do you like the "dark side" of the discography?
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Topic: do you like the "dark side" of the discography?
Posted By: RoyFairbank
Subject: do you like the "dark side" of the discography?
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 01:47
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Almost every Prog band has a less appreciated part of its discography, which can range from ignored eras to unpopular works to simply less known or available albums. This is mainly the product of the longevity of Prog bands across different musical epochs and the ups and downs of artistic lifetimes. As such, I would suggest that common less appreciated albums and periods come most frequently *in the 80s, when traditional Prog bands were popular but went AOR (think Genesis) *in the 90s (and beyond), when said bands seemed bewildered by changes around them and produced lower quality or stale works while becoming quite unpopular in the mainstream. These albums are also less prominent in terms of recognition from almost every quarter. (think Yes) There are many others periods of a bands activity which typically may be less appreciated, including very early albums and albums resulting from a change in personnel. I have found, however, that the "dark side of the discography" is often what I come back to listen to the most. Perhaps this is because such albums are often less demanding, more accessible, has production values I like or find novel or features different band members and playing styles I appreciate. Examples of particularly disregarded albums that I find among the best of groups that have better known or simply better received eras are: Invisible Touch By Genesis | Very Interesting Album musically, performance and production wise, very different from early Genesis, but its up there with those old albums for me. Black Moon by ELP | Their best album hands down, some great lyrics and a very cohesive album Aria by Asia | Great 90s AOR style prog type rock, best album by this prog-related band. Big Generator by Yes | Great album, very proggy but still hip by the standards of the time. Time by ELO | barely garnered a third star on Progarchives, but its their best and proggiest album, albeit with early 80s production and pop sensibilities. 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. And others.... So I generally find the various dark sides of prog discographies to be rewarding and seldom as bad as their rating drops would indicate. A good band will often keep making good material or has made good material even in its pre-prog past, even if it changes what it is doing significantly over time. That said, crap is crap. But one man's trash is another man's treasure.  |
Replies:
Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 01:54
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70's classical giants :
No, i like some albums from the "dark" periods, but not enough to say that is the case in general, and allmost allways, i do agree with the masses, that the golden years, are infact golden.
With other bands i do not know enough about what is considered dark periods.
------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 02:07
| ELP - Black Moon . I loved that when it came out and thoroughly enjoyed hearing those tracks live. But after a few years I drifted back to listening Trilogy,Tarkus etc. Black Moon is so different in style to those albums its virtually a different band. Stylistically Carl Palmer was as far away from his revolutionary percussive style exhibited on Tarkus as he ever got while Lake had turned into a blues singer. Keith was just about recognisable thanks to Paper Blood (great to hear the Hammond organ). I havn't listened to Black Moon in years tbh. The ELP album that is terribly underappreciated is Works Volume One. Contains some stunning and varied music yet it rates just above 2 on PA. Just plain wrong imo. |
Posted By: frippism
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 03:04
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Usually, no I'm not a fan of the "dark side" of the classics. But sometimes. I didn't hate "Love Beach" completely... I don't mind Genesis' poppier albums, they're OK and at times have good tunes... Yes are dreadful though from that period of the 80s and stuff. ------------- There be dragons |
Posted By: Saperlipopette!
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 04:21
Agree about that one but in general; no. I usually think the crap side of most bands discography stinks. I do enjoy Can's http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=3515" rel="nofollow - Flow Motion and http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=3516" rel="nofollow - Saw Delight but they're still mediocre compared to Tago Mago or Ege Bamyasi.
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RoyFairbank wrote:Posted By: PyramidMeetsTheEye
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 04:27
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i thought that the title is the dark side of the moon. -------------  |
Posted By: Sagichim
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 05:30
| Usually i don't like it, but of course i didn't give it a fare shot like i did with the 70's stuff, but that's maybe because i know what i like and don't like, so in a lot of cases i avoid it. |
Posted By: tullspanfan
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 09:09
| I really like Jethro Tull's 1991 Catfish Rising album, which reviewers here don't seem to like. I think it's a good energitic rock album on its own term but pale in comparison of other JT releases. |
Posted By: Alitare
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 09:34
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In most of these bands I can barely enjoy their 'light' side, let alone crap like Love Beach or Tales or Invisible friggin' touch. But I will always adamantly defend The Final Cut and Songs from the Wood/Heavy Horses, though the latter two aren't necessarily considered to be part of the 'dark' side, I suppose.
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Posted By: freyacat
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 09:48
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I like your definition of the "dark side." And yes, I do appreciate all the albums you are talking about. It's understandably different if you lived through these periods. You understand that the whole music scene was different at that time, and it is meaningful to hear your favorite bands making the best of it and trying to be creative within a changed musical language. Bands like Yes and ELP always built their symphonic prog masterpieces on the building blocks of the pop music that was current at the time. ------------- sad creature nailed upon the coloured door of time |
Posted By: tullspanfan
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 09:50
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Heavy Horses is one of the best Tull albums IMO. And I don't know if Stormwatch is considered dark side but I enjoy a lot. Also, Obscured by Clouds
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Posted By: colorofmoney91
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 10:03
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I have a Genesis greatest hits album with a lot of their poppy stuff on it, which I enjoy now. ------------- http://hanashukketsu.bandcamp.com" rel="nofollow - Hanashukketsu |
Posted By: Ambient Hurricanes
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 10:52
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Great thread! I haven't listened to a whole lot of the "dark side," being a relatively new prog fan and just trying to listen to all the classics while also absorbing all the more avant-garde and modern stuff that's available. I have listened to all of Rush's albums, though, and I am of the opinion that many of them are as good as or better than much of their classic 70's material. Presto and Vapor Trails are both 5 star masterpieces for me, and I wouldn't give any of their 80's, 90's. or 2000's albums any less than four stars. I also like 90125, though I haven't heard any more of Yes' 80's albums. It's not anywhere close to Close to the Edge or anything like that, but it's a good solid album in it's own right. I also like Magnification (though that's pretty highly rated here, anyway). ------------- I love dogs, I've always loved dogs |
Posted By: smartpatrol
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 12:24
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I've always loved Love Beach. I love all the tracks and the cover art is awesome. I may be a hetero but that cover turns me on! Just Kidding
 ------------- http://bit.ly/1kqTR8y" rel="nofollow">  The greatest record label of all time! |
Posted By: smartpatrol
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 12:30
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I love all of Rush's stuff I love all of Genesis' stuff up to Invisable Touch I don't like any Yes past Relayer I don't any ELP after Brain Salad Surgery And really all I like from Crimson is thier first three albums and thier three 80s albums (I really tried to get into mid-70s-Crimson or 90s-Crimson but I just can't) And all other Prog bands I like I'm still exploring thier discogrophy so I can't say, really.
