Update on my Gentle Giant hatred

After my last thread, I was surprised to find most people were understanding. A handful of people recommended i try acquiring the taste. So I did, and damn, this album is awesome. Honestly can’t point to a weak track. So uh... I guess you guys cured me, gonna try three friends next.

Thank you

Had a similar experience with Tull, couldn’t get into anything till I heard “Stand Up”. From there I was able to get into the rest of their stuff.

Edited by dougmcauliffe - July 31 2019 at 21:28

The first two albums are a pair; I suggest you listen to those. Three Friends is fantastic but be prepared for the bitch slap that is Octopus after that one! Glad you're experimenting with your tastes, sir! That's what PA is all about for me.

Acquiring the Taste is my favourite. I recommend the debut and Three Friends, but I also would recommend trying the debut next. I'm guessing you heard Octopus and didn't like it, but the Advent of Panurge off that works as a companion piece to Pantagruel's Nativity off of Acquiring the Taste (that said, I prefer Panta...) Gentle Giant led me to read François Rabelais' Pantagruel and Gargantua.

I have especially loved Gentle Giant's first three albums, but am not so keen on subsequent ones (Octopus and In a Glass House would be my next favourites). That said, there was a time when I loved GG's first eight. Gentle Giant was pretty much love at first listen for me, and it was my favourite band in 2005, but I did quite quickly tire of GG (I may have just burnt out on it). I appreciate it more again, but I'll never hold it in as high esteem as I once did. It can feel rather too formulaic and inorganic, I find, but it's not all the same. It can be very beautiful and melodious and at other times dissonant and jarring. It is quirky, and though it would take some chops, it's one that would be fun to parody/ emulate.



So yes, Acquiring the Taste is my favourite GG album, followed by Three Friends and the debut. I actually do feel like putting on Three Friends right now. Love "Schooldays", and when the title track would come on it would give me shivers.

Discovering GG and VdGG aboout 15 years ago helped pave the way for many more great discoveries for me, and helped to prime me for really getting into RIO/Avant music, Magma, and the like. That said, I've always appreciated quirky music -- I think discovering Laurie Anderson's Big Science in the 80s was an album that helped to set me on a quirky path.

After this, if you haven't tried it already, you might be ready for some Magma, (and Henry Cow, Art Bears, U Totem and Miriodor and others down the road). As For Jethro Tull, Stand Up is my favourite.


Edited by Logan - August 01 2019 at 10:09

Free Hand is maybe their most accessible prog album. The later albums(last three) weren't pure prog imo but were also accessible. 

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: Free Hand is maybe their most accessible prog album. The later albums(last three) weren't pure prog imo but were also accessible.

Edited by dr prog - August 19 2019 at 14:32

Thread inspired me to listen to Acquiring the Taste again. Liking it better this time around , maybe it just took me a while to......well you know. 

miamiscot wrote: I find the first three GG albums to be tentative and muddy-sounding. From Octopus to Interview they were as good as any band I've ever heard.

richardh wrote: Yep the first 2 go together and were even re-issued as double CD set interestingly. Three Friends just doesn't fit with anything else they did imo. It feels almost unfinished but it does have some seriously stunning moments and Schooldays is one of my favourite GG tracks.

Their attempt to write a Kinks album IMO (lyrically / thematically I mean, not musically). To me it's the least interesting of their classic period albums; I think the focus on storytelling within conventional song structures detracted from their usual musical inventiveness.