Now, is it "easily" rock's best concept album? It's a very good one, but there are many fantastic concept albums out there, and while Spartacus may be better than a good number of them, it's still a debate that would take a few pages of discussion to wring out, were there enough interested parties.

        Apart from the album's instrumental prowess, the thing that I think makes Spartacus the greatest rock conceptual epic is the lyrical writing; the lyrics are very "to the point", and not a single word or phrase is out of place or wasted, and you really get the story of Spartacus in a convincing and "real life" way. 

              Triumvirat were the first German rock band to make a strong impact in North America, with Spartacus cracking the Top 30 at position 27, and it is an example of how music is truly the universal language, and breaks down barriers between cultures and society.  

presdoug wrote: Triumvirat were the first German rock band to make a strong impact in North America, with Spartacus cracking the Top 30 at position 27, and it is an example of how music is truly the universal language, and breaks down barriers between cultures and society.

 

That's awesome, but Kraftwerk beat them to the punch a year earlier when Autobahn (still regarded as a Krautrock record) reached No. 5 in the Billboard Top 200. I take no pleasure in saying that, nor in pointing out that Tangerine Dream, one of my all-time favorite bands, didn't mount a North American tour till several years after Kraftwerk's 1975 US tour (thanks to Phonogram backing them following the success of Autobahn).

kenethlevine wrote: yes I thought Autobahn was a bit earlier, but wasn't sure if perhaps Illusions was an earlier chart record, though obviously it didn't reach #5!  Actually, didn't Nektar's "remember the Future" hit the US top 10 in 1973?  Now, their leader was British but the rest of the band was German I believe

 

They were all Brits: Roye Albrighton, Taff Freeman, Derek Moore and Ron Howden. They did form the band in Germany, but they're regarded as English prog.

But yes, Remember the Future and Down to Earth both charted in the Top 20/40 in '73-74.

 

presdoug wrote: Old Loves Die Hard charted in America in 1976, but just reached position 85 in the album charts. Under-rated, and a fantastic record, though.

 

I agree!

Pres ... are you trying to lock me up into listening to these things again?

At least, my roomie at the time actually played these albums on the air ... something that can not be said for most of the "progressive" wannabee's.

 

All personal opinion, obviously.

       

       That is interesting that your roomie played Triumvirat; I was kind of late to the party on this band, never having heard them until 1985, and it is fascinating for me to read and hear about what was going on with them in their hey day in the seventies.

              I have never actually heard them on the radio in my entire life, which is a shame.

Guy Guden (Space Pirate Radio) played the album the day it arrived at the station, as at the time, we were finding that the label HARVEST had a lot of interesting stuff, and now was spreading to other parts of Europe. I collected almost everything I could find on that label, and Kevin Ayers, Roy Harper, Edgar Broughton Band (for example), STILL are favorites of mine from that label. Their work is outstanding.

The album would have been "Illusions on a Double Dimple" ... and that would be (I think) around Fall or slightly later in 1974.

I wish we could tell folks how much of this music we talk about actually "made it" to radio, and through radio, at the time.Nowadays, radio is obsolete and should die, if they do not free themselves from corporate owners!

At least new, and different music would get heard a bit more ... the internet is sounding like many of these corporate stations more and more each day ... witness most of the progressive stream anythings ... absolutely horrible mixes and terrible selections, not to mention the repetition, and we're not talking NEU or KRAFTWERK in their early days!

          I totally understand, and concur, with your feeling about radio, and the corporations that run radio now tend to "go for the jugular" when it comes to profit, that is for sure.

          And regarding streaming, I have never heard music in that way, but more recently, record companies have sometimes been remastering old progressive rock recordings in what I dub "the loudness wars", in an attempt to sound modern and marketable, I have noticed that they EQ old recordings to the max, and unnaturally boost the bass, and high end. It happened to Triumvirat's 2002 remasters, and the best source for their music are really the old Electrola lps and early 1990s Electrola CD remasterings from Germany.