------------- http://bit.ly/1kqTR8y" rel="nofollow"> The greatest record label of all time! |
Posted By: thehallway
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 12:38
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Jazz musicians seem to get along consistently, without having a "classic period" and then 12 reunions, none of which contain any creativity. Must be a rock thing! ------------- http://www.thefreshfilmblog.com/" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: Progosopher
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 12:39
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I understand what you mean, Roy, and am very much in the same boat. Since listening to music is for the enjoyment of it, a more accessable album is frequently preferable to a more complex and demanding one. Many of the albums already mentioned I enjoy quite a bit, for example, ELO's Time and Tull's Catfish Rising. One thing I have started to do with reviews is look at how many albums have garnered specific ratings - the percentage of how many stars the various raters have given. It is a good way to see the diversity of experience we prog listeners have. Some albums are heavily split between low and high ratings. To fully understand individual ratings you have to have a sense of where that person is coming from. If you are a big fan of Symphonic but someone else really digs Extreme/Tech Metal, you may not have much in common musically. What you praise, that other may despise and vice-versa. Experience has taught me this is important when using reviews and ratings as recommendations. I have bought albums based on general ratings only to be disappointed, such as Porcupine Tree's Fear of a Blank Planet; conversely, I have greatly enjoyed some generally low rate albums like Genesis' Invisible Touch (which I had long before ProgArchives came into existence). ------------- The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions. -- George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty" |
Posted By: Moogtron III
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 12:57
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Well, I don't know. In the case of Genesis, I still like their 'darker side'. Yes too, to a certain degree. And Camel, definitely. Well, yes, I suppose I like it to a certain extent, but the older I get, the more I turn to the lighter side. That means in this case the more proggier side. |
Posted By: Horizons
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 13:55
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Rush, Camel, and Pearl Jam are the only bands i can think of. ------------- Crushed like a rose in the riverflow. |
Posted By: Dellinger
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 13:56
| I would say I usually don't like whole albums from the darker side of bands discography, but there are often isolated songs withing those albums that I really like... and many times they are the "hits", though not necessarily. One I do love is "The Division Bell", form Pink Floyd, and it could be considered to be a dark side of their discography. Others I like are from Rick Wakeman, like "Out There", which was not as popular as his 70's albums, but a true come back to form... still, even some of his "New Age" stuff that I happen to know I like a lot. The already mentioned "Black Moon" by ELP may just as well be the album as a whole that I have liked the best, but none of it's songs comes close to the brilliance of my favourite songs they did in the 70's. |
Posted By: Dayvenkirq
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 14:23
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There are quite a few infamous "obscurities", with or without the quotes, that I enjoy.
Ditto. Also, Genesis' "FGTR", Yes' "TFTO", KC's "SABB" and "Earthbound", PF's "More" and "Atom Heart Mother" (although now I'm not sure if the latter qualifies), Holger Czukay's "Movies", I'm not sure if ELO's "New World Record" qualifies as infamous since critics like it but on PA it's blah.
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Posted By: wilmon91
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 14:42
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No, I don't like the dark side, generally...
But...I don't think the eighties were dark ages for Camel. I think they began with the nineties. Beginning with Dust and Dreams.. But if they were, it's an exception, I really like their 80's period.
I strongly dislike "Invisible Touch", I get bad vibes just thinking about it. Come to think of it, it was my first Genesis album, which I bought for the equivalent of half a dollar on vinyl. Back then I didn't even know they had a 70's period.
But the Alan parsons Project didn't have any dark age, I mean there is no point were their sound changed radically towards a more pop oriented sound. I really like the song Freudiana by the way.
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Posted By: RoyFairbank
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 14:57
APP was always strong and kept up their standards. In one case they recorded under a different name for more poppy music [Keats]. That album is good too. Freudiana was caught in band politics, otherwise it would have been their best album in some time* (better than Gaudi and Stereotomy for sure), even though it was too long, half of it being Woolfson solo numbers that edged on show-tunes. He sort of took over at some point half way through recording, but Alan Parsons and the band stayed on to produce and play what remained to be recorded by Woolfson. The APP-regular Prog half is remarkable. The title track, and a really awe-inspiring song sung by Kiki Dee, plus a great song sung by Leo Sayer (If I recall), some songs sung by Eric Stewart and of course some great haunting stuff with Eric Woolfson. Regular APP crew and production on all the songs, even though I have a terrible not-so-regular acquired copy. Someone tried to boost the output on my copy I think, somewhere along the lines and messed up on the conversion to mp3. Still sounds great, very well produced, with some 90s punch. The song Freudiana and You're On Your Own alone may be the best songs ever done by APP. Very mature and emotionally haunting. *[had it been released and marketed normally, and kept at regular album length with just the prog material, though the other stuff isn't bad and sometimes straddles prog and show-tunes quite convincingly] |
Posted By: presdoug
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 15:26
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Usually, what is considered "the dark side" of a group ends up being something i don't like. Some cases are untried, when i have not heard the music, like with ELP-never heard Love Beach, or In The Hot Seat, so can't pass judgment-what i have heard of Black Moon, i like (and i saw them on that tour) one of the only groups whose "dark side" i have ended up embracing is Triumvirat, with their last two pop rock albums A La Carte and Russian Roulette, but both were initially a hard sell for me-it took decades before i liked them, but now i definitely do |
Posted By: deckard33
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 16:10
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Very interesting thread.
On contrary, there would be much to say about highly rated albums (in top prog albums), that we personally dislike. For the present question, I would answer : Jethro Tull : Dot Com I love this underrated album from its release. I find it better than Roots to branches. It is inspired, innovative, well produced. Giddings work on keyboards is very good. It may be because I don't pay much attention to lyrics... Too bad that Tull didn't follow on this way (although we can find some dot com influences in TAAB2). Christmas Album is in my opinion less interesting (only reprises)... Jethro Tull : Stormwatch There is no really good song in this album but I keep listening to it regularly from 15 years. There must be something in it ... Pink Floyd : Final Cut It's not Pink Floyd nor Prog anymore, but what a good concept album ! Unique mood , consistent from beginning to end. Roger Waters delivered a shiny depressive diamond
Yes : Magnification Very clever. Dreamtime is a fantastic prog piece. |
Posted By: Hercules
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 17:41
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Time is an excellent album; my favourite ELO album.
Camel never really did a stinker of an album, though The Single Factor tests my loyalty somewhat - it's really an Andy Latimer solo album (Stationary Traveller on the other hand is a superb album).
Marillion and Rush also never really plumbed the depths, IQ produced 2 odd but enjoyable, more commercial albums with Paul Menel and, them excepted, I can't think of another band that did not release something truly hideous.
