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Dellinger 
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 Posted: April 14 2014 at 21:36 |
 rogerthat wrote:
Let me put it this way, WYWH is the album that works best for a general audience rather than a hardcore PF audience. It has a singalong easy acoustic track and a lush, emotional epic with more of a traditional prog structure. Notice how many hardcore Genesis fans insist Nursery Cryme is their best album while prog fans in general gravitate to SEBTP. WYWH performs the same function with respect to Floyd. It is not surprising that WYWH often gets hailed as their best but as a Floyd fan, I would not agree. There are parts that I find positively dreary though on the whole I do like it a lot.
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Well, I am certainly a Floyd fan, and as such, I can say that my favourite Floyd album is Wish you were Here. And do you know which is Gilmour's favourite Floyd album? Wish you were Here itself. So, I guess it's not a matter of being a Floyd fand or a prog fan or a 70's classic rock fan or whatever, it's just a matter of taste.
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Mirror Image
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Posted: April 14 2014 at 21:42 |
M27Barney wrote:
Yep it's a classic argument to be sure - but a valid one none-the-less!! |
But your 'argument' denies the facts. It's one thing to not like the album, but it's a completely different 'animal' (haha..cool pun huh?) to make the accusation that Dark Side is overrated due to it's apparent popularity. I don't think these guys had any idea that this album was going to chart the kind of success it has received. Simply put, this masterpiece is revered and with good reason: it's a seamless blend of utter genius and human emotion.
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“Music is enough for a lifetime but a lifetime is not enough for music.” - Sergei Rachmaninov
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Chris S
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Posted: April 14 2014 at 23:20 |
Mirror Image wrote:
M27Barney wrote:
Echoes is good (apart from the crow/raven squawking bit in the middle??)
I'd agree - I haven't heard Animals for a long while now - but I think that it is far better than DSOTM - which I can honestly say must be the most overrated recording on this site!!! (yes the production is brilliant for it's time - but isn't it just a set of mid seventies pop songs?) Lets face it - DSOTM is the one recording that NON prog fans love!!! that is the smoking gun as far as I'm concerned!!! |
A good post until you had to slam Dark Side of the Moon for no good reason. It is a masterpiece and it's not because I said it was, it's because it continues to be recognized year after year as one not only by fans, critics, but also other musicians. Steve Hackett said Dark Side of the Moon was his favorite prog album. Pretty high praise indeed coming from someone who worked in another one of the greatest prog bands of all time: Genesis. |
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<font color=Brown>Music - The Sound Librarian
...As I venture through the slipstream, between the viaducts in your dreams...[/COLOR]
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richardh
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Posted: April 15 2014 at 01:29 |
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I've always thought DSOTM was overrated personally and stated that opinion on more than one occasion. Put Dark in the title with minimalistic artwork and lyrics that middle class bankers can go apesh*t over and you have a masterpeice. It was the rich pickings from that album that put Pink Floyd in an untouchable position and gave them the chance to really indulge themselves properly with the next 3 albums. DSOTM works well live though. Never get tired of hearing the Australian Pink Floyd do Great Gig In The Sky. Thanks Claire!
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M27Barney
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Posted: April 15 2014 at 05:49 |
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I always seem to poke my twig into the wrong hole and I get the scorpion sting rather than the tasty termites I had been hoping for!!!
I didn't slam DSOTM - I think (as the above reflects upon) the superlative artwork and monumental catchy name! DID lead to it's enormous popularity...but for such superficial reasons! I reckon that a lot of proggers (aside from Floyd fan-buoys bobbing about in their own particular ocean) think that in terms of the music ( I think that the lyrical content is up to the usual Floyd standard of excellent!) the recording is obviously less than the masterpiece some people claim.
I have so much more musically worthy content in my collection that it wouldn't even make my top 500!!!
But hey - if you love it, carry on spinning it dudes!!!
It could well be the seventies recording that still get played the most! and that in itself is remarkable - but such popularism is anathema to most proggers who like me are well aware that our faves are dismissed out of hand as OTT self-indulgent garbage by the same audience that love DSOTM....
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Dean
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Posted: April 15 2014 at 06:30 |
M27Barney wrote:
I always seem to poke my twig into the wrong hole and I get the scorpion sting rather than the tasty termites I had been hoping for!!!
I didn't slam DSOTM - I think (as the above reflects upon) the superlative artwork and monumental catchy name! DID lead to it's enormous popularity...but for such superficial reasons! I reckon that a lot of proggers (aside from Floyd fan-buoys bobbing about in their own particular ocean) think that in terms of the music ( I think that the lyrical content is up to the usual Floyd standard of excellent!) the recording is obviously less than the masterpiece some people claim.
