The best ones have a immediate impact

Originally posted by rdtprog I am going to simplify the thread by a simple question. What are the songs or albums that you listen the most over a long period of times? So now the debate will be over and will move to another debate. Immediate impact or not., melodic or not...

I was hoping we could shift the thread topic to a discussion of my exceedingly clever analysis of A Passion Play.

Many times extreme reaction has a recoil. Many of the albums that I find the best took some growing and many that I was head over heals for became annoying (Most The Mars Volta and Dream Theater albums being examples).  Magma did not impact me at first but are now amongst my favorites.

There are not many albums that had an immediate impact but here are some of them.... now i have got my computer camera to work I can post them....

I don't agree. Songs that take me at the first listens are usually the ones I get bored first, and some of my absolute favourite albums, like TAAB, Trilogy by ELP, or Stardust We Are by The Flower Kings, required me multiple listens to properly get into them.

Edited by Ytse_Jam - November 30 2012 at 18:34

Originally posted by HarbouringTheSoul Originally posted by moshkito In general, the best ones usually always have an impact in one way or another and none of the groups you mentioned had an immediate impact, btw ... in fact PF had serious issues with Syd at the lead, and some of the things they were doing live, were not the pop songs on the albums, which created a live issue for the band. YES, spent a long time trying to get it down and together, and it was their 3rd album that kicked in. Rush, I prefer not to discuss and PFM was already an established band by the time we heard about them in the rest of the world ... The social impact of a group has nothing to do with the personal impact of a piece of music, which is what the OP was talking about.

 

Not usually. Most of my favorite albums took a few listens to make it's mark.

I do agree with the OP in one thing: I think melody is the main focus of music, or at least it is for me; I see melody as the "soul" of a song or any piece of music, the most basic and distinctive part of it and the one I personally value the most.

However, I don't think a good, strong melody is synnonymous with being a "simple, catchy" one; actually, many of the best melodies I've listened to I didn't get the first time, and this is especially true with progressive rock. As the melodies (and the whole musical experience) of progressive rock are very complex and intrincate, it's natural that it'll take some time to really appreciate them.

Originally posted by rogerthat ^^^^  You are off the mark in terms of what the OP asked but it's an interesting point.  Would it really be the same thing if we were introduced to PF via Ummagumma instead of DSOTM?   How many of us would then be 'open minded' with one of the greatest rock bands of all times or, instead, write them off as pretentious jokers, never to listen to them again?   Today, we have the luxury of knowing where exactly these great bands hit their peak and can cherry pick the ones 'with an immediate impact' but even these great bands weren't great from day 1.    I wonder if these canons like "greatest prog albums", greatest this and greatest that only serve to bias our mind and set our expectations at an unrealistic level.   I remember on a metal forum, somebody suggested that neophytes to metal should be introduced NOT through the best albums but through lesser ones which would still be good enough as a representation of the genre.  It was quickly shot down as a ridiculous idea, but I respected his point of view then and do so even more today.   We are not necessarily entitled to musical magic every time we listen to something.   There may be magic in the music but whether we perceive it as such also depends on whether we are enthusiastic or apathetic to the magician's tricks. As you said, it's a symbiotic relationship.  This is in a sense the bane of experience for a listener, it turns us into mistra-know-it-alls and takes us far away from the child within that could instantly fall in love with good music and didn't ask too much of the musicians.

I'm not so sure that Pedro is as off the mark as it first appears. How we receive an album is influenced by preconception, expectation, confirmation bias, peer pressure and a host of other sociological and psychological reasons. Sometimes our desire to "fit in" (albeit to an elite group rather than the general populace) or to appear cool and with-it can predetermine how we approach an album we've never heard before but have heard good things about. This of course can be countered by our need to be individual and different to everyone else, the desire to be seen to make up our own minds about something even when that contradicts public opinion. With that we attempt to resolve the dichotomy that presents by our own subjective reasoning and arrive at conclusions that are the best fit to our own tastes and predelictions. When that succeeds we confirm what others have told us, when it fails it results in an unresolved contradiction and the assertion that "X" is overrated.   Your Pink Floyd example is an interesting one, especially as they have been successful in straddling several genres of popular music in their history, from their Psychedelic/Space Rock beginnings, through Progressive Rock to Classic Rock. Where in the that chronology you start can determine your opinion of them. I recall a long debate here several years ago (when Wish You Were Here topped our chart for a brief time) where someone asserted that they were not a Prog band and did not deserve the "progressive" accolades lauded upon them or their position on the top of our chart. After pages of heated debate it transpired that person had never heard anything prior to Dark Side Of The Moon. Once "encouraged" to listen to Echoes and Atom Heart Mother his opinion changed. [as an aside, my introduction to Floyd was Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother - I cannot recall which was first because Iheard them both on the same day].

Originally posted by rogerthat "Off the mark" was probably the wrong word, I meant that it was a somewhat tangential response to a more specific question.

Accepted. And on reflection I think we've both said the same things in our replies.

Originally posted by rdtprog I am going to simplify the thread by a simple question. What are the songs or albums that you listen the most over a long period of times? So now the debate will be over and will move to another debate. Immediate impact or not., melodic or not...

I guess I am not old enough for the 'long period of times' part!   Seriously, though...it depends and I really couldn't slot it neatly in any such box.   I have listened to a very simple but touching song like Brain Damage many, many times but also Is There Anybody There which just has a voice chant and then mournful guitar and violin.   I have also listened to Kontarkohz pt 2, The House The Street The Room and other compositions which are not really melodic in the generally used sense of the word many times.   I am not trying to deliberately take a...er, post modern position, that's honestly what my music taste is like.    Some jazz music doesn't fall neatly into either of the two categories you mentioned nor into the other end of the spectrum.  It's sort of catchy but not infectious.  It's not always very dissonant and is very often too relaxed to possess tension.  But the ghazal aficionado part of me doesn't find all these blue notes very melodic either.  That's the beauty of music for me. If I knew exactly what I liked most, it would be boring for me.  Might as well stop listening to any new music in that case.


Edited by rogerthat - December 02 2012 at 10:18