"One 'Hit' Wonders"
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Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Prog Music Lounge
Forum Description: General progressive music discussions
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=87412
Printed Date: May 06 2025 at 18:23
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Topic: "One 'Hit' Wonders"
Posted By: jude111
Subject: "One 'Hit' Wonders"
Date Posted: June 06 2012 at 07:33
| I put "One Hit Wonders" in quotes because obviously we're not talking about "hits" per se. But I've been wondering, how many prog bands have that one truly great song in them, but - in your opinion - nothing else comes close. I put this question to you because, frankly, I want to hear some great tunes and bands I haven't heard before. We know the great albums by their ratings, but what about those albums that aren't so great, but contain that one priceless jewel that almost makes it worthwhile? We can use this term quite literally or very liberally, and refer to a great band that released a mediocre LP with one brilliant tune (in your opinion, of course), either way... :-) |
Replies:
Posted By: Smurph
Date Posted: June 06 2012 at 07:54
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Some groups have that one big giant epic opening track on their album and then the rest of the album never lives up to the first track. Not completely related Cardiacs actually are sort of one hit wonders- their song "Is This The Life?" (not completely sure on title) was sort of a hit in England and recieved a little bit of MTV play when it came out- not another song of theirs was ever even close to being that big.... although they definitely have amazing albums all the way through. ------------- http://pseudosentai.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow - http://pseudosentai.bandcamp.com/ wtf |
Posted By: Guldbamsen
Date Posted: June 06 2012 at 08:04
I have this RPI album: but must admit, that after the first amazing track, I can't remember anything off of it. Still that first one is quite the humdinger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIDgG_DUYog" rel="nofollow - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIDgG_DUYog Oh and perhaps the most obvious is Tarkus? ------------- “The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” - Douglas Adams |
Posted By: jude111
Date Posted: June 06 2012 at 08:16
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Guldbamsen wrote:Posted By: Guldbamsen
Date Posted: June 06 2012 at 08:19
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It's called E Verra' L'Uomo. ------------- “The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” - Douglas Adams |
Posted By: sleeper
Date Posted: June 06 2012 at 09:29
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The best example I can think of from my collection is Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada EP. The first track, Moya, is amazing and the reason I've looked into a couple albums from them (which I didnt like), the second track, Blaze Bailey Finnegan III, is the usual Godspeed snoozefest. I guess for me this isnt so much a one hit wonder from a single album as a whole career.
------------- Spending more than I should on Prog since 2005 
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Posted By: Sagichim
Date Posted: June 06 2012 at 13:11
Actually i like the whole album, it is quite good. Oh and i was thinking Tarkus as well... |
Posted By: Sagichim
Date Posted: June 06 2012 at 13:19
| There are two tracks that are far superior to the rest, from Czar's sole album, if you like heavy prog try 'tread softly on my dreams' and 'cecelia' |
Posted By: Master of Time
Date Posted: June 06 2012 at 15:07
| Flash- Small Beginnings. It's from their eponymous debut. The rest of the album is good but in my opinion Small Beginnings is the only really great track. |
Posted By: PabstRibbon
Date Posted: June 06 2012 at 15:41
| IMO, ELP only did one great piece of music and it's called Tarkus. Anything else from them is pretty boring |
Posted By: Earthmover
Date Posted: June 06 2012 at 15:58
| The Gates of Delirium and And You And I by Yes. Other things are pretty good, but these tracks pretty much defeat them with ease. |
Posted By: Feuerbach
Date Posted: June 06 2012 at 20:03
In my opinion, Sometime World by Wishbone Ash is a "top track" on their whole discography. I'm not saying that albums like Argus have weak songs, but I think this song it's from another world compared with anything they did.  And "The Furthest Point" by Spirogyra it's maybe another case.
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Posted By: Fox On The Rocks
Date Posted: June 06 2012 at 20:09
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Atomic Rooster's Death Walks Behind You, but even that album I'm not too fond of.
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Posted By: progrules
Date Posted: June 07 2012 at 00:43
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Discipline's Push and Profit isn't a great album at all but the instrumental Blueprint really stands out.
Delta Cyphei Project's Virtual World is even quite poor but again the instrumental track saves the day: Space Travel is superb !
La Tulip Noire is a Greek progband that never won me over as a fan but they did make that one hit wonder with The Haze, a track from their album Shattered Image. The instrumental part halfway is simply amazing !
Some more famous examples:
Rush-Caress of Steel merely excels with The Necromancer
Porcupine Tree's debut On the Sunday of Life has only Radioactive Toy to offer as truly great track
With Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother it's just the title track that is absolutely worthwhile...
In all cases it's just an (my) opinion in the end
 Oh and indeed Yes' Relayer with the brilliant epic Gates but the rest ....  ------------- A day without prog is a wasted day |
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: June 07 2012 at 01:21
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Not a great fan of Dark Side Of The Moon but my favourite Floyd track is Time which I believe is their pinnacle.