I have so much more musically worthy content in my collection that it wouldn't even make my top 500!!!
But hey - if you love it, carry on spinning it dudes!!!
It could well be the seventies recording that still get played the most! and that in itself is remarkable - but such popularism is anathema to most proggers who like me are well aware that our faves are dismissed out of hand as OTT self-indulgent garbage by the same audience that love DSOTM.... |
I think you are wrong because you are looking at it retrospectively. You have no choice in this because you were not a record-buying teenager in 1973.
The mass-appeal of DSotM had little to do with the minimalist cover art (other albums had that) or the cool title with "Dark" in the name (there was another album called Dark Side Of The Moon released the previous year that went nowhere even though the band in question scored a #3 single from their follow up album two months after Floyd released their DSotM). It wasn't even the result of a massive advertising promotion by EMI, because there wasn't one and in the UK it wasn't the result of radio-play or an attention-grabbing hit-single, because it had neither of those either.
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What?
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ExittheLemming
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Posted: April 15 2014 at 06:46 |
I'm not a Floyd fan, haven't even heard Animals in its entirety, heartily loathe Wish You Were Here and the Wall but do like Piper at the Gates of Dawn and most of Saucerful of Secrets. Just wanted to say that the music on DSOTM is clearly very accomplished, sophisticated, prescient and hook laden pop/rock but I personally find it a bit bland. However, I also think the lyrics are probably some of the greatest that have ever been included on any music album irrespective of style or genre. If you can present the following sentiment to everyman and make him or her embrace same as accessible art then you are richly deserving of the label of genius. This is some of the worst news any of us are ever likely to hear yet it somehow flies under the intellect's radar and the album's sales prove irrefutably that John Updike was correct when he said we contain chords someone else must strike:
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled linesEveryone's existential dilemma and ultimately thwarted desires are contained in these unflinching lines so kudos to Roger Waters for finally dispensing entirely with rock's perpetually re-enacted rites of passage. Maybe Pop music finally grew up on DSOTM? Maybe senile dementia (or at the very least incurable bed wetting) kicked in circa Tales From Topographic Oceans? 
Edited by ExittheLemming - April 15 2014 at 06:53
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M27Barney
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Posted: April 15 2014 at 08:05 |
Dean wrote:
M27Barney wrote:
I always seem to poke my twig into the wrong hole and I get the scorpion sting rather than the tasty termites I had been hoping for!!!
I didn't slam DSOTM - I think (as the above reflects upon) the superlative artwork and monumental catchy name! DID lead to it's enormous popularity...but for such superficial reasons! I reckon that a lot of proggers (aside from Floyd fan-buoys bobbing about in their own particular ocean) think that in terms of the music ( I think that the lyrical content is up to the usual Floyd standard of excellent!) the recording is obviously less than the masterpiece some people claim.
I have so much more musically worthy content in my collection that it wouldn't even make my top 500!!!
But hey - if you love it, carry on spinning it dudes!!!
It could well be the seventies recording that still get played the most! and that in itself is remarkable - but such popularism is anathema to most proggers who like me are well aware that our faves are dismissed out of hand as OTT self-indulgent garbage by the same audience that love DSOTM.... |
I think you are wrong because you are looking at it retrospectively. You have no choice in this because you were not a record-buying teenager in 1973. The mass-appeal of DSotM had little to do with the minimalist cover art (other albums had that) or the cool title with "Dark" in the name (there was another album called Dark Side Of The Moon released the previous year that went nowhere even though the band in question scored a #3 single from their follow up album two months after Floyd released their DSotM). It wasn't even the result of a massive advertising promotion by EMI, because there wasn't one and in the UK it wasn't the result of radio-play or an attention-grabbing hit-single, because it had neither of those either. |
How else am I supposed to look at an album that was released in 1973? - Quick, somebody invent a fookin time machine so I can go back in time and ask some punters on the street in 1973.... 
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M27Barney
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Posted: April 15 2014 at 08:09 |
Hmmm though on retrospect (hohoho!) if I could travel back in time - I'd possibly want to do something more important to me than trying to find out the zeitgeist in 1973..... 
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someone_else
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Posted: April 15 2014 at 08:22 |
Dean wrote:
M27Barney wrote:
I always seem to poke my twig into the wrong hole and I get the scorpion sting rather than the tasty termites I had been hoping for!!!
I didn't slam DSOTM - I think (as the above reflects upon) the superlative artwork and monumental catchy name! DID lead to it's enormous popularity...but for such superficial reasons! I reckon that a lot of proggers (aside from Floyd fan-buoys bobbing about in their own particular ocean) think that in terms of the music ( I think that the lyrical content is up to the usual Floyd standard of excellent!) the recording is obviously less than the masterpiece some people claim.
