I actually have listened to CAS quite a bit of times, I’d still maybe put it at 2.5/5 at best. There Must Be Some Other Way and Small Talk are also enjoyable, but other than the five that I’ve mentioned now, it’s really hard to not turn off the other ones. A lot of them like lack energy and just kinda drift off.
Also, 80s Genesis definitely took time to grow on me but I love it now. I used to absolutely hate In Too Deep off of Invisible Touch, yet now in the last couple weeks, I enjoy it.
Don’t know how the thought came across, I actually really want to jam out to Firth of Fifth now.
Well, I’ll at least try the songs you mentioned, then. What’s the worst that could happen?
I like how they tried to be a pop group while still being sort of proggy in the 80s. The results weren’t usually as great as their 70s stuff, but songs like Home By the Sea are really good now matter how you look at them.
I’ve been wanting to learn the piano intro to Firth of Fifth for awhile. XD
A lot of their longs songs during that pop era are absolutely amazing. Duke’s Travels, Home by the Sea (holy crap, Second Home by the Sea), Domino and then from We Can’t Dance, Driving the Last Spike. They didn’t totally sell out, but it’s interesting because Mike Rutherford says it’s actually a lot harder to construct a pop song than a prog song.
Anyways just to go back to prog side, I rate Foxtrot a 5/5 since it introduced me to the genre, but at this point I gotta say The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is my favorite even though I give it a 4.5/5. Nursery Cryme and Selling England are good too, but they just don’t compare.
Huh, that’s interesting. I’d probably list Selling England as my fave, though admittedly the first three tracks are my favorite part by far. With Foxtrot, I love Watcher and Supper’s Ready, but the middle tracks never quite clicked with me for some reason. Lamb is more-or-less tied with Selling England for me, but I agree it’s not quite perfect. Another one I really love, though, is Duke–I feel as if it’s the golden mean between their 70s and 80s styles. Honestly, it’s probably the one I’ve listened to the most.
Don’t get me wrong, I still think Selling England is awesome, it just doesn’t pull me in as much as the other two. It’s not a bad song but I think Battle of Epping Forest is the one that holds it down. I really do dig all of the other ones. The “middle songs” in Foxtrot are fun for me, though like I said, 5/5 is not necessarily my exact feeling on it, but it was a big landmark for my music taste.
Also, Duke is hit and miss for me, but the songs that do hit are absolutely brilliant. I’ll have to listen to it again and see if my opinion changes.
Epping Forest is definitely my least favorite part of Selling England. I think it might benefit from a “Broadway” treatment with different singers for the different parts and such.
Such a great discussion of Genesis, a great band. My favorite album by an artist usually shifts over time, so my current favorite Genesis album is A Trick Of The Tail. My favorite tracks from it being Dance On A Volcano, Squonk, the title track, and Los Endos. It’s got a great cover too. Other favorites of mine are Nursery Cryme and Wind & Wuthering (Duke’s great too, of course).
Trick of the Tail deserves more credit than it gets, that’s for sure. Though this keyboard riff from “Los Endos” sounds suspiciously similar to this one from “The Revealing Science of God” by Yes.
Shoutout to Tresspass, btw. They obviously didn’t have much money to spend on producing it, but some of the compositions are great.
Yeah, I like Trespass a lot, and it was definitely better than I thought it’d be. Even From Genesis To Revelation is a great album, though not necassarily a great prog album. I do have to wonder if Trespass was recorded before or after ELP’s debut, as it sounds extremely similar to that album (especially on The Knife, what with all the heavy bass riffs and keyboards).
Honestly I don’t see that much of a similarity. Maybe Knife Edge and The Knife are similar (lol) or even The Barbarian, but I don’t think any of the other tracks on ELP are close to Trespass. There isn’t quite a Tank or Three Fates on there.
Yeah, I listened to both albums today and noticed that they are very different, but also very similar. Though when I did listen to Trespass for the first time, my first thought afterwards was “that sounded like an ELP album!”. I guess the best way I could describe them is that Trespass sounds like the brother of ELP’s debut.