Tull - Crest of a Knave (Steel Monkey must be their worst ever song)
ELP - Love Beach (Bloody awful in every respect)
Genesis - Genesis (Sold 8m albums to cloth eared idiots)
Pink Floyd - The Final Cut (Like a third rate 3rd album to THe Wall, which is not my favourite Floyd album anyway)
Yes - Big Generator (Resembles a serious train crash lasting over 43 mins)
To see such great bands releasing substandard rubbish like these is sad, but perhaps they ran out of creativity after their great 70s albums or perhaps they just wanted to make some serious money. ------------- A TVR is not a car. It's a way of life. |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 18:56
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There's so much good stuff out there that I only bother with the dark side out of nostalgia. I have no interest in exploring the lesser material.
------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Posted By: Alitare
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 19:22
I actually like The Final Cut more than the Wall. Neither of these are my favorite Pink Floyd album, though. But hell, I like The Final Cut more than Animals (by a very small point!)
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Posted By: Man With Hat
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 20:06
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Dont feel comfortable saying never, but I'll say 99% of the time no. It helps thats I'm not a fan of pop/pop-rock which is generally what the dark side of a discog falls into. ------------- Dig me...But don't...Bury me I'm running still, I shall until, one day, I hope that I'll arrive Warning: Listening to jazz excessively can cause a laxative effect. |
Posted By: ClemofNazareth
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 20:56
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Seems to me what you're really asking is whether there are albums from prog bands that we still enjoy but that aren't generally considered to be their best work, and/or came out during a period when the bands were on the wane. I agree with 'Time' and 'The Final Cut' which have already been mentioned, although both bands dropped large turds on their respective follow-up albums IMHO. Here's a few that come to mind: Supertramp - http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=4666" rel="nofollow - famous last words (Hodgson was always about sappy emotion, and never more so than on this one) Manfred Mann's Earth Band - http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=6722" rel="nofollow - 2006 (Mann managed to reawaken some creative spark long after I thought he was washed up) Kansas - http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=3208" rel="nofollow - Audio-Visions (more authentic than most other stuff being put out by prog dinosaurs in the early 80s) Renaissance - http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=3047" rel="nofollow - the Other Woman (not the classic band sound at all, but I still play it more than most of those older ones) Yes - http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=1846" rel="nofollow - Open Your Eyes (even if Howe brought back Asia's sound with him, this is still the best thing the band had done in more than a decade) ------------- "Peace is the only battle worth waging." Albert Camus |
Posted By: kenethlevine
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 21:20
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hmm, I think my frequent firtation with the dark side may be due to my interests in other styles besides prog that sometimes gets the best of me well, definitely CAMEL, with the 80s considered their low pint, Stationary Traveler is my personal favourite. But I even enjoy some of the Single Factor While "A Song for All Seasons" is perhaps not the dark side of Renaissance, most here regard it as part of their decline that began with the previous "NOVELA", whereas I think it's their best A lot of proggers were justifiably upset by the latest DECEMBERISTS album "The King is Dead" but it's my favourite While not really Dark side MIKE OLDFIELD compared to where he would go later, I am a huge fan of both "Platinum" and "QE2" I really enjoyed the AMAZING BLONDEL albums that appeared after John Gladwin left, in particular "Inspiration" Big fan of "Cured" by STEVE HACKETT My favourite albums by NOVALIS are " http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=2974" rel="nofollow - Vielleicht bist Du ein Clown ? " and "Augenblicke", which both came after what most see as their peak. |
Posted By: RoyFairbank
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 21:43
Ahh yes, Cured. I like Highly Strung as well. Great stuff! Good 80s drum sound on the latter especially. I even like the GTR album, with Hackett and Howe which is better than Asia and has some vicious proggy material, like "the Hunter." Its not in the digital music stores anymore, damn it. I should have recorded the stereo mix of it when I had the chance. More fool me. |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: April 28 2012 at 22:04
Good pick. That might be the only one, along with Novella, for me as far as this thread goes. Interestingly, the band consider the phase from Scheherazade to SFAS as their best years, which doesn't seem to tally with fans' perceptions. I think Mk-2 was a bit slow to mature and a lot of people simply lost interest by the time they did come up with their most splendid work. I don't know if Atom Heart Mother can be considered the dark side of PF's discography because it is from when they were finding their feet and would go on to make some great albums. But all the band members seem to dislike that one, while I think it is a great album...I know that even the fans don't necessarily go with Gilmour and Waters on that one. Also, Obscured by Clouds is a beautiful album that, um, gets obscured by the formidable presence of Meddle and Dark Side of the Moon on either side of it. |
Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: April 29 2012 at 01:37
------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: April 29 2012 at 02:22
It's also because they don't HAVE to be in a band. They change ensembles with time and explore different directions while a rock band has to find a sound that all the members are comfortable with. It may be the reason why King Crimson has been able to change its colour with the passage of time. Fripp had the guts to disband his best lineup at their very height and to bring new members to the fold like Belew who brought a different set of influences. |
Posted By: Old_Wise_Owl
Date Posted: April 29 2012 at 07:08
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A lot of artists here at PA have released non-prog, but yet very good pop/rock albums that I really enjoy a lot. Genesis-post-Duke, Phil Collins and Peter Garbriel solo, ELO, Supertramp, and Queen definitely fall in this category. I like Sting/Police and U2 for the same reason, well-written, well-performed pop/rock. However, I have big difficulties with prog pretenders like Asia (should they be on PA at all?) and Alan Parsons (their first album an exception), which had a prog-like image, but in the end just produced AOR, and pretty crappy songwriting it was too. Listening to some of their later stuff has done nothing to change my mind, still terminally dull and boring. And prog it is not. ELP; Jethro Tull, and Yes tried going AOR and failed (Yes 90125 an exception). When Yes and Jethro Tull tried to return to prog, the results were uneven. Yes Keys To Ascension, Ladder and Magnification and Tull Crest Of A Knave and Roots To Branches are eg. pretty good). ELP never recovered after Brain Salad Surgery and Love Beach must simply be the "Worst Prog Turkey ever released by a major Prog band". So, I'd much rather listen to a well-written pop/rock album, than a substandard prog album. |
Posted By: ProgEpics
Date Posted: April 29 2012 at 07:50