I have so much more musically worthy content in my collection that it wouldn't even make my top 500!!!
But hey - if you love it, carry on spinning it dudes!!!
It could well be the seventies recording that still get played the most! and that in itself is remarkable - but such popularism is anathema to most proggers who like me are well aware that our faves are dismissed out of hand as OTT self-indulgent garbage by the same audience that love DSOTM.... |
I think you are wrong because you are looking at it retrospectively. You have no choice in this because you were not a record-buying teenager in 1973. The mass-appeal of DSotM had little to do with the minimalist cover art (other albums had that) or the cool title with "Dark" in the name (there was another album called Dark Side Of The Moon released the previous year that went nowhere even though the band in question scored a #3 single from their follow up album two months after Floyd released their DSotM). It wasn't even the result of a massive advertising promotion by EMI, because there wasn't one and in the UK it wasn't the result of radio-play or an attention-grabbing hit-single, because it had neither of those either. |
Dark Side of the Moon marked my starting point as a record-buying teenager, just a few weeks after its release. I became a Floyd fanboy after hearing Relics and Atom Heart Mother some months earlier, so PF could do nothing wrong with me. That was a good reason for me to buy their new album. I remember having heard Time on the radio, sometime between 8:00 and 9:30 PM, when the broadcasting stations have ceased to throw up their daily overload of commercial crap. It has always been one of my favourite tracks on this album, which I still consider a masterpiece after 41 years, even if it ranks #4 on my current list of PF's studio albums.
Edited by someone_else - April 15 2014 at 08:23
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Dean
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Posted: April 15 2014 at 08:23 |
M27Barney wrote:
Dean wrote:
M27Barney wrote:
I always seem to poke my twig into the wrong hole and I get the scorpion sting rather than the tasty termites I had been hoping for!!!
I didn't slam DSOTM - I think (as the above reflects upon) the superlative artwork and monumental catchy name! DID lead to it's enormous popularity...but for such superficial reasons! I reckon that a lot of proggers (aside from Floyd fan-buoys bobbing about in their own particular ocean) think that in terms of the music ( I think that the lyrical content is up to the usual Floyd standard of excellent!) the recording is obviously less than the masterpiece some people claim.
I have so much more musically worthy content in my collection that it wouldn't even make my top 500!!!
But hey - if you love it, carry on spinning it dudes!!!
It could well be the seventies recording that still get played the most! and that in itself is remarkable - but such popularism is anathema to most proggers who like me are well aware that our faves are dismissed out of hand as OTT self-indulgent garbage by the same audience that love DSOTM.... |
I think you are wrong because you are looking at it retrospectively. You have no choice in this because you were not a record-buying teenager in 1973. The mass-appeal of DSotM had little to do with the minimalist cover art (other albums had that) or the cool title with "Dark" in the name (there was another album called Dark Side Of The Moon released the previous year that went nowhere even though the band in question scored a #3 single from their follow up album two months after Floyd released their DSotM). It wasn't even the result of a massive advertising promotion by EMI, because there wasn't one and in the UK it wasn't the result of radio-play or an attention-grabbing hit-single, because it had neither of those either. |
How else am I supposed to look at an album that was released in 1973? - Quick, somebody invent a fookin time machine so I can go back in time and ask some punters on the street in 1973.... |
Pre-bloody-cisely. You were not there so anything you say about how or why it became so popular can only be speculative, and in this case I believe, incorrect.
No one can actually pin-point why it became successful, as much as anything it became successful in spite of itself - (just like Tubular Bells did) it wasn't an instant "hit", it just burbled along selling well, just as Meddle had done before it (Meddle spent 80+ weeks in the UK album charts but never higher than #3).
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What?
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Chimaera
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Posted: April 15 2014 at 09:23 |
I'd never listened to any Floyd before Dark Side of the Moon until yesterday when I gave Meddle a listen. Echoes is clearly very special indeed but the rest of the album is a bit meh.
I love Animals. Probably my fave Floyd album and not overated IMO.
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lazland
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Location: Wales
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Posted: April 15 2014 at 09:23 |
Dean wrote:
M27Barney wrote:
Dean wrote:
M27Barney wrote:
I always seem to poke my twig into the wrong hole and I get the scorpion sting rather than the tasty termites I had been hoping for!!!
