Joined: February 17 2012
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Posted: August 26 2012 at 22:37
Really the only band I can say I truly LIKE the 'dark side' is Genesis. And Then There Were Three is awesome, Duke is especially good, Abacab is give or take, Genesis has Mama and Home By The Sea (second too!), Invisible Touch as I hate the song Invisible Touch, the rest is really good! The Brazilian is an awesome instrumental. Domino is a great 'epic' of sorts. Tonight, Tonight is awesome. And that's really all I can say about that album. I never even dared to try Calling All Stations. Maybe I will?
Actually, I also love everything by Anthony Phillips. The later stuff is actually better! But I don't think that'd count as the 'dark side' as there never was a 'bad' time for the Ant!
Check out my FREE album: A one-man project The Distant Dynasty
I think most of 90125 is good enough, but perhaps because that was the first album of theirs I stumbled upon, unfortunately. I'm fine with all of Rush, the vast majority of it is at least good. I like the song 'home by the sea' by Genesis, and don't dislike the song 'abacab'.
And your wise men don't know how it feels... to be thick as a brick.
Joined: September 26 2010
Location: USA
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Points: 1281
Posted: May 29 2012 at 01:22
Too Old To Rock 'N' Roll: Too Young To Die! by Jethro Tull. Just as much of a masterpiece as Minstrel In The Gallery, Songs From The Wood, and Heavy Horses, yet not thought of as well.
He looks at this world and wants it all... so he strikes, like Thunderball!
Interesting that Time by ELO was mentioned. It was actually one of the first albums that came my mind when I read the topic! I love that album, and I've listened to it more than anything else by ELO.
The other one is Nomzamo by IQ (and about half of Are You Sitting Comfortably). It has some 80s pop cheese, but I really like the vocal melodies and energy.
Outside of prog, but in the category of "I love it but everyone else hates it" would be Songs From The Capeman by Paul Simon.
Joined: January 04 2007
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Points: 18718
Posted: May 25 2012 at 15:32
rogerthat wrote:
... I really appreciate Metheny's work but there was a reason older jazz musicians included a healthy dose of standards in their albums. If people have to get to the point where they can relate to The Way Up before they listen to some contemporary jazz, fewer people will listen to jazz or they will simply listen to something they can digest, like Kenny G. Kenny G is simply serving a market that other musicians have seemingly lost interest in.
Actually I would imagine that this goes way further back to the "Easy Listening" mode that was in all record stores, that also included Glen Miller and Dave Brubeck. I kinda think that Pat was more making a statement about the "housewife music" (that was the nickname for it at KTYD along with Michael Franks!) ...than he was "serious music" and both you and I could probably sit here and have fun doing the same thing on progressive and prog.
I might joke about it, but I do not feel that it is right to take away anyone's musicability. But if Kenny sold his soul for another big money maker ... so be it ... and it is not Pat's place to comment. He stuck with ECM during that time and did all the great work that we remember so well. This is the same thing that I say for Metalica ... when in their Behind the Music, they were asked if they had sold out ... and one of them said ... "You bet. Every night!" ... I did not mind that at all ... except that the attitude was not about the music or anything else ... it was about the greed and the fame and the power that allowed them to do and say things ... to show off their fame! And yes, they have th eright to do that ... but I'm not sure that it is right to flaunt it, when the money they make is enough to help 1000 other bands make a living for a year at least! And I have a hard time thinking that one band is better than the other ... and I'm not a socialist in any way shape or form!
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
Joined: January 04 2007
Location: Grok City
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Points: 18718
Posted: May 25 2012 at 15:12
rogerthat wrote:
moshkito wrote:
The "easy way out" for me, is when it returns to the main opening theme, this making it A-B-A ... and yeat another repetition of the original format that is the most liked in all of music, because it is the easiest and the best known and studied form out there.
Does it not therefore also make it more difficult to stand out in that format, following this train of thought? I don't know what I should say w.r.t your references to Stravinsky, KC or Amon Duul II because I love their work. But not every artsy musician is going to execute his ambitious concepts as well as Stravinsky or Fripp either. Sometimes, I feel that the mere fact that somebody has decided to take on a tough format and operate in a niche of art that is 'difficult' and has a more restricted following places him on a pedestal in the eyes of followers of that niche.
...
This is where the grouping, the area, the place and time comes into play ... for example, the Germans were, for th emost part, fairly well musically educated. Hearing all the Agitation Free, Can, Berlin Factory folks talk, you know these folks KNOW music, and their work was a very conscious effort to make sure that a style or form was NOT done.