ELP Works Volume One has a bunch of solo music and an overlong version of Fanfare For The Common Man (filler??!) but has one oustanding peice in Pirates. That is 13 minutes of symph prog heaven as far as I am concerned.
Tarkus is often held up as an example of a prog album with only one decent track but side two has two brilliant tracks imo - A Time and A Place (Emerson rips up the organ and Palmer plays like a man possessed) and The Only Way (great Church organ and singing) although the rest is a bit ordinary admittedly.
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Posted By: ExittheLemming
Date Posted: June 07 2012 at 04:24
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Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: June 07 2012 at 04:44
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^The "overlong" full version of Fanfare is the bee's knees. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: Stool Man
Date Posted: June 07 2012 at 08:30
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I take one hit wonders to mean bands that we've never heard of doing more than one thing, even if they produced many releases in a lengthy career. I'm thinking, for example, of "The Witch" by The Rattles.
------------- rotten hound of the burnie crew |
Posted By: Vibrationbaby
Date Posted: June 07 2012 at 10:04
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Focus has been labelled with f**king Hocus Pocus. Love the song but that is not what Focus is all about.
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Posted By: irrelevant
Date Posted: June 07 2012 at 10:41
Agreed. Hocus Pocus is a good track but they have a wealth of material that's so much better. ------------- https://gabebuller.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow - New album! http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=7385" rel="nofollow - http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=7385 |
Posted By: Vibrationbaby
Date Posted: June 07 2012 at 10:46
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my fave is Hamburger Concerto. i can listen to that album even when the aliens are invading.
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Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: June 07 2012 at 12:33
Wow ... I always thought that "And You and I" was the cut that made the album. The others are nice ... so what? I heard that on the radio in LA with the radio flickering on and off as the distance increased ... and I went out and got it. I did NOT by the album for anything else in there, and I actually find some of it is filler, and not in the true spirit of what YES came to be, of which "And You and I" are better representatives of their work.
The discussion on the other album is not something I want to get into. I happen to think that from a compositional element it is fantastic and a great piece. However some folks don't like to be told off because this is not a 5 minute song that screams ... "I'm prog" ... in fact ... it has helped define more prog than anything else by its fury and attack! ------------- 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: June 07 2012 at 12:37
I really like to full blast the piece on the other side of the album ...... "Eruption" is one of my favorites ... and of course "Hamburger Concerto, because it was written for me at a time when I did a lot of cooking!
I can not list any album, or CD, in my collection that is there for one hit, or song ... it will take me from now until next year to find one! I do NOT buy "hits" ... and it doesn't matter what the label on that thing is! ------------- 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: Gerinski
Date Posted: June 07 2012 at 15:02
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3's To The Power of Three is rather weak but when it came out I really liked Desde La Vida.
A bit the same with Home By The Sea in Genesis "Shapes".
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Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: June 07 2012 at 15:03
Fanfare has always bothered me.Its ELP's 'Smoke On The Water'. Their classical adaptions are mostly brilliant (Barbarian,Toccata,Hoedown even Canario) but you can almost 'dance' to Fanfare (or more accurately sway back and forth headbanging as I remember doing on the Black Moon tour
 ) Copeland was quite happy with it though which is an endorsement I wouldn't want to argue with BUT my feeling has always ..errmm ..swayed back and forth about it. I do play the damn thing on occasion and what I do really like about is the production. Jim Kerr once described the feeling of playing Waterfront live as being on the deck of a battleship and Fanfare has a bit of that about it. |
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: June 07 2012 at 15:06
I agree with both those
I would add Emerson Lake and Powell's 'Mars'. Way more fun that anything else on that laboured album.
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Posted By: prog4evr
Date Posted: June 08 2012 at 11:40
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And now for something completely different: 1. Porcupine Tree - "And Even Less" 2. The Mars Volta - "Eriartarka" Two great and vastly unappreciated songs by those prog artists...
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Posted By: FromAbove
Date Posted: June 08 2012 at 12:27
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It's a rather hard decision when there are prog bands where I have all their music. In terms of Electric Light Orchestra, I can only think of Kuiama or In Old England Town that stand out amongst the rest. |
Posted By: deckard33
Date Posted: June 10 2012 at 15:39
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Totally agree with Tarkus from ELP. Pretty good title track but the rest is boring.
I thought also of "Fish Rising" album by Steeve Hillage. First track "Solar Musick" is excellent. The other tracks less ... Finally, I will say "You look all the same to me" from Archive. I love the first track "Again". I don't listen to the other tracks. I heard some other albums by them, but was not very excited ... |
Posted By: dave-the-rave
Date Posted: June 20 2012 at 15:55
"Thick as a Brick" by Jethro Tull; the rest of the album doesn't do much for me. 