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I agree about time by ELO, a concept album as well. An astronaut in space away from his lover, for some reason he is in the wrong time period. The song lyrics such as "remember the good old 1980s?" even though the album came out in 81. My interpretation is that the main character gets back to his proper time at the end of the album, hence the standard rock n roll hold on tight. But the rest of the album is very futuristic, very cool idea. ------------- Come on you target for faraway laughter, Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine! |
Posted By: RoyFairbank
Date Posted: April 29 2012 at 10:29
The album has a very cool idea indeed, but it could have been fleshed out a little more. Apparently the main character was tempted to travel into the future but then could not return (despite all their great inventions and good intentions here I stay), The future was soulless and electronic, with orbiting space stations and moon colonies. He is provided with a robotic facisimile of his missed soul mate back in 1981. She is too cold and heartless for him to love. He decides to travel around, go to the Moon, and space, he sees beautiful things, but everything is so heartless, and he increasingly comes to obsess on the past and his lost lover. A bonus track has him visit his hometown and he is horrified to find that the everything is gone or rearranged, and his soul mate Julie has long since moved away and died. Finally he denounces the 21st century altogether, which he cannot relate to (~2095 the year is, I think). I think you are right and he gets home in the end. The album's overall theme is lack of fulfillment, lost love, loss of meaning in modern conditions, Here is The News sorts of highlights the post-modernity of the main characters situation, where the news is pointless, cacophonous and empty-hearted (someone left his life behind in a plastic bag) (someone escaped from Satellite 2 [the main character?]) As for APP someone said they were not Prog. Their music is far more serious than most so-called Prog, while the musical content of their work aims at popular appeal but is incredibly adventurous, unusual, moody and tightly woven together. Their albums include beautiful instrumental workouts and cohesive flow of one track to another, deep and ambitious themes... everything you could want from a prog band. I don't see a lot of difference between them and Pink Floyd, for example,, in terms of their musical content, except Floyd is a tad harder. You don't have to sound like Close to The Edge or Heavy Metal to be prog. |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: April 29 2012 at 10:42
| APP were not terribly infectious or astonishingly creative in their approach, but they had plenty of well crafted songs with a strong emotional centre. I like them more, much more, than most AOR...easily. |
Posted By: Big Ears
Date Posted: April 29 2012 at 15:34
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I really like ELP's Love Beach, Yes's 90125, Pink Floyd without Waters and Supertramp without Hodgson. I do not like: Genesis without Peter Gabriel or much of Gabriel's solo work; Yes's Tormato, Open Your Eyes and Fly From Here; Floyd's Final Cut; Ian Anderson's jtull.com; most of Asia's material; post-Hemispheres Rush; post-Red King Crimson. Big Generator is good in parts, but cringe-worthy in places too. Phil Collins was a good drummer with Genesis, but I do not want to hear his solo work or the albums he produced for Eric Clapton. |
Posted By: kenethlevine
Date Posted: April 29 2012 at 17:26
agreed 100% with this and the previous post re APP. I find everything up to Ammonia Avenue to be largely enjoyable, with the exception of Pyramid. I actually haven't listened to anything more recent, so will have to check out Freudiana. They are not my favourite group, but I believe there was a real sincerity there and they brought in the players to realize their visions.
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Posted By: Zombywoof
Date Posted: April 29 2012 at 18:11
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I find "The Final Cut", "Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking", "Stormwatch", "Heavy Horses", and "Catfish Rising" to be great records. Not sure about many of the others mentioned, though.
I even like "Under Wraps". Burn the witch. ------------- Continue the prog discussion here: http://zombyprog.proboards.com/index.cgi ... |
Posted By: Vobiscum
Date Posted: April 29 2012 at 18:18
| I like PFloyd in the beginning. Before the classics. |
Posted By: AtomicCrimsonRush
Date Posted: April 29 2012 at 18:32
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I like some of the "other" such as: Jethro Tull Dot Com - JT 90125 - Yes Time - ELO Discovery - ELO Heavy Horses - Jethro Tull Black Moon - ELP ------------- 
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Posted By: Dayvenkirq
Date Posted: April 29 2012 at 18:33
+1. The bootlegs are awesome. 'Sunshine' is one of my biggest favorites. 'Lucy Leave' and their rendition of 'I'm a King Bee' are few of the first things I learned to play on my electric guitar. 'Vegetable Man' is fun to learn
  . |
Posted By: ProgEpics
Date Posted: April 30 2012 at 01:55
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Absolutely. I think long songs and odd time sigs are too often expected from prog fans, when in reality some of the best prog albums dont even have a long song on them (dark side of the moon, crime of the century, days of future passed) just to name a few. ------------- Come on you target for faraway laughter, Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine! |
Posted By: ColonelClaypool
Date Posted: April 30 2012 at 03:50
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I much prefer On The Sunday of Life, Voyage 34, Insignificance, Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape and everything else from the early days of PT rather than In Absentia, Deadwing, FOABP and The Incident. ------------- With magic, you can turn a frog into a prince. With science, you can turn a frog into a Ph.D. and you still have the frog you started with. |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: April 30 2012 at 11:20
I would like to suggest that we're more critical, and less appreciative of a composer's work than otherwise.
Today's composer is a "band", not an individual, and you do not sit here and say the same thing about Beethoven, Mozart, Bach or Stravinsky ... and yes, we do have our favorites, but in the end, we're not good listeners, because we are only hearing one thing and ignoring the rest, because it supposedly fits a description or other that we have for everything including the kitchen sink and our own silliness!
I have a hard time with this. I have over 35 CD's of Tangerine Dream. I have 35 CD's of Klaus Schulze. I have all of Pink Floyd. I have all 20 CD's from Ozric Tentacles. I have 30 CD's by Hawkwind.
I have NEVER looked at any of these CD's as ... "lesser" ... works by these composers. And I find it sad that someone does this to Genesis, ELP, Alan Parsons and Yes ... when -- if you added it all up, it would suggest that's a massive amount of music and you and I might prefer this one or that one CD ... but it does not lessen the output of the artist.
And it doesn't matter when it was or wasn't. It's been the same thing for hundreds of years, but we're simply not looking at these folks as artists or composers. They are a bunch of rocking morons, is what it all looks like!
How sad!
Like even Beethoven and Mozart did not have their bagatelles?
I have no problem with an objective discography. I do when someone says this record is progressive and that one is not. So I guess that Firebird Suite is classical and Petroushka is not ... and the problem would likely be that most folks have not heard the other piece, either! Beethoven's 5th and 9th are classical, but his 1st and 2nd are poop!
To me, this is where a "discography" and "biography" has to stop being subjective, and this is one of my (small) complaints here ... too many folks will reply to my comments, and not discuss anything ... which tells you they did not read and could not say anything of value to counter it. But their "comment" is more important than the substance behind it ...