Thoughts on King Crimson? My favorites have got to be Red and Discipline, but I also love In the Wake of Poseidon for being the one that introduced me to the band - I chose to hear that one first for some reason. But of course, their debut album is amazing as well.
I love King Crimson. They’re actually the prog band I’ve started listening to most recently (though I’ve been familiar with their music for a while now). I’ve only listened to their 70s output so far, but all of what I’ve listened to is pretty good. Their debut is of course amazing, and I also enjoy In The Wake Of Poseidon and Starless And Bible Black as well. My favorites are probably Red and surprisingly… Lizard, which I think is very underrated. The title track especially is a masterpiece. I never really cared much for Islands, which I thought mainly suffered from not having much of the hard, cacophonous rocking that King Crimson were known for. It’s still good, but IMO the weakest of their 70s albums. I haven’t listened to any of their 80s stuff yet, but i’ve heard that their musical style in the 80s is similar to Talking Heads (another band I enjoy), so I’ll probably listen to it eventually. As for their 90s and 2000s stuff, I’ve heard it’s very hit or miss.
I never was able to get into Lizard. Was definitely odd, I’ll have to listen to it again. Yeah Islands I don’t remember very well, not very engaging honestly.
As for the 80s stuff, I’d say Discipline sounds the most like Talking Heads, but it is definitely unique. It’s comparable to say, Remain In Light, but it is different and not just a rip off. Beat definitely becomes its own thing and lot more electronic. And Three of a Perfect Pair kind of mixes half and half of those two styles. I enjoy all three of them, Three of a Perfect Pair is the only KC disc that I own. : P
But the stuff after that, yeah I haven’t really got into it either.
EDIT: Totally forgot about Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, also a really good album
I’m into Coheed and Cambria, Yes (though I haven’t listened to any of their albums except the one with Roundabout on it), and Dream Theatre, though they’re really Prog Metal, not Rock. And even though I don’t listen to much as far as bands, I love the classical concept behind Prog Rock, particularly around the idea of longer songs.
Ah, the Willing Well, 30 minutes of pure Coheed glory…
Definitely one of my favorites, though mostly for their first two or three albums. (Though for the record, so to speak, I only like the title track of Lizard–the rest is just too cacophonous and atonal for me). For whatever reason, their later albums haven’t clicked with me as much, though I intend to give them all a few more tries at some point. I do like at least one song on each album though Discipline, though.
Drop everything you’re doing and go listen to Close To the Edge right now.
Thoughts: Surprisingly short for a band in the Progressive genre. I mean, the songs aren’t short, but normally you get albums like Octavarium that are like 80 minutes longs. Also, having heard this, any doubts I had about Coheed being legit Prog rock have vanished. Don’t ask me why, but for some reason I never thought they had that Prog Rock vibe to them.
It’s actually funny how much one of the songs (the last one I believe), sounds like God Send Conspirator. IMO, it was better than Fragile, especially with the greater prominence of the guitar. Great listen.
It’s shorter because it was originally on record. Due to time constraints, one record could only fit about 25 mins max on a side. Longer songs made much more sense back then, many 70s songs that are 16-20 something mins long are because they took up the entire side of a record. But Close to the Edge is absolutely amazing despite it being 3 tracks.
Coheed wasn’t just progressive, they definitely had a pop punk style to them at the beginning. Keep in mind the genre’s about pushing the edges of what’s normally considered rock. If it had just one “sound” or type of style to it, it wouldn’t be very progressive. : P
Oh! I forgot about the vinyl part. That makes much more sense. I actually was going to challenge (or at least question) what you said about the length of vinyl records. I listen to my dad’s collection on a regular basis, and most of his collection is 70s and 80s. I swore that those records were longer than 30-40 minutes, but they weren’t. So, my moral: don’t trust your intuition, and never question Invi.
