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Topic ClosedGTR - A 1* album

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Poll Question: Is GTR a 1 star album?
Poll Choice Votes Poll Statistics
9 [25.71%]
22 [62.86%]
3 [8.57%]
1 [2.86%]
0 [0.00%]
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octopus-4 View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: GTR - A 1* album
    Posted: April 03 2013 at 02:48
The discussion about Free Hand has given me the idea of this poll.

This is the link to one of my oldest reviews. Surely not my best honestly.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 03 2013 at 04:11
I would give it 4 stars. I love it.

I won't read your review. I know how I feel. Nothing will change that.  Plus I don't want to get annoyed with you. (And everyone else)


Edited by Snow Dog - April 03 2013 at 04:12
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 03 2013 at 05:08
I'm obviously provoking. I know that at least you and Dean love this album, but as I have written in the post it's following all the polemics about Gentle Giant's Free Hand.

I don't mean to really  discuss that album. I have bought it when it was released and made a copy on a C90 tape before going on holidays. On the B side I put "The Final Cut".

Honestly I have listened to that tape quite a lot of times (both the sides). Even if I think that's a 1 star album I can still listen to it. Some people likes Marmite, you know... Smile 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 03 2013 at 05:20
Originally posted by octopus-4 octopus-4 wrote:

I'm obviously provoking. I know that at least you and Dean love this album, but as I have written in the post it's following all the polemics about Gentle Giant's Free Hand.

I don't mean to really  discuss that album. I have bought it when it was released and made a copy on a C90 tape before going on holidays. On the B side I put "The Final Cut".

Honestly I have listened to that tape quite a lot of times (both the sides). Even if I think that's a 1 star album I can still listen to it. Some people likes Marmite, you know... Smile 

I don't think Dean likes it. Never read anywhere he does anyway. Who knows? You seem to.Smile
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 03 2013 at 05:34
We have discussed about it in another thread long time ago, unless I have discussed it with you and I'm so stoned to be confused Smile


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 03 2013 at 05:52
Originally posted by Snow Dog Snow Dog wrote:

Originally posted by octopus-4 octopus-4 wrote:

I'm obviously provoking. I know that at least you and Dean love this album, but as I have written in the post it's following all the polemics about Gentle Giant's Free Hand.

I don't mean to really  discuss that album. I have bought it when it was released and made a copy on a C90 tape before going on holidays. On the B side I put "The Final Cut".

Honestly I have listened to that tape quite a lot of times (both the sides). Even if I think that's a 1 star album I can still listen to it. Some people likes Marmite, you know... Smile 

I don't think Dean likes it. Never read anywhere he does anyway. Who knows? You seem to.Smile
I enjoy it, I don't hate it, I certainly don' think it is a bad album and 'When The Heart Rules The Mind' is a cracking 80s pop song.
 
It's not a 1-star album by any stretch of the imagination, as an 80s pop-rock album it's a pretty solid 3-stars. It would be a 1-star Progressive Rock album maybe, just as it would be a 1-star hip-hop album or a 1-star ska-punk album or a 1-star bebop-swing-dixieland-free-diddle-um-pum-pooh jazz album, because it is none of those things nor was it ever trying to be.
 
Fortunately we stuck it in Prog Related so we don't have to judge it as a Progresive Rock album, we don't have to determine how Proggy it is or whether Steve's Hackett and Howe are noodling proggy-noodles in irrational meters and blowing our tiny minds with how mind-blowingly magnificent they are at noodling proggy-noodles on a 12-string lute and for that we don't have to mark-them-down for failing to blow our tiny little prog-addled noggins - we just have to judge whether it's a good, bad or indifferent 80s pop-rock album ... and for me it's neither amazingly great nor is it woefully bad - sure, if it wasn't the Twin Steves then I probably wouldn't have bought it in the first place, but having listened to it regularly for the past 27 years i'm rather glad I did.
 
Of course if you don't like 80s pop-rock then by all means give it a 1-star rating¹ - but if you were expecting something else then that's not really the album's fault is it?
 
 
 
 
 
¹ Because giving 1-star ratings to things we don't like rather than to things that are actually bad seema to be the way we do things around here. Never fully understood that rationale myself, but there you go, what do I know?


Edited by Dean - April 03 2013 at 05:57
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 03 2013 at 07:19
I liked it when it came out, but i honestly wouldent play it today, it didnt age well.
And i dont care about stars. 
Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 03 2013 at 07:38
Certainly not the greatest that Hackett and Howe have ever made separately, and in fact, a rather mediocre aor album. I like aor but this isn't that good at that either, with the exception of a few songs.  However, I would reserve 1 star for albums that belong in the trash heap and this isn't quite that bad.  I'd probably rate it 2 1/2 because there are a few good songs on it.   
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 03 2013 at 15:49
It's far better than anything Asia ever recorded.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 03 2013 at 15:56
The fact that I had big expectations is surely a reason, but what I dislike most is Max Bacon vocals. It was the year of "The Final Countdown" and I hated Europe because they had a great guitarist so poorly used.

GTR sounded to my ears like an Europe clone. I have listened to it a lot during that summer. If you take it as pop is not too bad (vocals apart). 

I can't comment about Asia. Somebody actually told me to save my money and I have followed the suggestion. Basing on the few things that I have listened, probably you are right.

And in terms of 80s poppy prog, everybody knows that I absolutely love 90125. I've gone 600 Km by train to see it live.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 03 2013 at 16:07
Originally posted by octopus-4 octopus-4 wrote:

The fact that I had big expectations is surely a reason, but what I dislike most is Max Bacon vocals. It was the year of "The Final Countdown" and I hated Europe because they had a great guitarist so poorly used.