I'm a writer. I'm used to some folks liking this and not that. I have fun with that ... but there is one problem that is nasty ... you can not DENY my vision, and for many folks here that even do reviews, they prefer to act like the composer/artist does not have the right to have his own vision. And to me, that is not only insulting, it is malicious and inappropriate! YOU, yourself, would demand that respect from anyone ... ! ------------- 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: Snow Dog
Date Posted: April 30 2012 at 11:23
 ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: Vibrationbaby
Date Posted: April 30 2012 at 13:00
Well, I dunno about those two abomonable Triumvirat piles of sh*t. Skeet shooting material as far as I'm concerned. I only bought Russian Roulette to if it was possible to get any worse. What is beyond belief is that both of them were releaed on CD. As for Love Beach when it was released in Nov '78 we skipped school to wait for the record store to open. There's nothing wrong with it realy( well, maybe the cover and title ) But ELP were called into the president of Atlantic Records Ahmet Ertgun's office and given the "suggestion" to do something a bit more watered down which they did ( what's wrong with Canario ? ). You have to understand that they had taken pretty much everything over the top by '78. At least they continued to play the older material in concert and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think anything off Love Beach was played live. I still throw it on the turntable from time-to-time. Rolling Stone Magazine said doing the dishes was a more creative act than creating Love Beach. EDIT : The Carl Palmer band Occasionally played Canario. ------------- |
Posted By: silverpot
Date Posted: April 30 2012 at 13:05
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I think it's easier to appreciate a deviation from the normal route by a band if you're not a devoted fan. For instance, I never was much of a Yes fan, I like bits and pieces here and there in their "classic" catalogue. I'm not familiar with their 80s output, but their latest, Fly From Here, I really like, contrary to the band's "true" fans. Same with Opeth. I've never been able to listen to them, but now I have Heritage on constant spin. A very good album, IMO. With Floyd it's different, my favorite band let me down heavily with The Final Cut. Although AMLOR and Bell were to me a huge improvement on that one. |
Posted By: presdoug
Date Posted: April 30 2012 at 16:58
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Posted By: presdoug
Date Posted: April 30 2012 at 17:01
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Posted By: MFP
Date Posted: April 30 2012 at 17:59
Me too. The first three Opeth albums (along with Still Life) are the best they ever did.
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Posted By: kevin4peace
Date Posted: April 30 2012 at 22:51
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I don't have much to add here, but I agree- ELO's Time is a masterpiece. Absolutely spectacular, and far from a 'guilty' pleasure. I also really like Gentle Giant's last two albums. Not necessarily prog, but certainly great new wavey pop. ------------- Nothing to say here. Nothing at all. Nothing is easy. |
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: May 01 2012 at 01:07
ELP never toured after Love Beach. It practically finished them until the public got fed up with talentless 'musicians' dominating the charts and ELP were wheeled out again in the 80's along with a host of other 'old bands'.
The 80's incarnation had Powell on drums so Love Beach was never on the agenda. When ELP (the real one) toured in the 90's they had a decent album to play and that only left room for the classics.
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Posted By: Dayvenkirq
Date Posted: May 01 2012 at 02:41
The more I read stuff like that, the more I want to hear it. Oops ... just downloaded it. Kudos!
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Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: May 01 2012 at 08:32
You do know that with the exception of two cuts, the whole of "The Final Cut" was originally a part of the longer and uncut version of The Wall ... right?
Take out "Not Now John" and one other cut, and see the rest of it fit in the story of The Wall! ------------- 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: moshkito
Date Posted: May 01 2012 at 08:40
The whole story of Pink Floyd is much more visible and clear in the bootlegs than it is in any compendium and writing or articles out there.
Too bad that people usually think that "day in life" is not a part of your history, hey?
They help you understand how Dark Side of the Moon came about from what they were doing in those early days with sound effects between pieces and in the pieces themselves. Continuining in that tradition, eventually came what became one of the best rock operas ever written .. the veritable Turandot of rock music, called The Wall! ------------- 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: TODDLER
Date Posted: May 01 2012 at 09:45
| I think (of course), that many of the "dark" discography titles cross into "Top 40" "Pop" music. "Power Pop" is how I would define it. I am open to songwriting and the craft of it. The titles from the "dark" discography also cross into a "Rock" songwriting style. With Blue Oyster Cult ..you have a wide variety of songwriting styles. You have songs like "After Dark" and "I Love the Night" which contain harmony vocals that are very planned out and rehearsed. The band has been connected with the "Metal" genre...yet they have an influence of the MC5 and harmony vocals that are sometimes reminiscent of structure within "Beach Boys" harmonies. Some of the Prog bands such as 80's Genesis and Yes played more straight up "Rock" combined with a "Power Pop" melody like B.O.C. At first I was completely turned off by the Love Beaches and 90125'S , then later I realized it was to an extent..like listening to more "Rock" than "Prog". Abacab packed dance floors in the 80's. Because it had a driving 4/4 beat throughout. It had the mechanics of excercises in the center section so...that meant that an average rocker would stuggle covering the song. It contained about that much prog within it. Just enough to make the song difficult for the average professional musician to play. |
Posted By: RoyFairbank
Date Posted: May 01 2012 at 09:46
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^^^^.... Never understood those who didn't like Final Cut. It is the most mature Floyd album, which makes use of big Floydian mechanisms but also tries to rely more on subtleties. The album is a masterpiece, though I wouldn't call it as important as the Wall, DOSTM, and maybe not as entertaining as Animals. Just as important as the music is the message.... and if you don't get the message your missing out on a lot more than say.... wish you were here, which is fairly clothed in regular Prog rock. Final Cut is a platform for lyrics.... much like Roger Waters solo albums. |
Posted By: RoyFairbank
Date Posted: May 01 2012 at 09:59
Those albums with Eric Clapton are a load of fun. IT'S - IN - THE - WAY - THAT - YOU - USE - IT! Phil Collins incredible drumming dominates the albums and you don't even remember clapton's parts. I remember one critic calls Collins drumming a "whomping technique." Very true, I love it. Drums should sound like explosions, that's what the drum gods intended.  |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: May 01 2012 at 10:03
One reason I do recall: People who bought the album upon the week of it's release, complained that it was too much like a Roger Waters album. I only heard the album once. That was the headline news for awhile. The whole entire attitude amongst Pink Floyd fans ...they disagreed with the music and the album developed a bad reputation. Waters had taken over the band and hardcore fans took it a bit too seriously. It wasn't an extreme situation where someone shoots "Dimebag" for changing his direction, but more ...an abundance of snooty attitudes in the Floyd fans. This is all true and it happened a long time ago. |
Posted By: RoyFairbank
Date Posted: May 01 2012 at 10:16
Ironically Roger Waters had never released a regular solo album up until the point of Final Cut, so it should have been difficult to tell what a Roger Waters solo album sounded like. Pros and Cons, the closest album to Final Cut, is still very different in style (much less Floydian), and the next two albums he released were even more different. Final Cut is much much closer to, say, the Wall, then it is to any Roger Waters solo album. The problem people had with Final Cut is that it is a lot less pop/rocky then previous Floyd. It is darker and more cerebral. It is not accessible, nor does it get into audiophile-friendly grooves like earlier Floyd music. Hence it seemed like a stale exercise to people who weren't paying attention to the message and concept. |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: May 01 2012 at 10:32
Of course this is my personal opinion, not a fact at all. Iván ------------- 
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Posted By: Dayvenkirq
Date Posted: May 01 2012 at 11:03
How did we get to that topic?
