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Joined: January 09 2015
Location: Sharpsburg, ga
Status: Offline
Points: 26
Topic: Gentle Giant Posted: April 14 2017 at 22:02
I Know that I am a newb here but as far as I'm concerned to earn credibility in this group I must fist past the test. This is my favorite Gentle Giant song
Joined: September 03 2005
Location: Olympus Mons
Status: Offline
Points: 15916
Posted: April 14 2017 at 22:46
I obsess over the first 5 GG albums. All 5 star records. The only cop-out they've done was Giant For A Day. Even Civilian was much better than that one.
Joined: February 09 2017
Location: Fort Erie
Status: Offline
Points: 501
Posted: April 15 2017 at 04:30
There's not a bad Gentle Giant album. I do agree with the Giant For A Day / Civilian comment though. Arguably my favourite band of all time. Beyond categorization. In A Glass House was perhaps their best. What a cool cover concept. I have 4 original copies of that one! Never did understand why it was never released in North America. I mean none of their albums had any freaking commercial potential.None of their songs were ruined by radio. The only album I ever heard on FM radio back in the seventies was Giant For a Day.
This is the one band that I wish I had seen live. And even though they haven't been around for almost 3 decades they have one of the best websites of any prog band from the seventies.
The book Rocking the Classics by Ed Macan has this to say about Gentle Giant.
"Gentle Giant added elements of cool jazz and renaissance music to the symphonic/folk framework, creating a dauntingly complex approach characterized by spasmodic rhythms, dense textures, and an extraordinarily varied instrumentation. Their almost manneristic progressive rock can be heard to best effect on OCTOPUS (1973) and the excellent FREE HAND (1975)."
"Suffice it to say that no one is likely to confuse the savage energy of King Crimson and Van der Graaf Generator in their mid-1970's incarnations with the disinterested density of Gentle Giant..."
"Progressive rock was able to solve yet another challenge posed by the psychedelic jam - how to create a sense of direction - by drawing on 19th-century symphonic music's fondness for building up tension until a shattering climax is reached, upbruptly tapering off, and then starting the whole process anew.... An effective extension of this technique involves marking off a climax by using electronic instruments to give a heavy rock treatment to a theme that had initially been stated quietly in an acoustic setting (notice once again the feminine/masculine dynamic at work again). ELP's "Trilogy," UK's "30 Years," Gentle Giant's "His Last Voyage"..."
Not really one of my favorite bands but I do enjoy them from time to time. That being said I nonetheless do think they were more or less on the same level as just about anyone from back in the day. As far as musicianship and musical ability(composition) goes I think maybe only a few bands were as good.
Joined: January 04 2007
Location: Grok City
Status: Offline
Points: 16146
Posted: April 15 2017 at 18:43
Hi,
GG, for me, makes more sense when you start at the beginning, and you can see the folk, and other influences at work and play. By the time of "Interview" it was much more of a rock band with a lot of strangeness and weirdness to make it interesting, but I'm not sure it was as nice and crazy and exciting, as all the early material for this band.
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com
Joined: June 18 2009
Location: Mexico
Status: Offline
Points: 12581
Posted: April 15 2017 at 20:28
I only have their first 4 albums, plus the live Playing the Fool, and I have heard The Power and the Glory and Free Hand on Youtube. For what I have heard, it is mostly the albums with Phil the ones I like, after that they became too unmelodic for my taste. And mainly, it is the first 2 albums that I really love, the next two aren't that very great either (perhaps it was that shifting of direction what made Phil leave the band, and once he was gone the shift was completed?).
Joined: October 02 2005
Location: .
Status: Offline
Points: 46828
Posted: April 16 2017 at 07:22
^ yeah.... their sound went off the rails after Phil left the band. Became more prog for prog's sake (look how complex and talented we are... forget about great songs and melodies) which is a cardinal sin of prog rock. The early albums had a sense of atmosphere and air space that the later albums completely forgot.. not to mention missing Phil's unique vocal contributions... adore the first 4... care very little for the rest.
^ yeah.... their sound went off the rails after Phil left the band. Became more prog for prog's sake (look how complex and talented we are... forget about great songs and melodies) which is a cardinal sin of prog rock. The early albums had a sense of atmosphere and air space that the later albums completely forgot.. not to mention missing Phil's unique vocal contributions... adore the first 4... care very little for the rest.
So you don't like IAGH? Usually that's considered their best or one of their best.
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Joined: October 05 2013
Location: SFcaUsA
Status: Offline
Points: 14717
Posted: April 16 2017 at 09:04
I love all Gentle Giant even the oft hated later ones (except Civilian)
Gentle Giant were master of melody, complexity and counterpoint
Personally i love their so-called complexity-for-complexities sake phase
Despite claims that melodies don't exist i would just say there are such things as highly advanced melodies that need indoctrination to sink in. Basically one of the best bands of any genre EVER!
Joined: October 02 2005
Location: .
Status: Offline
Points: 46828
Posted: April 16 2017 at 09:40
AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:
micky wrote:
^ yeah.... their sound went off the rails after Phil left the band. Became more prog for prog's sake (look how complex and talented we are... forget about great songs and melodies) which is a cardinal sin of prog rock. The early albums had a sense of atmosphere and air space that the later albums completely forgot.. not to mention missing Phil's unique vocal contributions... adore the first 4... care very little for the rest.
So you don't like IAGH? Usually that's considered their best or one of their best.
I sure wouldn't be batsh*t crazy enough to call it their best... but that is not the same as saying I don't like the album which I've never said I didn't . It is an decent album..one of about several thousand such albums in our collection.. nothing more .. nothing less. Of their second phase albums I'd put TPatG over IAGH in terms of the songwriting and execution of them. Pure personal preference I suppose... some people get off on emotionless, cold impersonal 'complex for complexities' sake music. I don't
Joined: January 24 2010
Location: Canada
Status: Offline
Points: 8068
Posted: April 16 2017 at 10:16
I think their best album is Free Hand, and second to that The Missing Piece! Three Friends has always left me cold. Interview is a great record, and I have never heard Civilian. Giant On The Box is my fave prog video. (that is, until the Triumvirat PBS TV Spartacus one turns up)
Joined: August 16 2009
Location: rio de janeiro
Status: Offline
Points: 990
Posted: April 16 2017 at 16:01
Gentle Giant is one of my favorite bands, Acquiring the Taste, In a Glass House and Freehand are my top albums... from other albums I can cite some other great songs:
Cogs in Cogs ( Power and the Glory ) Prologue (Three Friends) I'm Turning Around and Memories Of Old Days (Missing Piece)
Although I don't consider Interview a "weak" album I can't detach any song !
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Gentle Giant
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micky wrote:
. It is an decent album..one of about several thousand such albums in our collection.. nothing more .. nothing less. Of their second phase albums I'd put TPatG over IAGH in terms of the songwriting and execution of them. Pure personal preference I suppose... some people get off on emotionless, cold impersonal 'complex for complexities' sake music. I don't 