In places like London, I would imagine that things were a bit more thought out. The English are very intersting in film and theater ... very self conscious, but not afraid to try out things, as was quite visible in its theatre, and in its music and film. The French ... just like laissez-faire ... sometimes it's who cares? In SF, no one cared about form, and they were too stoned to worry about a form, but the things that came up, were the ones you learned in music 10 or music 101 ... the abc's of music or rock music ... with lots of noise on it, of course.
And so on.
Taking on a tough format is not an "original" idea ... and by "definition" would not necessarily be progressive. This is the case with almost all of "prog" as opposed to the more original "progressive" bands. The hardest thing to do is a composer, or in our case a band, come up with something that has no form, and ... voila ... there is is ... recorded ... and we like it ... and CAN did this for a while with the Edgar Burroughs concept of 52 pick up, and the result was Tago Mago ... according to Holger there is no rhyme or reason for what was selected and used in Tago Mago.
Agreement, is more often than not ... something that comes after the fact ... don't forget that ... and many times, music is created off an improvisation or experimentation that gave us something that was used somewhere else later. Again, that would be multiple small forms, end up coming together to help put together a bigger form.
This happens to me in writing ... when I have over 200 bits and pieces of scenes, moments, stories, and what not ... that do not fit anywhere ... and on a given day I will be writing something ... and 3 of those end up in the middle of what I am doing ... and it wasn't planned.
...
... Expanding the scope of the 'easiest and best known form' is an important pursuit that has regrettably been abandoned in recent years because anybody who wants to make some serious music seems to want to do something 'technical' or 'experimental' or 'progressive'.
Agreed. No worries there. And I know that I am too critical on that end sometimes ... for it's like the old days when disco came out ... everything was FFFFFFG disco ... and some of it sonded worse than anything. And then it was glam, and have of it was more glammed out and it was getting boring again. Later came new age. Then came rap. Now comes metal. Now come hip-hop ... and people stick it out until they kill it ...
However, this is not something that can be done with "progressive" when by itself and definition, it is already an experimentation and exercise in freedom, not a regimented idea or concept! And that is my point!
The schools for how it came about ... I say there are 4 or 5 main ones ... but they all count ... in one way or other!
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
Joined: January 04 2007
Location: Grok City
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Posted: May 25 2012 at 14:43
TODDLER wrote:
Now, back to the dark side ... it is cloudy outside, and it appears that showers are threatening London's ugly and stinky skies .... it was reported that a rock group thought it was funny to fly a massive plastic pig over areas where it could be dangerous and cause a fire ...
...
Oh my God...I'm in tears. This is really funny.
You know what brought this up for me?
The article that a futebol team over there in the EPL was wanting to buy the old power station and turn it into a sports facility ... and keep the smoke stack things because of its symbolic/sentimental value and fame.
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
Joined: April 06 2008
Location: USA
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Points: 1019
Posted: May 23 2012 at 22:35
RoyFairbank wrote:
Freudiana by Alan Parsons Project - virtually unknown out of print album, fantastic prog album, but it is still underrated by the six people who know about it.
Time by ELO
Freudiana: looked for it for 10 years before I found out it wasn't released in the USA. Found it while browsing around in a small record store in New Zealand. For me the find of a lifetime and a CD well worth the wait. Kind of like APP meets Broadway in spots, which made for a very interesting album. It also created friction between Eric Woolfson and Alan Parsons, with EW eventually pulling the album and having it released under Freudiana instead of APP. The end result was the very few people knew it existed and fewer still heard any of the songs. A shame really as it is quite good.
As far as the big groups go, there are no bad albums in Genesis. I like all phases of the band, just some more than others with my fav studio being TotT.
I can't be as generous with Yes, who lost their way for a while. Except for a song or two per album, from Big Generator to Open Your Eyes are not my cup of tea. Loved Magnification and especially the live DVD with it.
Big thumbs up for all of Pink Floyd except Piper and More which for me are hit and miss. YMMV
Time by ELO is highly underrated! A stellar work that doesn't have much of a following.
Not a huge Camel fan as I feel they have always been consistent but they could have benefited by having another singer. Not instead of Andy Latimer but with him.
(Firesuit on... I'm not sold on the Classic seven for the Moody Blues, my favorite album of theirs is Long Distance Voyager. The later albums are uneven but I feel that way about most of their work. Time Traveller is a great box set. Still burning
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Posted: May 13 2012 at 15:58
< ="" ="text/" ="/B1D671CF-E532-4481-99AA-19F420D90332etdefender/huidhui.js?0=0&0=0&0=0">
I'd say that Love Beach and Black Moon are far more complete albums than Tarkus in my opinion. And Works too by the way.
La victoire est éphémère mais la gloire est éternelle!
Joined: September 03 2006
Location: .
