DreamTheaterForums.org Dream Theater Fan Site
General => Archive => General Music Archives => Topic started by: Sketchy on April 28, 2013, 03:14:05 AM
-
Ok, this is going to be a rather odd list, and it seems to me that this first post will be both entirely representative of what will follow and at the same time not at all representative. What do I mean by that? Well, there'll probably be a few things you hadn't quite expected, and probably a fair number of things you may absolutely hate. I think it's fair to say that a lot of the albums on here are here because of attatchement to them for some reason. A number of them do have a short story behind what makes them special for me. I'm not really sure quite how to introduce to you, but hopefully it'll eventually start to make sense, and hopefully for a fair amount of it, it will continue to surprise you.
Anyway, here we go:
50. Vi An - Compilation Vi-An (2011)
(https://f0.bcbits.com/z/40/87/4087147008-1.jpg)
This one is a really rather beautiful album, but then that's sort of expected when the main instrument is a guzheng. I'm not really quite sure what to say about it, as it's pretty unique, certainly compared to the rest of my music collection. It's considerably more meditative than most, and I can't really ever remember much about it other than listening to it makes me feel really quite happy. It feels very organic, in a way. It's like sitting in some big, green forest, and just zoning out to the sounds of all the wildlife (which are probably getting mildly pissed off that this strange upright beast has wandered into their forest, sat down and is refusing to move).
I know this seems like a really wierd description, but it's probably the most descriptive thing I can really say about it, and I guess I like it for that uniquness. Hell, it's the only album I have which as throat singing pretty much throughout an entire track (as opposed to just one BWAARGH, awesome as though that BWAARGH is), but what would I reccomend from it?
Uh, good question. If I'm not allowed to say "all of it", I think I'd have to say: Once Hidden Now Appearing and also Innocence Is...
I think those two probably give the best idea of quite what is special about it. If you do go and listen to it, just don't listen to it when you're doing anything else, and if you like your music to hook pretty fast, I really don't think you'll like this one.
49. Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica (1969)
(https://www.holidayclubrecordings.co.uk/sites/default/files/hank.jpeg)
Here’s an album which I enjoy on an occasional basis. It’s not really regular listening material, but then again, a lot of which follows I like to listen to as a rare treat. In a way, it almost preserves the special nature of them for when I am in exactly the mood which demands them.
I remember when I was sixteen, coming to the end of my compulsory time at school, one of my friends kept mentioning that I should check this one out. So, on my last compulsory day of school, I went down to the shop, I delved into my pocket, produced the device I use to store money (known as a wallet in some parts of the world) and I bought it. I got home from my extravagant purchasing activity and I put it in the hifi.
What does this album sound like? It sounds exactly like what it is: a lot of stoned people in different rooms, not necessarily playing the same song. What is so great about that? I don’t know exactly, but I love it. It’s entirely terrible and yet brilliant because of it. It’s punctuated occasionally by spoken word tracks which make entirely no sense, and I can’t help but smile. This album will almost certainly always have a place on this list.
Recommended tracks: Moonlight On Vermont, China Pig
48. Frank Zappa And The Mothers Of Invention - You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 2 (1988)
(https://www.science.uva.nl/~robbert/zappa/files/jpg/You_Can_t_Do_That_On_Stage_Anymore_vol_2.jpg)
Naturally, there had to be some Zappa here. This was recommended to me by the same friend who recommended Trout Mask Replica, only this time I bought it during my first year on a trip to Cambridge. Yes, most of these albums probably will have a bit of an anecdote behind them, I’m a bit sad like that, but it is part of what makes them special to me.
This is a live album which seems to consist of two discs of seemingly endless jamming. That’s not really a problem though, as the jamming contained is properly amazing, and when not playing an actual song, quite often the jamming has spoken parts over it (quite humourous ones too, it’s basically a comedy album with amazing music to justify its existence). The musicianship is quite astounding throughout, and well worth the listen.
I don’t think I really have much more to say about it other than that. It amazes me whenever I listen to it, and usually makes me laugh quite hard at the same time, hence why I think it deserves its place on this list.
Recommended tracks: Room Service, Inca Roads
-
I don't know how much I'll know or I'll find interesting, but I'll follow. The cover of the Captain Beefheart album is pretty awesome.
