Van Der Graff Gentle Giant Camel

my rank would be

1. VDGG
2. Camel
3. Gentle Giant

^ Yes. Go for the first three albums.

The Bearded Bard wrote: Funny Ways! One of my favourite prog tunes ever! Check out this one, Dellinger, if you haven't already. This is mind blowing stuff, IMO:

Indeed this is the very song I liked best from "Playing the Fool" on my first listen, though is this version still with Phill on the line-up? I think I liked this one just a bit better than the one on PtF. Any other music similar to this by GG, that I may try to check out next?

^ Same here.

Dayvenkirq wrote: HarbouringTheSoul wrote: Honestly, I seem to be the only one who has always found Gentle Giant very accessible.  What are you so confused about? You really think the weird vocals on and the sound of tape rolling at the end of "Valedictory" is something a girlfriend of a fellow progger could put up with?

Well, you picked an example that I actually think is among their least accessible songs, but as far as the "girlfriend of a fellow progger" thing goes: Very little prog passes that test anyway, and I think it's irrelevant because accessibility to someone who is familiar with prog is often a different than accessibility to someone who isn't. Gentle Giant are a group that carry a certain 'weirdness' and 'density' with them in their sound. If you can't deal with that, you will find them very hard to get into, that much is true. But if you can, then you will find that GG can be extremely catchy. As someone who has been listening to Frank Zappa albums from the age of four, the sound of GG didn't shock me and I gobbled up their entire discography in no time. By contrast, it can take quite a long time for me to get accustomed to a VdGG song because their melodies are usually rather longwinded and harmonically complex. I can memorize a GG melody in no time, but I needed to listen to, say, "Undercover Man" about five times before I could actually remember anything. Even today that I'm familiar with much of their output, I find it hard to assimilate new songs of theirs because many of their melodies are not immediately memorable.

In short: Accessibility depends very much on whether you're new to the general sound of the artist or not. You may find it hard to get into the catchiest band if their sound is new and radical to you. If you're familiar with Ramones albums, you might find Never Mind the Bollocks quite accessible. If you're completely new to punk, you might think it's a lot of noise.

Logan wrote: and found bombastic noodlings in parts hard going, but there were more than enough pay-offs in the music to keep listening..

I still find the album too be too harsh and noisy for my liking, and I doubt it will ever change. A lot of the arrangement for "Lemmings" for example is made up of lots of gratuitous noises that seem to be there for no other reason than to irritate. I can appreciate short bursts of chaos for the purpose of contrast, but this goes too far. Which is sad because I like the 'main' parts "Lemmings", but the noisemaking ruins it for me. The same holds true for Plague. I like quite a few of the moments, but there is just so much noise and so little coherence in the track. I vastly prefer the 1975-1976 albums, which are a lot cleaner instrumentation-wise.

Absolutely Camel. I love Gentle Giant and Van der Graaf Generator (even if I don't know them as well as the other two), but Camel wake up some emotions that I can't find anywhere else in music.

GENTLE GIANT!!!

Funny Ways! One of my favourite prog tunes ever! Check out this one, Dellinger, if you haven't already. This is mind blowing stuff, IMO:

^ For what zero value it's worth, and despite my echoing the Power and the Glory sentiments, I found the Power and the Glory one of the weakest of GG's first eight albums.  I like the earlier ones much more.  I really like the first three albums.

HarbouringTheSoul wrote: Dayvenkirq wrote: Since, in all due honesty, I haven't charted all of VdGG's classic prog territory, what is their most melodic record? And I don't mean a lot of noodling, but melodies that are actually mesmerizing ... or catchy at the very least? You have chosen the wrong band for that. VdGG are rarely if ever catchy. Some of their melodies are indeed brilliant, but they unfold over a long period of time. That said, I would start with Godbluff, but beware: The first track is arguably the least memorable track melody-wise.

Yeah, Godbluff is a pretty easy/ melodic album on the whole.  I find the opening track very memorable melody-wise. Still Life is another.  I actually find a lot of VdGG very catchy -- like GG it was pretty much a love at first listen band for.  Like GG, I also started with just two tracks: House With No Door and Man-Erg.  Pawn Hearts was my first VdGG full album, and it did take me a while before I fully liked/ then loved it.  Despite loving lots of moments, and finding some great melodies in it, Hammill's histrionics I found off-putting and even rather embarrassing at first, and found bombastic noodlings in parts hard going, but there were more than enough pay-offs in the music to keep listening..  As said, I loved Man-Erg even before I heard the whole album, but Lemmings was really tough going.  Plague of Lighthouse Keepers didn't take long to really mesmerise me.  I find parts of it so catchy.  Nowadays my palette is much wider than it was even eight years ago, and I don't need to approach music in quite the same way.  If I could find "moments" that I loved, and I've long appreciated contrast in music, then that was enough to bring me back to the music.  And I found lots with VdGG.  So much of a Plague is very catchy for me, and has a tension and contrasts that I love.  ""All things are apart".  I do love the way the melodies with VdGG unfold over time.  It's a band that may require some patience on the whole, and some elements may take a while to accept as part of the musical tapestry, but I found that it wasn't that long before I could appreciate all of the aspects of VdGG (mind you, I've long been attuned to both consonance and dissonance in music and commonly appreciate elements of both in music.  Contrast is so important to me commonly as it engages me more).