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Posted By: Dayvenkirq
Date Posted: May 01 2012 at 11:06
That's funny. The Wall is mostly a Waters album. Did they know that? If yes, what did they think of that?
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Posted By: Prog Sothoth
Date Posted: May 01 2012 at 12:25
| I always dug Nektar's Magic is A Child and plenty of their other later albums, despite them not being the ballsy acid trips of their earlier stuff. They're more like The Doobies if they had done a ton of unusually potent doobage in the studio and writing process. |
Posted By: N-sz
Date Posted: May 01 2012 at 12:53
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I haven't been around long enough to know many of these bands' full discographies, but I really love some of the stuff from 90125. If you can just embrace the absolute cheesiness of it unconditionally, you will love 90125. I'm always kind of interested in those 'dark side' albums. They always look so mysterious, but usually once you get them, I imagine the mystique would go away and you'd find that you've got yourself a very uninteresting album. They're still kind of fascinating to me though, because every once in a while, I think, there's some really cool stuff in the dark side.
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Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: May 01 2012 at 16:43
I remember buying the Wall the first week it was available in stores. Everyone around me was taking about the album and everyone was discussing the tour that was about to begin (I think) and it just seems that most people then...associated the name Pink Floyd with the Wall and the stage show itself.. I don't know what went wrong with people around me or why many of them were disgusted with Final Cut? All I recall were people thinking that Waters was taking over the band and they thought he was egocentric. It doesn't make sense because as you say..the Wall was more of Waters taking.
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Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: May 02 2012 at 10:11
| Much of this music was actually catagorized as "selling out" during this period in time. The reaction within society was an extreme one. I remember when this came about and it (of course), had to do with everyone being exposed to complex bands with odd time signatures through the media for decades. It was another lifetime. I remember the "Milkman" standing on my porch in 73"..talking all about "Selling England by the Pound. People in society were so informed and the record companies were allowing bands to compose 20 minute pieces...which that is an ancient concept. To be signed with an internationally known record label like "Atlantic" or "Columbia", compose and record a progressive rock piece, and not have someone standing over your shoulder suggesting editing. When prog supposedly "sold out" and in the musicial sense,..people around the globe reacted harshly. Musicians related harshly because of all the bullsh-t that went along with it. They were no longer given the luxury of recording creative progressive pieces, making good profit, and being promoted and expressing who they actually were through their music. This experience seems farce to me now, but at that time people were quite out of bounds with their prog cult following (which was very much like a club), and how their world was shattered with prog being cut-off and everything in general slowly falling further to the underground. |
Posted By: mjf85maf
Date Posted: May 02 2012 at 12:42
| I guess I'm going to be the only one to confess a love of Gentle Giant's Civilian... |
Posted By: lazland
Date Posted: May 02 2012 at 13:49
The Wall still had a measure of collaboration, including (from memory) three co-written tracks with Gilmour. Plus the fact that their financial situation had gone tits up with the crash of their investments through dirty deeds meant that they absolutely had to have a success as Floyd. The Final Cut was, effectively, a Waters solo album made with the rather unhappy playing of Gilmour & Mason. All admitted it at the time. Oh, and we all said Waters was an ego maniac at the time, because it was true. I say that as a huge admirer, BTW. ------------- Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time! |
Posted By: Vibrationbaby
Date Posted: May 02 2012 at 14:06
I happen to be listening to it right now. I think I gave it a 3 star rating when I reviewed it here back in the mid 16th century. I don't think GG ever released a dud. The band wasn't pleased with it especially Minnear although Weathers liked it as far as I can remember back in '80. But they moved on when it was time to move on. Derek Schulman even signed Slipknot and Nickelback  when he became president of Roadrunner Records. I dunno I have no problems with any GG album. At least he didn't sign Céline.------------- |
Posted By: Vibrationbaby
Date Posted: May 02 2012 at 14:22
Vee all know it vas a Roger von Vaters solo musik rekord. I sink that zis is a gut musik. Gilmour has a couple of good solos. When I listen to it I just go for the Gilmour solos and his vocals on Not Now John ( arguably the best track on the album ) rather than wade through Roger's whining Jesus Jesus what's it all about drivel. I ------------- |
Posted By: RoyFairbank
Date Posted: May 02 2012 at 15:22
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I think prog general opinion can get a bit mired in formalism.... hence the attitudes towards APP and the Final Cut. There's some deeper stuff there then just the structure of the music. Also why I don't understand a lot of the newer "prog bands," who are almost exclusively formalistic purveyors of prog music. Yet another highlight of the problem is the attitude that lyrics and themes don't matter, or the former is just another instrument. Scary. This is mainly Prog's own fault for dropping the ball on this important part of music, but Pink Floyd in its classic years especially and bands like the APP are not to blame as much, whereas bands like Yes and Genesis tended to take the easy way out. This gave Prog music a certain aimlessness. The very meaningful bands tended to stick closer to classic rock out of deference to its greater track record, but this all fell apart in the 80s anyway, and had been long in decline in the 70s. Think the Who, their music is a lot deeper than just thunderous bass, windmills, crashing drums... etc. There is a reason they stayed with a mix of prog and classic rock and didn't move into symphonic, and that is so they could deliver their message more effectively. That is a different kind of prog approach, that is more about content and aims of the music and less about how it is structured. |
Posted By: Dellinger
Date Posted: May 02 2012 at 17:48
| I wouldn't say prog artists dismissed the importance of lirycs, or that they tried to find the easy way out. The easy way out would be more lirycs about boy meets girl, brokenhearts, having fun, etc, which lot's of pop and rock bands did. Prog artists at least used to stay out of such matters. Perhaps many of them weren't the best liryc writers, but they certainly did not try to find the easy way out. |
Posted By: Alitare
Date Posted: May 02 2012 at 18:24
I love that drivel to pieces as long as the music is stark, jarring, catchy, and full of Gilmour solos. You're right on the Money about Gilmore Girls' solos. I don't have any more bread crumbs, Gretel.