I didn't slam DSOTM - I think (as the above reflects upon) the superlative artwork and monumental catchy name! DID lead to it's enormous popularity...but for such superficial reasons! I reckon that a lot of proggers (aside from Floyd fan-buoys bobbing about in their own particular ocean) think that in terms of the music ( I think that the lyrical content is up to the usual Floyd standard of excellent!) the recording is obviously less than the masterpiece some people claim.
I have so much more musically worthy content in my collection that it wouldn't even make my top 500!!!
But hey - if you love it, carry on spinning it dudes!!!
It could well be the seventies recording that still get played the most! and that in itself is remarkable - but such popularism is anathema to most proggers who like me are well aware that our faves are dismissed out of hand as OTT self-indulgent garbage by the same audience that love DSOTM.... |
I think you are wrong because you are looking at it retrospectively. You have no choice in this because you were not a record-buying teenager in 1973. The mass-appeal of DSotM had little to do with the minimalist cover art (other albums had that) or the cool title with "Dark" in the name (there was another album called Dark Side Of The Moon released the previous year that went nowhere even though the band in question scored a #3 single from their follow up album two months after Floyd released their DSotM). It wasn't even the result of a massive advertising promotion by EMI, because there wasn't one and in the UK it wasn't the result of radio-play or an attention-grabbing hit-single, because it had neither of those either. |
How else am I supposed to look at an album that was released in 1973? - Quick, somebody invent a fookin time machine so I can go back in time and ask some punters on the street in 1973.... |
Pre-bloody-cisely. You were not there so anything you say about how or why it became so popular can only be speculative, and in this case I believe, incorrect.
No one can actually pin-point why it became successful, as much as anything it became successful in spite of itself - (just like Tubular Bells did) it wasn't an instant "hit", it just burbled along selling well, just as Meddle had done before it (Meddle spent 80+ weeks in the UK album charts but never higher than #3).
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I think the best explanation anyone came up with is that it coincided with that time when all our parents suddenly got new hi-fi systems on the never-never. DSOTM (and Tubular Bells, for that matter) were perfect for cool hip people to show off their new super–duper decks (man).
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Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org
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rogerthat
Prog Reviewer
Joined: September 03 2006
Location: .
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Posted: April 15 2014 at 09:57 |
Dellinger wrote:
rogerthat wrote:
Let me put it this way, WYWH is the album that works best for a general audience rather than a hardcore PF audience. It has a singalong easy acoustic track and a lush, emotional epic with more of a traditional prog structure. Notice how many hardcore Genesis fans insist Nursery Cryme is their best album while prog fans in general gravitate to SEBTP. WYWH performs the same function with respect to Floyd. It is not surprising that WYWH often gets hailed as their best but as a Floyd fan, I would not agree. There are parts that I find positively dreary though on the whole I do like it a lot.
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Well, I am certainly a Floyd fan, and as such, I can say that my favourite Floyd album is Wish you were Here. And do you know which is Gilmour's favourite Floyd album? Wish you were Here itself. So, I guess it's not a matter of being a Floyd fand or a prog fan or a 70's classic rock fan or whatever, it's just a matter of taste. |
I never said WYWH is a bad album or that it shouldn't be anybody's favourite album. Well, I think you would relate to my point better if you looked at the RYM charts for Pink Floyd. WYWH (4.31) and DSOTM (4.29) are comfortably at the top (with WYWH edging out even DSOTM) while Animals is quite a bit lower at 4.12 and Meddle even lower at 4.02. My point is simply that as a hardcore Floyd fan, I simply don't see this huge gap between WYWH and say Animals or Wall. Animals may not deliver the same experience as WYWH but it's just a different side of the band. A hardcore fan tends to embrace more facets of a band while a casual fan is more interested in the ones that tick all the 'must have' boxes of the genre. In Floyd's case, from a prog perspective, that album is WYWH so it's not surprising it is rated the highest. Ditto with SEBTP. It's not that I don't like the album and I have personally rated both Cryme and SEBTP the same. But I just don't see this gulf between Cryme and SEBTP; it's a different side of the band, that's all. At the same time, I do understand why non fans or casual fans would gravitate towards WYWH or SEBTP respectively and far be it for me to grudge their choice.
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rogerthat
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Location: .
