Wish You Were Here has overtaken Thick As A Brick

richardh wrote: Personally I think albums are overrated anyway. Most of the highest rated albums reflect consistency rather than inspiration. Tarkus was the most inspired prog track of the early seventies imo and gets a lot of praise on this forum. Where is this album on the charts? Nowhere because side 2 is a mix of 'ordinary' rock tracks and a bit of experimentation that didn't quite work. This is not a rant about ELP not being higher rated, I don't care that much (ok a little bit maybe but not enough to get upset about it). I would like a rating system for tracks ideally. That would be much more interesting and makes more sense to me. nb. Mosh will now tell me I'm only conditioned to accept 'songs' and I don't respect the artists choices.

Edited by rogerthat - August 18 2019 at 04:06

rogerthat wrote: There is also nothing wrong with engaging with songs as opposed to albums.  Yes, some prog albums are concept albums and some others while not being concept albums are thematically consistent.  Doesn't mean all are or even have to be.  Did Beethoven release albums?  No, he just wrote symphonies.  There is much to discuss about the brilliance of epics and mini epics in prog on a standalone basis. I have heard this said almost from the time I got into prog that it is an album based genre but I got into prog by listening to standalone tracks like CTTE or Firth of the fifth and they hold up very well without the album context too.  I don't know that anything specifically can be done about the top 100 list to reflect which TRACKS are well liked on PA but we can and should discuss about great tracks standalone.  Why, even discuss great vocal or instrumental parts within songs.

I like to engage with specific songs/ tracks, full albums, full symphonies, specific movements etc. Generally I do listen to full albums, and full concerts, but I also appreciate listening to individual pieces outside of a greater work (in terms of concerts, I go to far more classical ones than rock, partially because I appreciate the more restrained audiences more as I like to listen to music, not hear the whoops of crowds -- I'm reserved).

There are many specific songs that I love, some of which are more mainstream than others (obviously I like avant prog very much, but I also like much more mainstream music). I used to make mix-tapes and mix CD-Rs, which would include songs by the likes of David Bowie, Robert Wyatt, Nick Drake, Kate Bush, Art Bears, and Laurie Anderson. Sometimes I liked to put my collection on shuffle.

There's lot of music that I discovered because of a single song or track. I discovered Nick Drake because I cam across "River Man", then "Fruit Tree" on youtube and adored them (after finding an article that compared "River Man' to Comus' "The Herald"). While I enjoy all of Five Years Left, those remain my personal Drake favourites -- those songs really resonate with me and say something about my character. Wyatt also often deeply resonate with me for individual songs, but when I listen to, say, his "Sea Song" I almost always listen to it in the context of listening to all of Rock Bottom.

When it comes to folk music, I often particularly appreciate particular songs, but then folk music has been very much about songs.

When it comes to Beethoven, while I almost always listen to the 9th Symphony in full, sometimes I do just want to listen to the second movement of his 7th (must admit that I really got into that because of Zardoz, and his 9th because of A Clockwork Orange -- film is such a big love of mine, and a lot of music I did get into because of film, with classical Schubert, Delibes, and Bach's cello suites because of The Hunger etc. -- that said I was listening to a lot of classical music before discovering those films).

As for chart positions, while I have done topics based on comparing the positions of rateyourmusic and progarchives, and have made polls using chart positions as its basis, I'm not that interested in ranking except in more general ways. With film reviews, my preference was for those that described the films, drew comparisons, and said things about the messages of the film etc. without rating the films. I used to think rating very silly, but I have found some use for it some people who share similar tastes, and just to see what individual forum users like as personal lists. If I were a review writer, only written a few at PA, I'd actually rather not rate them at all -- well, I would like a have a list of my ratings, but have that separate from my reviews and just as an expression of my interests/ experience. I wouldn't bother rating ones that are not to my taste, so my ratings would tend to be high. I'm bound to rate a lot of Art Zoyd, Cos, and Magma high because I love those bands.

By the way, in various topics of mine, often I do focus on individual songs/tracks not because I don't appreciate the albums they are off, but because it makes it easier to expose people to music and fine-tune/ focus the discussion, and because I do like getting recommendations based on what I like. If I like the track someone posts in response, then I will look into more music and full albums by the artist. A great deal of the music I love is fairly obscure and quite a lot of it isn't. I love progressive music such as Egisto Macchi and Luc Ferrari and mainstream stuff such as The Carpenters, and people such as Ennio Morricone who have delved into a variety of styles. And I love music by many more recent artists such as Dan Jones, and modern retro music such as Kosmischer Läufer, but I ramble.

To each his or her own.... Live and let live. There is no one right way or wrong way to listen to, enjoy and evaluate music. What matters to me is that people are enjoying it, and that I have some communal way to share those experiences and passions with like-minded individuals, and that we can appreciate different perspectives, and engage in honest, respectful dialectic. But I have rambled badly per usual.

Someone on a classical forum pointed out the issue rock music has with the sanctity of the original studio recording. Nobody has a problem with different musicians playing new and varied interpretations of classical pieces and can even get excited about more coming out or being performed in concerts and so they’re kept alive and relatively fresh rather than being 50 year old recordings heard a thousand times.

Can you tell me some of your favourites from the bands here?

Edited by richardh - August 19 2019 at 00:15

Rachel Flowers’ “Tarkus” is certainly impressive .

Can’t wait for my Stormwatch box to arrive. It’s going to be even better than Taab. Heaps of cool tunes on this double album

BarryGlibb wrote: dr prog wrote: Can’t wait for my Stormwatch box to arrive. It’s going to be even better than Taab. ......... No its not! Stormwatch has great moments, average moments and below average moments (IMHO). No masterpiece tracks to be found. North Sea Oil...great Orion...great Home...great Dark Ages...good to average Warm Sporran...average Something's On The Move....good Old Ghosts...below average Dun Ringhill....great Flying Dutchman....average Elegy....great the known "associated recordings" in the box set: Crossword....below average Kelpie...average A Stitch In Time...average Broadford Bazaar...below average King Henry’s Madrigal...below average The previously unreleased tracks for the box set? Well, we'll just have to wait and see. So no, it's not going to be better than TAAB. By 1979 I was looking more towards post-punk than JT.....however when A was released in 1980 I was back on board the Tull train.

Stitch in time is excellent imo. One of Tulls best tunes. How could you think it’s average? Crazy Crossword is cool also. Similar quality to North Sea oil imo. I also love blues instrumental(Lyricon blues). Kelpie and King Henry are quite good. I love North Sea and Rungill from the album. Dark and Something are fairly cool. Elegy quite good. Orion solid. I like Dutchman. While Ghosts, Home and Sporran aren’t bad. The remix will improve every tune though. I’d rate 1979 as a better year and I love Taab. But I also rate 78, 77, 71 almost just as high.

Edited by dr prog - August 20 2019 at 16:48