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Posted By: Dayvenkirq
Date Posted: May 02 2012 at 18:27
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Posted By: RoyFairbank
Date Posted: May 02 2012 at 19:50
The easy way out among talented and generally ambitious musicians (which the pop-rockers are only to a degree) is creating music from jams and attaching lyrics about fantasy and empty mysticism, they are merely attached with no great consideration, there is no theme and attitude that is being built on, or it is confused and unfocused. This makes the music a little aimless even if it is very very good. This is the easy way out for talented musicians who do not want to commit to making artistic statements in three dimensions. They try to let the music for music's sake talk for itself, but it often only does so to a certain extent. This is one reason why some saw Prog as pretentious (although there are many other and contradictory reasons). It's ambition lacked some dimension. Artists who had something to say in the other dimensions tended to construct their music differently, a subtle difference, but nevertheless. One example in the same band is Emerson Lake Palmer, with its vapid heyday orgies of symphonic prog compared to its later song Paper Blood, clearly constructed on the lyric and theme (and is clearly more classic rock than symphonic) and which has a brilliant message. You can do both, but it takes more exertion of different parts of the brain, besides the outright musical in some cases. Look how Dylan retreated into better produced and harder rocking music as he had less to say and periodically became more stripped down when he thought of some stuff to say. Ideally, you should be able to pull a Yes and still be able to sort out the intellectual problems and experiences of which rock as a long type of album narrative music has one of the best abilities to express among art forms - far better than most art forms for sure, perhaps only less than film. To me, it is clear that Waters and co. were geniuses at achieving this, even if their structures sometimes were not quite as compelling as they could be, like with his solo albums, or quite subtle, like with the Final Cut, which has a lot of suspense. |
Posted By: Dellinger
Date Posted: May 02 2012 at 21:36
| I would rather say that the easy way out for writing lirycs for a song, is to do a love song. I guess someone like Jon Anderson put his effort into his lirycs, and surely enough he took them very seriously... even though most of us just won't understand them. Well, there's that thing about puting words into the songs because he thought they sounded good with the music, even if they didn't make much sense, but if he did that seriously, I guess it's just as valid and artistic as anything else. In general, I just don't think that progs lirycs are particularly bad. They are, at least, just within the norm of pop-rock lirycs, not worse. Of course, not everyone can be Bob Dylan, but how many other pop-rock artists are there that write lirycs like him? There are some very good liryc writers in prog, and some others who aren't so much, just as in any other musical genere. |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: May 03 2012 at 08:04
Weird ... on the post above you talk about getting back on topic and the next post? ... you forget what you said!
Kinda nice to know that when one looks in the mirror the whole idea and concept gets lost ... sort of like the Victorian expression that when the ___ rises, reason goes out the door!
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 ... ------------- 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: TODDLER
Date Posted: May 03 2012 at 08:26
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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.
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Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: May 03 2012 at 08:35
Or yet another song about the dog ... etc ... etc ... or yet another hate song about bad sex or relationships! Ohhh , we forgot ... trash the old lover -- that's always a good theme!
This is the case with most poetry and writing that is focused. You write "what you see", and what you see is not something that you have enough words to explain to everybody, and/or some folks think you are just being a jerk, or an opinionated idiot trying to invent some fancy words about spirit talk like Jon Anderson has been accused (wrongly) of doing!
The hardest part, is that the folks that are mostly complaining about "lyrics" are not folks that are usually well read, and the only thing they know is "lyrics" ... and they have never read a book in their life ... or perhaps just Cliff Notes ... that's a bit bigger book!
    ... ohhh ... you go read the Big Book because it tells you the truth!
It is, but as you suggested above, that is the easy thing to do and what most pop music does with hooks and a few words. You could really call that "rhyme" ... because it is what it is ... but in essence, for poetry and a poetic discussion, that's a cheap rhyme ... pre-fabricated from the dictionary of rhymes on the internet ... so to speak.
However, there is something in there that is a bit different. And there are some rap folks that are actually very good at rhyme ... NOT JUST METER ... and that is one of the strongest differences ... most of the rap and stuff you hear is kid stuff, compared to the more literary and well define stuff.
See if you can get a rapper to write a sonnet! You're not likely to find it ... but see if you can get a Branaugh to rap ... he can't! He doesn't have the musical rhythm (or metronome) in the music. It's a rather funny thing, but newer actors (as opposed to some of these older folks) are actually rather good at turning Shakespeare into rap, or vice versa.
For "progressive", I tend to think that the majority of bands do not have a whole lot more going for them than "ideas" to justify their being a rock band and making music. I'm actually ok with that ... we all deserve a chance ... but it does mean that many times the wording is forced to make a point ... and when you "have to make a point" ... that's when you know it's over blown! The most pointed work, is often the least meaningful altogether. It becomes a "show".
This brings up bands like Genesis that went from nice material, to very strong story related material, wrote a "novel" (The Lamb) and then ... had nothing left but go back to "songs", and "ideas" and ... something less important than the previous stories. I think it was a case of ... the first part matched the time and place and Peter Gabriel ... and the rest ... well, Pete is not here and the drummer does not do masks! And it all changed!
I do not think of it as better or worse, there is some nice music, but lyrically, it is empty for me, and while I can relate to something like "Against All Odds', but it is not as important to my life and experience as all of "Selling England by the Pound" or "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway".
I have always thought that Roy Harper and Peter Hammill are the other 2 Bob Dylan's over there. The main issue with someone like Roy, is that folks here can't really relate to poetry ... only "lyrics" ... "lyrics" are but a small portion of the work that poetry can do ... I look at it as an expression designed to help you remember a LINE ... not the whole thing, which attracts you to something or other. So you could say ... to be or not to be that is the question is ... just like a lyric ... the problem is ... who the hell cares about the rest? And in a "song" format, or pop music context, no one gives a damn because it is such a good song ... whereas in "progressive" music -- I believe that most folks will always want to do a heck of a lot more than just ... trickery.
Bob Dylan should be considered a poet, not a musician ... but that is another story. The part that makes him special, like Roy and Peter ... is that there is no well to dry up ... it's WHO THEY ARE ... and this is the part that we fail to see. We're expecting some idealistic vision of something or other ... and that is not the case. All of them are very honest, very open, and very direct ... most "lyrics" are rarely so! ------------- 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: TODDLER
Date Posted: May 03 2012 at 08:40
| Moshkito ...you are my God! |
Posted By: Dayvenkirq
Date Posted: May 03 2012 at 09:53
... ... Hu-hum ... I don't know any Victorian expressions, so I don't know what's in the blank. Besides, are you implying that I should regret the off-topic post? 'Cause I don't want to start a thread on the reaction to The Wall.Now, back to the actual "dark side": seriously, what is up with Czukay's Movies? ... Now it's in the "I Recommend ... " thread.
