3rd Rd. Classics: Pawn Hearts v. Mirage

micky wrote: Saperlipopette! wrote: micky wrote: yeah... if the fame of Pawn Hearts rests on its epic..as it does  flawed as it is  IMO.. Mirage's fame should rest on the shoulders of its epic and that smokes and lays waste to VDGG's.. first off.. it is isn't deraied by over-intellectual bullsh*t.. nor by the need to be too clever by half.  It is what it is .. a good hard prog kick ass epic.  I've often said.. the first half of PoLHK was pure gold.. among the best things I've ever heard in prog..  I pretty much agree but love both and find young Peter Hammill's pretentious but honest existentialism charming and and genuinely moving (a couple of years later his writing matured considerably and by 74-75 became one of progs greatest lyricists imo).  micky wrote: but the 2nd half? Chirst almight.. damn near ranks among the WORST.  Interesting for sure.. but would never be loony enough to rate it is anything approaching great. This part I don't get. I'm no looney but the progression in this epic is perfection to my ears. An amazing trip from start to finish and it all makes sense. The most spot on thing Julian Cope has ever written: ...“A Plague of Lighthouse keepers” drifts in and out of control for 23-minutes of standing-on-the-verge-of-getting-it-on-ness, occasionally unleashing ridiculous stentorian extremes, then backing right off into passages of near meditational drift. It should also be noted that this lot use Mellotrons 400 and Mark 2 like they SHOULD be used. Sound FX, train choogles, stampeding elephants, bain’t nowt too gimmicky for our boys. If it was guaranteed to invoke the ancient Gods, then they’d even steep the ARP synthesizer in tea.  PAWN HEARTS is a masterpiece in the old-fashioned sense of the word, that is: it is a musical blueprint on which to build in the future and has as sensibly structured an anti-structure as you could wish for. It is in turns beautiful, ridiculous, foul, overwhelming, irritating, mutating and magnificent... While ca. half the review is as irritating as he usually is. I always did mean to review that album to make my thoughts and feelings on it more clear. Needless to say I do share John McFerrins thoughts on it. Scary stuff...  never met the guy.. but almost scary how much I agree with many of his observations. Like ... here is someone who is expressing exactly what I feel.. makes reviewing actually more difficult. Much like my wife.  Think very much the same about a great many things musicially. People like him.. and Raff are so much better with words..I'd be afraid of aping their review to do mine. so here is what he said.. pretty much sums up how I feel about the epic and the album http://www.johnmcferrinmusicreviews.org/vdgg.htm#pawnhearts

I love a lot of McFerrin's reviews but on this one the 'Fripp' guitar parts on Man Erg and Plague are all Banton's keys and I'm pretty sure the following breakup was because they were bankrupt after people nicked all their stuff on an otherwise successful Italian tour. The discords are everything for this one and I don't see how you could do songs like VDGG were going for without large amounts of stuff that is going to annoy people who always feel like discord is some sort of sneering joke aimed at them.

While I love Lady Fantasy, I don't think anyone could write about it that 'before a sarcastic Utnapishtim saxophone tells you it’s the f**king Epic of Gilgamesh, and those f**king stone things are BROKEN!!!' It's a good song, probably Camel's finest, but without it the world would just be down a good song.

Pawn Hearts

TGM: Orb wrote: ' It's a good song, probably Camel's finest, but without it the world would just be down a good song.

ahhh.. but would would the world be missing without PoLHK... oh yes...

a perfect example of one of the real problems with prog rock... especially when the music fails to cover for it..

'A lot of rock lyricists choose to write about "shallow" things in a dumb way; a lot of great lyricists write about "shallow" things in an intelligent way; a select few have the ability to write about "deep" things in an intelligent way'.


give me a good song... without pretense.. it rocks. Hell ya.. spare us the over-intellectual bullsh*t...

over something that would be, if it was important enough to register on anyone's radar,  example A of why prog rock with aspirations to be something serious... is very hard to do well.. and very easy to do in the most silly and sickening ways.

^v

time to break out more ...

McLeg!!!!



give me a M..

give me a I...

give me a R...

give me a A..

give me a G...

give me a E...

what does that spell!!!?]

f**king Camel!!

With Pawn Hearts I have half an album that I love and half that I don't care about (I love Man Erg and half of the title track). With Mirage I have a whole album that I love. So Mirage it is.

TGM: Orb wrote: I can't think of any lyrically worthwhile prog stuff that isn't either over-intellectual bullsh*t or complete campy ridiculousness, and I think it's actually a lot harder to write silly stuff that doesn't just seem like you're not brave enough to put your balls on the table while the critics are sharpening their knives.

I see your point but I don't think Peter Hammill's lyrics on Silent Corner and the Empty Stage, In Camera and Godbluff are either over-intellectual bullsh*t, complete campy ridiculousness or silly - I hear heartfelt, intelligent, good lyrics that works perfect with the music and very well on its own. 

Hmm...what I don't get are many of Mick's pairings in these polls.

Camel.

Mirage.

Mirage is the best Camel, but not even close to as good as Pawn Hearts.