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Posted: April 15 2014 at 10:02 |
ExittheLemming wrote:
I'm not a Floyd fan, haven't even heard Animals in its entirety, heartily loathe Wish You Were Here and the Wall but do like Piper at the Gates of Dawn and most of Saucerful of Secrets. Just wanted to say that the music on DSOTM is clearly very accomplished, sophisticated, prescient and hook laden pop/rock but I personally find it a bit bland. However, I also think the lyrics are probably some of the greatest that have ever been included on any music album irrespective of style or genre. If you can present the following sentiment to everyman and make him or her embrace same as accessible art then you are richly deserving of the label of genius. This is some of the worst news any of us are ever likely to hear yet it somehow flies under the intellect's radar and the album's sales prove irrefutably that John Updike was correct when he said we contain chords someone else must strike:
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Everyone's existential dilemma and ultimately thwarted desires are contained in these unflinching lines so kudos to Roger Waters for finally dispensing entirely with rock's perpetually re-enacted rites of passage. Maybe Pop music finally grew up on DSOTM? Maybe senile dementia (or at the very least incurable bed wetting) kicked in circa Tales From Topographic Oceans?
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Yes, that is a great explanation for Dark Side's enduring appeal and also the reason why it will be hard to make another Dark Side. An album that sums up so many of our worldly anxieties in just a few words will always have an audience.
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M27Barney
Forum Senior Member
Joined: November 09 2006
Location: Swinton M27
Status: Offline
Points: 3136
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Posted: April 15 2014 at 11:53 |
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Strangely, though (and you cannot prove otherwise as its a fact) clearly as earth is slowing down in it's spin! Each day is in fact slightly longer than the last! so as you get older the days are actually getting longer (not shorter). The child's perception of time is seemingly different than of an older adult! But this perception difference is very hard to quantify as it is clearly different depending on the context that the brain is using when parsing the effect of actual time against perceived time!!!
Regardless, Animals & WYWH and Meddle (Echoes) are all far superior from a prog point of view! Who would disagree??
Edited by M27Barney - April 15 2014 at 11:54
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Tom Ozric
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Posted: April 15 2014 at 15:38 |
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If I may chime in here - I've OD'd on DSOTM over the years so I give it 4 stars. It is a cleverly crafted set with amazing sound effects, cutting edge instrumentation, endless creativity and themes which relate to most folks. Call it destiny, but it was bound to be as popular as it became, simple and direct, yet complex and involved. I can't say I've met anyone who dislikes the album.
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dr wu23
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Location: Indiana
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Points: 20500
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Posted: April 15 2014 at 15:58 |
Tom Ozric wrote:
If I may chime in here - I've OD'd on DSOTM over the years so I give it 4 stars. It is a cleverly crafted set with amazing sound effects, cutting edge instrumentation, endless creativity and themes which relate to most folks. Call it destiny, but it was bound to be as popular as it became, simple and direct, yet complex and involved. I can't say I've met anyone who dislikes the album. |
That pretty much sums up what I was going to post about DSOTM.
If one looks at the ratings here on PS there isn't much difference.
DSOTM 4.59
WYWH 4.62
Animals 4.52
It's simply a matter of which one you like the best on personal reasons.
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One does nothing yet nothing is left undone.
Haquin
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Kentucky_Hawkwindage
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Joined: February 15 2014
Location: Hardinsburg,Ky
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Posted: April 15 2014 at 16:29 |
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Speaking for myself i'd much rather hear Animals any day than DSOTM.I haven't listened to DSOTM in years,unless by chance i heard a track of it on the local rock station-i'm not knocking it,just relaying a fact.In fact i still have a sealed CD of the DSOTM i bought years ago,just haven't had the urge to open it let alone play it.But i will some sunny day.I had a copy of DSOTM on white vinyl but sold it on ebay.....maybe i should have hung on to it?
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"Nobody's Gonna Change My World That's Something To Unreal" Lyrics that i live my life by-from Black Sabbath's Technical Ecstasy's track You Won't Change Me
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rogerthat
Prog Reviewer
Joined: September 03 2006
Location: .
Status: Offline
Points: 9869
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Posted: April 15 2014 at 19:16 |
M27Barney wrote:
Strangely, though (and you cannot prove otherwise as its a fact) clearly as earth is slowing down in it's spin! Each day is in fact slightly longer than the last! so as you get older the days are actually getting longer (not shorter). The child's perception of time is seemingly different than of an older adult! But this perception difference is very hard to quantify as it is clearly different depending on the context that the brain is using when parsing the effect of actual time against perceived time!!!
Regardless, Animals & WYWH and Meddle (Echoes) are all far superior from a prog point of view! Who would disagree?? |
I think the lines quite clearly, read with context, refer to our perception of time, to the 'time is running out' cliche. Because scientifically speaking, it's not the sun that's going down and coming up behind you again. '
And I would disagree with your second para, since you asked. I consider DSOTM lyrically superior to all those three albums and there's also an overall coherence which kind of makes it one long prog epic rather than a bunch of songs. If you look at it as a bunch of songs and disregard the lyrics, you are not going to like DSOTM very much indeed.
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