I WAS wrong about: UK '70s

[The Black Shadow]

I didn't do anything yesterday but listen to Secret Santa discs and nominations from this thread, so it was a day well spent.

I'm glad I'm so important to you

It was a long day yesterday apparently.

I'll make sure next Monday will seem even longer then.

"Alright, fellas, "Paradise City". One, two, three, four..."

[Quaco]

I don't quite see what's so difficult about Genesis. For me, the theatricality did take a couple of listens to get into at first, but the music is quite accessible. Always was. Melody was always to the fore. To me, it's no great leap from the White Album to Nursery Cryme. The line of lineage is quite clear. And the way Gabriel sings his lyrics is of the most wonderful things in music.

"The Battle of Epping Forest" is a very difficult track, in that the music and lyrics are both way too much, and when combined the effect is cluttered. Quite witty though. It's taken me a long time to actually enjoy it as much as I now do.

The situation Neverknows descibes -- not knowing a piece of music well enough to find what's good about it, but knowing it far too well to ever be surprised by it or indeed to ever want to hear it again -- is a common problem these days. There is so much music around, a lot of things get over-heard before they've even once been listened to. It's just sad, and it ruins perfectly good music. I feel sorry for kids who feel this way about The Beatles. I guess I was just lucky to escape it in a lot of cases.

[The Slider]

To me, it's no great leap from the White Album to Nursery Cryme. The line of lineage is quite clear.

Ah, the old 'Happiness is a Warm Gun as the Cradle of Prog' theory again.

Listen to Quaco at this point.

[Quaco]

Also, the "'Dear Prudence' is the cradle of the Rutherford-Phillips acoustic guitar sound" theory. And the "Gabriel often sounded a bit like Lennon (though just as often sounded like George Formby or Roger Chapman) and was a complete and utter genius" theory.

[Brother Spoon]

To cut to the chase, I want to play this one again because of Colin Moulding's songs, I don't want to play this one again because Andy Partridge sounds like a big baby kicking and screaming for attention. It is a dilemma.

So I did play it again, and I am warming to the Andy Partridge-side of it a little bit more, but I'd sure like XTC a whole lot better if it was a Moulding-run enterprise.

[Cédric]

Roma by Federico Fellini (1972)

[Cédric]

Uccelacci e Uccelini by Pier Paolo Pasolini (1965)

[Brother Spoon]

I don't quite see what's so difficult about Genesis. For me, the theatricality did take a couple of listens to get into at first, but the music is quite accessible.

'T is true. I was surprised at how accessible and melodic the musical side of it is.

To me, it's no great leap from the White Album to Nursery Cryme. The line of lineage is quite clear.

I'm afraid I've not caught on to that at all. I really don't know what you mean. 'Dear Prudence' sounds like Genesis?

And the way Gabriel sings his lyrics is one of the most wonderful things in music.

Perhaps it will grow on me as it did on you, but I'm not there by a long way yet. In these first steps I'm taking into prog-territory, I'm quite often pleasantly surprised by the music, but so far the vocals are what keep me from enjoying it to a degree that I would want to return to it.

I don't quite see what's so difficult about Genesis...

"The Battle of Epping Forest" is a very difficult track,...

It's definitely too much for me. It took a lot of effort not to skip through it.

The situation Neverknows descibes -- not knowing a piece of music well enough to find what's good about it, but knowing it far too well to ever be surprised by it or indeed to ever want to hear it again -- is a common problem these days. There is so much music around, a lot of things get over-heard before they've even once been listened to. It's just sad, and it ruins perfectly good music. I feel sorry for kids who feel this way about The Beatles. I guess I was just lucky to escape it in a lot of cases.

Perhaps this is my problem with the David Bowie albums.

[Brother Spoon]

Roma by Federico Fellini (1972)

That's not even a record, Cédric, let alone British or from the '70s.

[The Black Shadow]

Roma by Federico Fellini (1972)

That's not even a record, Cédric, let alone British or from the '70s.

The boob, he posted on the wrong thread!

[Cédric]

Roma by Federico Fellini (1972)

That's not even a record, Cédric, let alone British or from the '70s.

The boob, he posted on the wrong thread!

Woopw, sorry !

[Cédric]

Wrong thread.

[Cédric]

Roma by Federico Fellini (1972)

That's not even a record, Cédric, let alone British or from the '70s.

I can do better than that...

And now I suggest :

[The Black Shadow]

[The Slider]

In these first steps I'm taking into prog-territory, I'm quite often pleasantly surprised by the music, but so far the vocals are what keep me from enjoying it to a degree that I would want to return to it.

Ok, Pieter - very carefully - no sudden movements - put down the Van Der Graaf Generator album - and back very slowly away......

[Quaco]

To me, it's no great leap from the White Album to Nursery Cryme. The line of lineage is quite clear.

I'm afraid I've not caught on to that at all. I really don't know what you mean. 'Dear Prudence' sounds like Genesis?

As you have probably noticed, Genesis has a couple of things they use all the time: Gabriel's fanciful and pun-laced lyrics. (The other boys sometimes wrote them, but they tended to be more straightforward.) The droning bass pedal notes held while chords change on top. And one of the most recognizable things, double acoustic guitar patterns creating little chiming webs of chords.