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: May 03 2012 at 10:27
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RoyFairbanks makes some good points. Prog can sometimes be somewhat oblivious, music for the sake of music. That is fine and I don't think that is taking the easy way out but it does limit its appeal. When I first heard SEBTP, I used to like it at least as much as Dark Side if not more but I can't say that anymore. It doesn't have the purpose and simplicity of DSOTM. Well, it doesn't have to, anything under the sun is valid in art, but I prefer the latter approach. Sometimes progheads get so clued into complexity and technicality and all that jazz that they don't appreciate the potential of a more straight up but well written piece of music to make a lasting impact. It's not like everything that is set in pop structure is just simple, kindergarten music and not 'worthwhile for prog fans'. With that said, the other extreme is to overrate music merely on account of the lyrics. And I also don't like the idea of dismissing music only because you can't relate to the lyrics. If a musician can write good music, that is the thing that matters most. If he can also complement it with good lyrics, that's a bonus but it doesn't always happen. |
Posted By: Vibrationbaby
Date Posted: May 03 2012 at 10:48
Seriously. I know I kid around but I'm not kidding when he was the president of Roadrunner Records he actually signed these bands. I can't stand either. Both unlistenable garbage. ------------- |
Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: May 03 2012 at 11:21
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Good lyrics is, when tamijo don understan - bad lyric is when tamijo understan
Thats what good about ´not be good with Englis. ------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: May 04 2012 at 08:10
The word that is ____________ , and it is not to be used in this forum. But it is a well known expression in Victorian Literature.
Czukay's "Movies" ... heck, we should also mention "On the Way To The Peak of the Normal" ... but I'm afraid to even mention the bass stuff in there for Trice ... because the music that it is with is not something that some of those quasi-ambient industrialists can usually accept. When I mentioned that "Movies" and "Normal" have Bass on Bass on Bass on Bass with a Bass solo on top, all of them with different effects and tones, no one bothered to go listen and instead told me to get off the thread. I guess that "dirty" bass tone means ... it can't be used in real music!
What you have never heard ... will continue to be something you won't know! But telling me that the bass is "dirty" here or there ... has a way of taking things away from the music for me. I didn't find it, or would ever call it, "dirty bass" in some of the bits that Barclay James Harvest has done. Or Amon Duul 2. Or Can. Or many others ... but then, I doubt these folks will enjoy hearing it on Heldon, or Pierre Henry, or Neu, or Harmonium, or the very early stuff by Kraftwerk, when it was all about adding these effects and see what they do.
Maybe I do need to stop listening to music and go listen to the trash outside on the streets. I wonder if there is more music out there amidst the cats, dogs and hobos! ------------- 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: Howard the Duck
Date Posted: May 04 2012 at 08:25
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Most definitely not, at least in terms of the examples you gave. When a great prog band descends into more commercial, accessible pop-rock a part of me dies. If you're also referring to earlier albums, like pre-KC Giles Giles and Fripp or Genesis' debut, I definitely enjoy those albums, both as a historical document of the evolution of a band and on its own merits. But post peak albums (specifically monstrosities such as say, Civilian by Gentle Giant or and Then There Were Three by Genesis) as a rule I really don't get anything out of other than distaste.
------------- MacGyver can do a super guitar solo with a broom and an elastic band. Can you do better? |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: May 04 2012 at 08:35
I think this is the case with any music. I don't think there is anything out there where the composer/composers (as is the case in a band) have not struggled with the continuity of a piece, and its inevitable direction.
To me, if it is "sometimes oblivious, and music for the sake of music" ... is not as important, mostly because there are a lot of schools out there, and musically educated people, that write and believe in the abstract nature of music and composition ... and modern music has been more about this, than the more obvious melodic stuff that has been the history of music that we all know for at least 500 years.
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. It's hard to study "form" in a Stravinsky, because there is going to be a different form every 3 minutes ... and it is NOT difficult at all to break down "form" in almost ALL of the progressive fathers, with the exception of KC's first album.
"Visual music", which to me KC's first album is, does NOT limit its "appeal". If it does so, it will do so for the folks that are afraid to match the wording to the music, and realize that they are both saying the same thing, at the same time, as if solo'ing together ... which is something that only Amon Duul 2 and Guru Guru have done succeefully on their early albums ... non-stop. Again, this is where the 3rd dimention and understanding of this album comes from ... a veritable and literal interpretation of the words themselves with an instrument, which is an exercise that is used in Advanced Acting theory in theater and film, and was defined in words by Gurdgieff many years ago.
But I wonder if we're simply trying to explain something that we do not have words for ... and if we don't we just need to admit it, not use an expression like .,.. this is not this or that ... because, then all one is doing is mis-directing the possibilities of understanding the piece by confusing the issue and ideas.
The other problem, is us thinking that the words, sometimes, illustrate the music and vice-versa ... and that is a dangerous falacy to fall into ... because it will make you "supposedly" think this and that when you hear something and not something else that you actually feel. At that point the music will fail you and eventually die off. It's the same thing as the typical BS that says that "Major" keys are happy, and "Minor" keys are sad ... which is, by far, the worst description of music ever divised, by folks that really have no feel for music itself ... just their ideas.
This is the part that is "different" in the early stuff ... some of the wording in these things, was not exactly "lyrics" ... I have a hard time when someone says "lyrics" and Greg Lake is screaming in your ears ... don't tell me lies ... and it is accentuated by the drums on top of it ... and all we can say is ... "lyrics" ... and this ain't so. But yeah, Stairway to Heaven ... them is "lyrics", not "truth" words! ------------- 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: thehallway
Date Posted: May 04 2012 at 09:49
You certainly are. ------------- http://www.thefreshfilmblog.com/" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: scouser15373
Date Posted: May 04 2012 at 15:59
invisible touch v's selling england by the pound 2 different bands
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: May 05 2012 at 04:01
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. 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. 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'. |
Posted By: ExittheLemming
Date Posted: May 05 2012 at 09:02
I think the highlighted part quite insightful i.e. to be innovative or progressive within the parameters of any genre that is defined by some rigorously well tested boundaries is quite some achievement. (I suspect Harmonium tried to teach me this during a discussion we had about Mew) We might compare this with the relatively HUGE margin for error that a hip, happening and more forgiving genre like freeform (whatever/blah) might represent. ------------- 
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: May 05 2012 at 09:08
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^^^ Especially given the "weird is good" assumption I have seen floating around in recent years. I think weird or plain, it can all be very good or very bad and it depends heavily on how purposefully the music has been conceived and how well it is then executed. I guess we do appreciate the contribution of Hendrix here because his music is part of the PA database and that is basically what Hendrix did. He did unthinkable things to the blues and influenced legions of guitarists. What music needs today far more than the next Amon Duul II or Tangerine Dream is the next Hendrix or the next Beatles. There seems to be a dire lack of something cutting edge in popular music now and that will not inspire more people to pick up an instrument. |
Posted By: ExittheLemming
Date Posted: May 05 2012 at 09:21
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^ 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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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: May 05 2012 at 09:35
| It's interesting, that reference you made to Mew. I guess I should check it out. Have heard some good things about them. |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: May 05 2012 at 09:53
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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! |