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Posted: May 06 2012 at 11:39
TODDLER wrote:
rogerthat wrote:
moshkito wrote:
The "easy way out" for me, is when it returns to the main opening
theme, this making it A-B-A ... and yeat another repetition of the
original format that is the most liked in all of music, because it is
the easiest and the best known and studied form out there.
Does it not therefore also make it more difficult to stand out in that
format, following this train of thought? I don't know what I should say
w.r.t your references to Stravinsky, KC or Amon Duul II because I love
their work. But not every artsy musician is going to execute his
ambitious concepts as well as Stravinsky or Fripp either. Sometimes, I
feel that the mere fact that somebody has decided to take on a tough
format and operate in a niche of art that is 'difficult' and has a more
restricted following places him on a pedestal in the eyes of followers
of that niche. That is something I do not agree with. Yes! very good! Very good point! Not often expressed enough for the purpose of education.
There are really
not many prog rock BANDS or ARTISTS, only prog TRACKS. Day in the
Life is also prog and so is Contusion; and artists like Beatles are
very important because they expanded perceptions of what music could be
like for large swathes of music listeners, not just a small niche. And
in doing so, they risked losing the commercial success that had accrued
to them by writing She Loves You or Hard Day's Night while never
possessing the snob value of 'serious' music. Very, very, true and it's something to stop and think about. It was long ago before certain attitudes developed in the prog world. Very true and important for people in society to consider.
Expanding the scope of
the 'easiest and best known form' is an important pursuit that has
regrettably been abandoned in recent years because anybody who wants to
make some serious music seems to want to do something 'technical' or
'experimental' or 'progressive'.
I have witnessed this through observations within personal experiences. It is ignorant for a majority of musicians to follow this path. To make their own rules and influence a majority of young musicians to believe this way. There are no boundaries when it comes down to expressing art ....I mean to say that the Beatles were not following that way of thinking.
I remember Pat Metheny once blasted Kenny G for his cover of What A Wonderful World, suggesting more or less that he was polluting jazz standards. And my first thought was, well, why doesn't Metheny show people how jazz standards are meant to be rendered...and in studio albums, not just concerts. I really appreciate Metheny's work but there was a reason older jazz musicians included a healthy dose of standards in their albums. If people have to get to the point where they can relate to The Way Up before they listen to some contemporary jazz, fewer people will listen to jazz or they will simply listen to something they can digest, like Kenny G. Kenny G is simply serving a market that other musicians have seemingly lost interest in.
The "easy way out" for me, is when it returns to the main opening
theme, this making it A-B-A ... and yeat another repetition of the
original format that is the most liked in all of music, because it is
the easiest and the best known and studied form out there.
Does it not therefore also make it more difficult to stand out in that
format, following this train of thought? I don't know what I should say
w.r.t your references to Stravinsky, KC or Amon Duul II because I love
their work. But not every artsy musician is going to execute his
ambitious concepts as well as Stravinsky or Fripp either. Sometimes, I
feel that the mere fact that somebody has decided to take on a tough
format and operate in a niche of art that is 'difficult' and has a more
restricted following places him on a pedestal in the eyes of followers
of that niche. That is something I do not agree with. Yes! very good! Very good point! Not often expressed enough for the purpose of education.
There are really
not many prog rock BANDS or ARTISTS, only prog TRACKS. Day in the
Life is also prog and so is Contusion; and artists like Beatles are
very important because they expanded perceptions of what music could be
like for large swathes of music listeners, not just a small niche. And
in doing so, they risked losing the commercial success that had accrued
to them by writing She Loves You or Hard Day's Night while never
possessing the snob value of 'serious' music. Very, very, true and it's something to stop and think about. It was long ago before certain attitudes developed in the prog world. Very true and important for people in society to consider.
Expanding the scope of
the 'easiest and best known form' is an important pursuit that has
regrettably been abandoned in recent years because anybody who wants to
make some serious music seems to want to do something 'technical' or
'experimental' or 'progressive'.
I have witnessed this through observations within personal experiences. It is ignorant for a majority of musicians to follow this path. To make their own rules and influence a majority of young musicians to believe this way. There are no boundaries when it comes down to expressing art ....I mean to say that the Beatles were not following that way of thinking.
Joined: September 03 2006
Location: .
Status: Offline
Points: 9869
Posted: May 05 2012 at 09:53
Already found something pretty interesting on randomly searching for their songs:
I don't like the 'feel' of this kind of music an awful lot. For something that seems to have been intended to be accessible, it probably ought to grab me more than it does. But it is pretty interesting, might be a band worth investigating for me. Thanks!
^ Not sure if we're on the same tack but yes, I heartily loathe the idea that crap weird is somehow considered better or more worthy of our forgiveness/attention than excellent conservative e.g. brilliantly executed and realized popular music forms
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do you like the "dark side" of the discography?
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