ... similar to one truth in theater ... the audience on Thursday is different than the one on Friday, and different from the one on Saturday, and RW thinking that we are supposed to create an image of each of those women, was too much for me ... it is very rock'n'roll story oriented so to speak, without lyrics in this case ... but I could not exactly feel a whole lot in that album like ai did so many other things.

It's a different world we came up in ... my dad had over 50 operas in the house, and I remember many of them, but I can't say I even remember any part of RW's work, other than the huge organ part in CTTE, which was more rock SHOW than it was music related.

My music appreciation is about ALL MUSIC ... not just RW. And it includes a good 600 years of history and appreciation ... and when comparing things, I'm sorry ... RW doesn't exactly shine, but that is not to say he is not good ... but I tell you ... I wanna hear his work COMPLETELY UNPLUGGED ... and I bet it won't shine as much. You can unplug Ryuichi, Vangelis and Keith all day ... and their beauty is there and always will be!

Edited by moshkito - 3 hours 45 minutes ago at 23:58