Flower Kings Appreciation Thread

Roj wrote: M27Barney wrote: The Jon Anderson / Stolt collaboration is very poor - who agrees? The new Marillion seems to be stirring up a few with it's lyrical content. I have about five or six marillon CD's that I have spun once and then shelved.....wonder If I should buy the new one? it might also be shelved without a listen if bought now! My tip is - if you don't like the other Hogarth-era Marillion albums you've heard then don't bother with their new one - save your money .  Have a try listening to Ocean Cloud by Marillion on youtube, from the Marbles album.  If you don't like that then Hogarth era Marillion are a lost cause for you as that's the best 18 minutes of music they have ever made, full stop. I actually like FEAR a lot, although I don't think it's as good as their previous two.  They really were outstanding.  You can count me totally in the pro-Hogarth camp, by the way.  The Fish era albums were ok-ish, although poorly produced and I find them virtually unlistenable these days.  Their best stuff from that era was put out before they even signed a record deal.  Incidentally while I was in Vegas recently a cabbie mentioned Fish had a 4 night residence at the MGM Grand.  Hmm, seems a bit surprising I thought.  Turns out, it was actually Phish .

Catcher10 wrote: M27Barney wrote: I made a decision  to cut back on new CD's purchasing. Thus I only have two new ones at xmas (I decided to get more popular science books instead). Has music (like televisual arts) reached the saturation point? Prog bands are surely going to just keep on re-hashing stuff that has already been done? I have about 500 CD's that I have listened to once and about a 100 that I have never spun! 2017 - should be my year of catching up. But when I relax and put the prog-lighting on, get the head-phones out - I then select a CD - and I nearly always end up selecting a known - goody. I have about 500 CD's in this set I reckon....and thus the rest are just sat there.....waiting........ I'm right there with you, although I don't buy CDs anyways, but have been really diving into my collection almost the past 8 months. Maybe have bought 20 rekkids but I have spun them all, I think for me its just I don't see much volume of music coming that I have much interest in, new that is. It really is starting to sound all the same, just rehashed with a different band name. Many bands I am just going to their back catalog and reliving what I fell in love with on some........for example Dream Theater, I am finding anything past SDoIT is just now mehh, and the new album is a gigantic flop for me. I am excited to see what Haken comes up with next, also Riverside now going to a trio format wonder what they do next.....And of course waiting patiently for something new from TFK. Family kept asking me for a rekkid list for Christmas, I really could not come up with one that I was excited about, so I told them to save their money I'm good, "buy me socks" I said

I only have the one Jethro Tull CD and I bet you can guess which one!

haha! No - Thick as a Brick.....

^ Hmmm, I didn't think that Flower Power was all that good on the first spin, but that was probably because I listened during an insane bout of CD buying (I was purchasing 20-30 CD's at a time). But I loved "Stardust we are" on first spin. Historically though, it took me 2-3 years to "get" Yes and probably 3-4 years to "get" ELP. So I may have to be patient with the Anderson/Stolt and hope that it's a slow-burner. I have just purchased the third Samurai of Prog CD's (only one to get). So I will listen to that and the A/S to see if I can re-kindle the later-prog love that seems to have waned in me. I will certainly find that I will "get" quite a lot of the single spin CD's and wonder how I missed such profound music on the first listen! Having said that - I still return back to the golden era of Prog (1970 - 1975) for the music that seems to be without a shadow of doubt - unequalled since!!

Barney.......gotta love your comments! 

I get what you guys are saying about new prog..........I do happen to think there are quite a few things that equal and maybe even surpass the 70's "greats".  Flower Kings have a couple albums I put in that category.  That said, there is a ton of crap in the prog genre these days, so you have to listen first and find what speaks to you.  Which is unfortunate for me because I don't like to listen first.  However, with newer bands, I do, so I don't get burned.

I think there is still good stuff being made, but you either have to leave your comfort zone (which I do sometimes) or REALLY like the symph prog approach.  I've gone in and out of loving that approach, but overall still enjoy it.

I will say that the 3 albums I just bought with the Amazon gift card I got for Christmas are all from the 70's;  King Crimson Great Deceiver Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, and Frank Zappa "Little Dots" (just released but recordings from 1972 (the "petite Wazoo" period, which is his mostly instrumental jazz fusion period).  I was going to also get Jon Anderson's first solo album, since I seem to not own that one, but I couldn't find a new copy (only used ones in questionable condition).

For the past couple years I've mostly been listening to my somewhat large CD collection (probably 500-600 albums) while buying maybe 6 - 8 albums a year.  Mostly new, but some old stuff, like this latest order.  I actually still like or love the majority of it so far.  Some things I had forgotten how MUCH I like them.  My collection is probably less than half stuff produced before 1980, and I'm impressed at how good much of it is.


Edited by infandous - January 13 2017 at 14:01

infandous wrote: Oh yeah, I should add that Tomas Bodin assured us on the Flower Kings Yahoo group that The Flower Kings are definitely NOT done.........just busy with other things right now.  Particularly Roine with the Kaipa Di Capo and a new album with Jon(!).  So just another hiatus to irritate us die hards

Well, I spun "The Imperial Hotel" - and I must say that it was very good from the start! I think that this is solid prog - the second track "Limoncello" was absolutely brilliant and the Epic was also very good!! Then I spun "Invention of Knowledge" for a second time and I must say that it did make more of an impression on me this time - I think that they have tried to catch a bit of Tales from topographic's vibe (I detected some bits and pieces of that masterpiece in the new CD). Mind you, I think that it has a long way to go before it gets into the TFTO ratings!!!

M27Barney wrote: infandous wrote: Barney.......gotta love your comments!  I get what you guys are saying about new prog..........I do happen to think there are quite a few things that equal and maybe even surpass the 70's "greats".  Flower Kings have a couple albums I put in that category.  That said, there is a ton of crap in the prog genre these days, so you have to listen first and find what speaks to you.  Which is unfortunate for me because I don't like to listen first.  However, with newer bands, I do, so I don't get burned. I think there is still good stuff being made, but you either have to leave your comfort zone (which I do sometimes) or REALLY like the symph prog approach.  I've gone in and out of loving that approach, but overall still enjoy it. I will say that the 3 albums I just bought with the Amazon gift card I got for Christmas are all from the 70's;  King Crimson Great Deceiver Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, and Frank Zappa "Little Dots" (just released but recordings from 1972 (the "petite Wazoo" period, which is his mostly instrumental jazz fusion period).  I was going to also get Jon Anderson's first solo album, since I seem to not own that one, but I couldn't find a new copy (only used ones in questionable condition). For the past couple years I've mostly been listening to my somewhat large CD collection (probably 500-600 albums) while buying maybe 6 - 8 albums a year.  Mostly new, but some old stuff, like this latest order.  I actually still like or love the majority of it so far.  Some things I had forgotten how MUCH I like them.  My collection is probably less than half stuff produced before 1980, and I'm impressed at how good much of it is. I do think that some recent prog has got to within 90% of c (where c is the invariant rating of CTTE,TFTO,SEBTP and FT) however I do not think that ANY prog after 1975 can get closer than that! and it's impossible to exceed c - the prog rating is the equivalence of c in E = Mc2 and CANNOT be exceeded!!

There are plenty of great modern Prog records out there. The Flower Kings put out a bunch, Transatlantic is amazing, and The Neal Morse Band's most recent, The Similitude Of A Dream, is 10/10.