Albums: a multiart?
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Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Prog Music Lounge
Forum Description: General progressive music discussions
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=131617
Printed Date: July 19 2025 at 07:20
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Topic: Albums: a multiart?
Posted By: David_D
Subject: Albums: a multiart?
Date Posted: September 09 2023 at 05:33
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Not quite new subject but anyway: Albums can be thought of and enjoyed as a multiart of music, lyrics and artwork, or it can be more just about the music. How is it for you? Enjoy!  ------------- quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond |
Replies:
Posted By: Manuel
Date Posted: September 09 2023 at 05:44
| I rememeber back in the 70s, when I would look at the art of an album and be able to tell if it was progressive music or not. It was quite an experience, especially when the band was unknown to me. The lyrics were also part of the experience, since most popular music was about "I love you," 'My broken heart," 'The one for me," etc. Albums like "Stand Up," "In The Court of the Crimson King, "Tarkus," and many others, where a testament of what progressive music was all about, starting with the artwork on the cover. |
Posted By: Icarium
Date Posted: September 09 2023 at 06:24
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I would use the term multimedium, as it covers varios fealds of medium (channels, canons of traditions) visual medium, audial medium and written medium. Medium and art are someehow similar in what they incapsulates which covers humans aesthetical and artistical tradions, an LP is a medium which channels various fields of expressions of artistic traditions,musical tradition, painting tradition and poetic tradition,who are various medium traditions. -------------  
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Posted By: Grumpyprogfan
Date Posted: September 09 2023 at 07:02
| When I was growing up in the 70's it was the whole package. We would gaze at the artwork, posters, follow along with the lyrics, if included. And gatefold LP'S were used for de-seeding weed. I'm a geez now, and am not buying any more physical product, so it's only about the music. |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: September 09 2023 at 07:25
Hi, Way back when it was all of that and more. I'm more likely to say that is not the case now, since so much of the music is advertised as "this" or "that" or "metal", and the "art" and "lyrics" are not essential or important and sometimes, remind me of "pulp fiction" ... for folks that don't know the difference. All in all, we need a new "movement" with all the arts to get back to what is most important about it all ... it ain't the sales or the number one in all the lists ... or either Beyonce or Taylor Swift would win all the awards! ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
David_D wrote:Posted By: David_D
Date Posted: September 10 2023 at 05:35
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The cover art has been important for me from the very beginning of my music worshipping in the early 1970s, but I haven't reflected so much about the relation between it and the music until 5-10 years ago. Regarding the lyrics, I almost haven't pay any attention to them for many years at all, but beginning 15-20 years ago, I've done it to some degree . So something like the last 10-15 years, I can be said to think of and enjoy at least some of the albums as multiart, and I've had much pleasure and other good things of it. Therefore, I can certainly recommend it. ------------- quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond |
Posted By: David_D
Date Posted: September 13 2023 at 04:49
I've seen you to have some interest for lyrics before, and it's easy to find them on the Internet if wanting to have a closer look at them. Have you lost this interest now? ------------- quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond |
Posted By: Grumpyprogfan
Date Posted: September 13 2023 at 07:07
| ^I rarely look for lyrics on the internet. So I guess my interest has lessened. And instrumental music has always been what I gravitate towards. |
Posted By: David_D
Date Posted: September 13 2023 at 08:07
Okay, and I'm quite fond of instrumental music myself. ------------- quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond |
Posted By: David_D
Date Posted: September 20 2023 at 04:53
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I enjoy most albums as multiart on LPs even I find that CDs have a charm of their own if the printed lyrics are not too small. In any case, all my favourite albums as multiart are Prog, but more about it in another thread to come. Something else not mentioned yet is the material aspect of albums, which I can find quite artistic as well, and again both on LPs and CDs. ------------- quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond |
Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: September 20 2023 at 05:22
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Like every 70's teen, the artworks and lyrics mattered to me. Of course I loved some of the movies like Tommy, Quadro or The Wall, which further enhanced the original albums. Live albums were also welcomed when a concert movie was released (Last Waltz or Rust Never Sleeps, for ex). The only thing positive about the 80's is that there were videos that would enhance the album experience  , but unfortunately were not part of the vinyl or Cd package. I dare think that Roger Waters albums (or Supertramp's BWYB) would be much better remembered if the videos had been released in the same package. ------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: September 20 2023 at 06:26
| I was more into cassette's back in the day. Vinyl was just a massive pain to store and look after. Artwork for early ELP still looked brilliant on cassette and I had ears so could listen to the lyrics. Then I went through a phase of buying vinyl in the early 80's until the promise of something better came along. All these years later and stupid amounts of money paid on CD's I'm now back to hunting down vinyl, but that's more because I think you get a better experience overall. Sure it's nice to look at the pretty artwork but it's just more rewarding and involving to play a record imo. |
Posted By: Frets N Worries
Date Posted: September 20 2023 at 06:30
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Looking at the artwork is a huge part of it, you don't get the same experience from something like 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band' on a CD or god forbid an 8 Track. There's just something special about having a 12x12 in your lap, an artist's visualization of their art, telling a story. ------------- I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat... |
Posted By: Dapper~Blueberries
Date Posted: September 21 2023 at 08:57
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An album is poetry, a painting, graphic design, music, and stories, wrapped into one output. Album art is also really nice, especially on vinyl. I like to stare at cool artwork ------------- D~B |
Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 21 2023 at 11:47
Exactly, it's all part of the journey the music takes you. -------------   
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Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: September 22 2023 at 12:44
Hi, To a degree, but not entirely, specially when you see some Hipgnosis' covers that were "satires", if not comments on the music altogether, not to mention puns on words ... it's hard to miss "sheet music" and you can take that many ways ... remove the music from the staff ... call it the beautiful poop ... or simply a surrealistic look at things ... which the album is to a degree. but at the same time, the artwork for most UFO covers was definitely not very serious, and I think that it was supposed to be on the fun side of it. In other words, in these albums, it could be said there was no "journey" to think of ... and of course, the best cover of them all ... says nothing about the journey ... and if that is not a real comment about the "meaning" of the music, nothing is ... it's a COW! The only thing in that album that makes the cover better is that the long piece is a sort of pastoral symphony, and in that sense the COW fits ... but I like the "anti-art" idea of it all, though it doesn't help Ron Geesin, and he might have felt not quite right about the work he put in, which I don't think is haphazard and stupid as so many folks think ... it helps illustrate the piece of music, instead of it being a "rock song" that needs lyrics to tell you that it is about something! And some ways, DG and RW's words about it are very sad and bad ... and Ron Geesin deserves better. I don't think that cover would have made as big an impact as it did on the LP.
------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: Frets N Worries
Date Posted: September 22 2023 at 13:12
Well said, there's something about vinyl records you don't get in digital form ------------- I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat... |