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Posted By: The_Jester
Date Posted: June 21 2012 at 10:31
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I would actually they did pretty good stuff except for Tarkus. I think it's a really horrible song except where Greg Lake sings. It's full of ridicule clichés of pretentious music. ------------- La victoire est éphémère mais la gloire est éternelle! - Napoléon Bonaparte |
Posted By: geneyesontle
Date Posted: June 21 2012 at 15:23
Yeah, it's called improvisation without the musical scales. ------------- Poseidon wants to Acquire the Taste of the Fragile Lamb - Derek Adrian Gabriel Anderson, singer of the band Geneyesontle |
Posted By: wjohnd
Date Posted: June 21 2012 at 15:23
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One hit songs. Steve Hackett - Spectral Mornings one hit albums Talk talk - spirit of eden ------------- 
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Posted By: The_Jester
Date Posted: June 22 2012 at 10:59
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Not only improvisation, it's full of naive composition that tries to sound like it's refined music but it ain't at all. But I must say I really enjoy Brain Salad Surgery and most of their other albums (including Black moon and Love Beach). ------------- La victoire est éphémère mais la gloire est éternelle! - Napoléon Bonaparte |
Posted By: JS19
Date Posted: June 22 2012 at 11:28
But Moya is like *the* typical Godspeed track... BBF3 is a bit different and it's absolutely fantastic. And I'm finding it hard to see how you could like Moya but not like anything of skinny fists or the first track of F#A#(infinity) (which I'm not a big fan of)?
But but but but... Laughing Stock?
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Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: June 22 2012 at 12:06
Small Beginnings was a very strong track, but "Children of the Universe" is nearly as good! These guys just reformed in this video, and this is one of the first times through the song. Damn good job! Ray Bennett really has his Peter Banks licks down nicely! |
Posted By: Formentera Lady
Date Posted: June 22 2012 at 12:42
Hm, interesting, and I mostly disagree about what you said so far about Pink Floyd, ELP, Yes, Steve Hackett... But back to the topc: How about "Time Machine" of Beggar's Opera? I really like that song, but the rest of the album Waters of Change don't really do it for me. Or Chaos Code's album A Tapestry of Afterthoughts, where the first track "The Cave" really sticks out for me, but the other songs don't. But I will give it another listen one day... ------------- http://theprogressiveweb.blogspot.de" rel="nofollow - Visit me in Second Life to talk about music. |
Posted By: kkras
Date Posted: June 22 2012 at 20:26
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Sorry to be off topic here, but I can't seem to start a new topic for some reason so please accept my apologies in advance... am trying to find out who is playing this crazy version of Vivaldi music, and I have confirmed it is not Curved Air and looked at many others but haven't found it yet. Does anyone recognize it? Uploaded from an old cassette, recorded off the radio probably circa 1971. Thanks for any help. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5gIx_qi2tc&feature=youtu.be" rel="nofollow - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5gIx_qi2tc&feature=youtu.be Kevin |
Posted By: RoyFairbank
Date Posted: June 22 2012 at 20:34
bah? Talk Talk was a great Pop Band with great albums period. It's My Life is fantastic. Talk Talk's a fun listen too. Hackett has so many great songs and albums. I can't even begin on that. Every Day The Steppes Time to Get Out Cell 151 Walking Through Walls Camino Royale Funny Feeling Narnia Down Street The Hierophant (?) Ace Of Wands I can just name tons! |
Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: June 22 2012 at 23:47
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I'd say that "Lady of the Lake" on Starcastle's first LP was a true "One Hit Wonder," although there are some listenable songs such as "To The Fire Wind." Their second LP, "Fountains of Light," had such vacuous lyrics that a guitarist friend of mine and I laughed that it was the prog record equivalent of a Hallmark greeting card!!
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Posted By: Stevo
Date Posted: June 23 2012 at 18:06
| They've had many hits but "Terrapin Station" (the album) seems to be the Greatful Dead's singular contribution to prog. I have found very little said about it here on PA, so maybe I'm the only one who thinks it qulaifies as prog.(?) |
Posted By: gazagod
Date Posted: June 23 2012 at 21:02
when i was young this album was totally hated... all the hipster/stoner types loved the country/roots music dead like american beauty, aoxomoxoa, and uncle john's band(decent to great records) and they liked the live stuff... a few years ago i heard this 'disco' album all the way through at this guy's house -he was 30--something... it seemed pretty good to me-i liked the funk and song writing... then i started running into people who claimed this was their favorite dead album... i thought it was a strange coincidence... but 'as the world turns'  ... i think people(younger generation-gen xers) must've written the late seventies stuff off for so long... then they got desperate after listening to dark star and st stephen a couple thousand times... and started listening to the thing and ended up liking it a lot------------- we only know that we do not know |
Posted By: wjohnd
Date Posted: June 24 2012 at 01:35
Don't get me wrong, i love some of the poppy talk talk, but it ain't even vaguely prog. And as for steve hackett, again i have enjoyed his solo work over many years but SpectralMornings is IMO head and shoulders above the rest of his work. -------------
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