This began on Trespass, and was an outgrowth of then-guitarist Anthony Phillipps and bassist Michael Rutherford's acoustic jamming. As the songs developed, Rutherford (who was musically the most limited member of the band) became kind of a bass-guitar hybrid. If you see photos of the band live, he plays a double-neck -- but not just for showing off. He really uses that 12-string neck a lot, sometimes while hitting bass pedals with his feet. This gave the band a bigger sound and allowed them to do more with intricate guitars (making them sound like harpsichords or something, as in the intro to "The Cinema Show"), but also limited the overall bass movement, so that Genesis is actually pretty simple music.*

The acoustic-guitar interplay and soft, sometimes-doubled vocals on "Harlequin", "For Absent Friends", "Lovers Leap" (the first part of "Supper's Ready") and so on, to me, are right off the White Album. The slightly sterile recording quality only adds to it. It wouldn't surprise me if Elliott Smith liked early Genesis!

The members of Genesis have often likened the band to a writers' collective. None of them had aspirations to being virtuoso musicians, though Tony Banks (kybd) and Phil Collins are as good as anybody. Listening to them (or seeing footage of them live), I am always struck by how everything is written into the song. Tony Banks really does not do improvised solos like Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman. Whether he's too scared or uptight or what, I don't know, but it has the effect of keeping Genesis free of a lot of the egotistical excesses normally associated with prog. (Not that your usual prog-basher would notice!)




*Compare with Yes's Chris Squire, who is all over the place. Prog rock grew out of taking rock and infusing it with classical forms and ambitions, but classical is a large field. If Yes takes rock to a quasi-symphonic level, influenced by 19th Century composers, then Genesis's droning pedal bass harkens back to the power of certain pipe-organ moments of J.S. Bach, where the church is shaking with one bass note, while the chords and intricacies work all around it.

[Brother Spoon]

Oh no, it's back!

Thanks for the explanation, Quaco; I'll revisit it with that in mind.

I've been playing a lot of British music last week, I'll post some more later.



Having made a nice run of albums, Paul McCartney records his 'Abbey Road'. I like it a lot (but also a lot less than 'Ram'), but the signs are here why I'm no longer interested in much he made after.



I'm afraid that despite trying my best I've not been able to change my opinion on this record, which is that it's three great singles and some reruns.



That's more like it. Even though I already knew this record by heart, I found it hard to stop playing it again and again once I'd started.



It's my second favorite Costello album (after 'Get Happy') so it's safe to say I love it very much.



The least typical of Nick Drake's records, but also my favorite. On Slider's advice I played it really loud and it did sound different (in a good way) that way.




I don't know what came over me, but I really enjoyed this one. It sounds as if Bowie really doesn't have too much of a clue of what record to make and that's how I like Bowie best.
So I played 'Hunky Dory' and 'Ziggy...' again to see if they'd grown on me, but alas, no such luck.

[Brother Spoon]

About time I discovered this one, and thanks to Neverknows (they say it's his birthday)'s nomination now I have. It doesn't get much better than this.



Another one I finally heard: it's my favorite Who album since 'Sell Out'. I like it much better than some of the records in between those two. But it's a big thing and I'm still in the middle of discovering it.



Now I see what they mean when they compare 'Low' to this one!
But this one is the better one IMO.



So I played 'Low'. That's two Bowie albums in a row I enjoyed.
It must be all the instrumental bits.
It really is quite good. ( I better come up with a new schtick soon to re-establish my identity on BCB )



And here it is (my new schtick, that is). Despite trying my best, in the spirit of this thread, this is the first record that I can find nothing positive to say about whatsoever. Singularly unattractive to these ears.

Perhaps someone wants to explain this to me?



I admit it rollicked along much more enjoyable than I had feared. The first record is actually quite good: the title track, 'Brand new cadillac',... That's a great start.
The second record still sounds a bit pointless though, up until 'Train in Vain'.

[The Write Profile]

I'm afraid that despite trying my best I've not been able to change my opinion on this record, which is that it's three great singles and some reruns.

I'd make it four great singles myself, but I totally see where you're coming from here, but it deserves its place in the pantheon just for that reason alone (though I also have a spot for "Bodies" and "EMI"). What's your take on PiL, Pieter?
I don't know why, but I think they'd be more up your alleyway than the Sex Pistols--something about the unEnglishness of them might appeal to you...

I don't know what came over me, but I really enjoyed this one. It sounds as if Bowie really doesn't have too much of a clue of what record to make and that's how I like Bowie best.

Considering how "snowed under" he was at the time that comes as no surprise. What's so striking about that Bowie record is that he sounds like he's falling apart, which sort of reached its fruition in "Young Americans", which is a total mess, the sound of a man running out of identities.

Diamond Dogs was of course, originally intended as a concept album based on "1984" but he couldn't acquire the rights from Orwell's estate.

[Brother Spoon]

About time I discovered this one, and thanks to Neverknows (they say it's his birthday)'s nomination now I have. It doesn't get much better than this.

And you should hear how it sounds after 27 years of regular listenings.

Worn out?
It's really great. I didn't have any doubts it would be great, but with the Rolling Stones albums (as with the Beatles) it is just that they are so expensive that I usually wait until I find a secondhand copy. But this time I went all out and bought it at Fnac.