GTR sounded to my ears like an Europe clone. I have listened to it a lot during that summer. If you take it as pop is not too bad (vocals apart). 

I can't comment about Asia. Somebody actually told me to save my money and I have followed the suggestion. Basing on the few things that I have listened, probably you are right.

And in terms of 80s poppy prog, everybody knows that I absolutely love 90125. I've gone 600 Km by train to see it live.


Max Bacon is  a great vocalist, much more pleasant for the ears than the guy with his horrid vocals in Gentle Giant.

Being the clone of another band isn't a bad thing, as long as the musicians are competent and deliver something good.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 03 2013 at 16:16
Originally posted by lucas lucas wrote:

Originally posted by octopus-4 octopus-4 wrote:

The fact that I had big expectations is surely a reason, but what I dislike most is Max Bacon vocals. It was the year of "The Final Countdown" and I hated Europe because they had a great guitarist so poorly used.

GTR sounded to my ears like an Europe clone. I have listened to it a lot during that summer. If you take it as pop is not too bad (vocals apart). 

I can't comment about Asia. Somebody actually told me to save my money and I have followed the suggestion. Basing on the few things that I have listened, probably you are right.

And in terms of 80s poppy prog, everybody knows that I absolutely love 90125. I've gone 600 Km by train to see it live.


Max Bacon is  a great vocalist, much more pleasant for the ears than the guy with his horrid vocals in Gentle Giant.

Being the clone of another band isn't a bad thing, as long as the musicians are competent and deliver something good.
I'm in favour of clones. I'm one of the few who has given a positive review to Unifaun, should I find another Camel clone other than Bellaphon I would surely buy it. I have written in another thread "if you wish to sound like your idols and succeed is a good thing". 

The problem is who you clone.

Max Bacon on that album sounds like the Europe's vocalist. I don't like him on this specific album. His voice is high pitched and powerful, maybe with YES he would sound better. 

I have to say that the live album which followed GTR  is better. Songs that I have totally disliked on the studio version are not so bad in the live. I have rated it with 2 stars and I was curious enough to spend some bucks on a used copy when I heard of its existence many years after.

In any case I'm liking this discussion. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 03 2013 at 20:56
It has qualities....it has memorable melodies. For example, I like the chorus of Jekyll and Mr Hyde which alternates 4 chords of vocals with 4 chords instrumental with a nice guitar melody. That sort of chorus with an instrumental melody is uncommon but Hackett has used that form in other songs.

In the eighties I had a melody stuck in my head that I liked .For a long time I thought it came from an album by King Cobra. It turned out it wasn't that album. Not until 2002 I discovered the origin of the melody, which was GTR. That was cool because by then I was a Hackett fan since 1997, but had not heard GTR since the eighties. The song was Here I Wait, the nice instrumental part in the middle of the song, with the guitar melody.

They could have had a boring guitar solo, but instead all instrumental parts are very melodic. But the album is a bit dated with the vocal style coupled with the big reverb/room ambiance, a bit messy arena-rock sound. It's worth 3/5 at least.


Edited by wilmon91 - April 03 2013 at 21:01
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 03 2013 at 21:13
Has to be 1*
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 03 2013 at 21:23
Originally posted by octopus-4 octopus-4 wrote:

GTR sounded to my ears like an Europe clone.


I had to listen to some samples to refresh my memory, havent heard this in many years. It's not in any way near Europe in my opinion. It is prog. The songs are varied and unpredictable and richer in structure than some ordinary radio rock band. And they didn't express a narrow stereotypical rock attitude. There is more romantic stuff like Sketches in the sun, Toe the line, Imagining...

I listened to "Reach Out (Never Say No) " , a song I have forgotten completely. Some nice riffs, and very nice instrumental parts with synth soloing.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 04 2013 at 00:38
Love Steve and Steve but GTR is a 1* album.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 04 2013 at 02:16
Sonia, Kati where are you at Cry
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 04 2013 at 02:25
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

 
 'When The Heart Rules The Mind' is a cracking 80s pop song.
 

Quite right. Great song. 
There's some other good stuff on the album too. 
Well, a one star rating would be definitely undeserved IMHO.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 04 2013 at 03:01
This was how I reviewed it back in March 2004, when I was but a forum newbie among a total population of less than 100 (yes, it was a 1 star review):

Originally posted by me in 2004 me in 2004 wrote:

This is probably the most disappointing album I have ever bought - the idea of two of the greatest progressive rock guitarists getting together filled my imagination with the idea of soaring guitar solos, epic musicianship, and the best progressive rock album of the 1980's. The actual result was far less than the sum of its parts - basically, this is a watered down AOR album, with high pitched Journey-like vocals; if you like mid 1980's American AOR, then you may find this album worth a listen, otherwise I would avoid this - even the 2 solo pieces by Hackett/Howe are solo-by-numbers


Harsh, perhaps, but the basic idea still holds water for me - I was expecting a considerably different album... Maybe I should revisit the album at some point - maybe

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 04 2013 at 05:07
2.5 stars for me, which matches with the average PA rating.
When The Heart Rules The Mind is perhaps my least favourite song, I have always seen it as the Heat Of The Moment from Asia debut.
The Hunter, Sketches In The Sun, Toe The Line, Hackett To Bits and Imagining are quite good. I don't remember much of the other songs, it's years I did not give it a spin. 

I don't fancy Max Bacon's voice too much but comparisons with Europe??? I only remember their two hits The Final Countdown and Carrie but as far as I can tell they had nothing to do with GTR Confused
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