-
I don't get what people really like about that Beefheart album...
-
To be perfectly honest, Lolzeez, neither do I. There's just something I like about it.
-
Will follow!
-
Love #49. :)
-
Ok, here's the next installment of my top 50. Admittedly, the music in this post is largely quite different to the music in the previous post, and some of it, you still probably won't have heard of, although it'll be a lot more like what I guess you'll have been expecting on this thread.
47. The Hoax – Humdinger (1997)
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQYnPx-HoiYw_wpYDSWVqPZsOZLCaNGApORnZ-WC4u3z17wk1tv)
Here is an album I bought at a blues festival. I just remember this amazing electric blues band being on stage, playing in a manner that it just seemed that was just so carefree and so brilliant, with their guitarists just firing off these amazing solos at seemingly arbitrary points in the songs, and yet still managing to make that one of the things that made them so incredible. It turns out it was part of a reunion tour, after ten years of doing other things. They even did a cover of Come Together which grooved so hard that it was unreal. As a live band, the feel was totally electric.
And you know what, the album is exactly the same, only I can make out what the singer is singing (I was quite far back and things were a bit jumbled, and the five pints of mild didn’t help either). The songs still have these totally obnoxious solos being belted out at arbitrary points in a way that just makes the songs truly wonderful. It’s not a particularly weird album, but it is an incredibly fun one, and when I listen to it, all productivity goes out the window (unless you count over-exuberant air guitar as productive).
There is nothing I do not love about this album, and would heartily recommend it to anyone who likes all out insane on the groove front. The cover of Superstition on this album is also brilliant, with wah-guitar as the clavinet part and the bass feeling a lot more solid than it does on the original. This is most definite a highlight of my music collection.
Reccomended Tracks: High Expectations, Superstition
46. Rush – A Farewell To Kings (1977)
(https://www.spburke.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/rush-farewell-to-kings-800.jpg)
Rush is a band I do enjoy a lot. Ideally, I’d have liked to include Hemispheres and had this album and that counting as a double, which would push this a lot higher, but to be fair, I love this album enough for it to have made this list on its own merit.
I do find that the way Cygnus X1 ends is a little sudden, which is why I’d have loved to have carried it on through Hemispheres, which would have completed it, but this song has some wonderful moments too. I particularly love the track Xanadu for its feel and just the way it feels so impressive, even in the acoustic sections. Closer To The Heart and the title track are also wonderful, and really quite beautiful to my mind too.
I remember when I was getting into this album, I mentioned it to my father’s girlfriend, and she remembered (back in the day) buying the vinyl of this, and she too waxed lyrical about how the first song had this wonderful introduction which went on and on. This was most definitely an album I had not expected her to own or even to like, but it was just good to talk about it. I really like this album, and I think it is a masterpiece.
Recommended Tracks: Xanadu, A Farewell To Kings
45. Steve Hackett – Voyage Of The Acolyte (1975)
(https://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/782/cover_29321818102008.jpg)
This album is often regarded as the best album Genesis never made, and I can fully see why. A lot of it consisted of ideas that Hackett couldn’t get into actual Genesis albums, and fortunately, they ended up being used here. I remember my stepfather giving me a copy of this album, and it took me ages to get into it. Originally, only Ace Of Wands clicked, and I felt the rest was a little uneventful in comparison, although Ace was absolutely stellar. Eventually, the rest did also click, I think about the same sort of time I started to appreciate more acoustic and classical sides to music, and I am now convinced that the album is indeed fantastic.
The aforementioned Ace Of Wands begins the album in an absolute guitar-driven time-switch feast with Mike Rutherford doing Mike Rutherford things on the bass. There is a lot of acoustic work throughout the rest of this album, as well as a few silly moments (A Tower Struck Down, here’s looking at you), but then Shadow Of The Hierophant comes on. This last song, which thankfully, Hackett has begun playing live again, is mostly very acoustic, with occasional bursts of extreme grandiosity, building to a wonderful little section of fanfare-like melody which ends, allowing the finale to begin. The finale does one thing and one thing only. It builds. At the point it is now epic enough to be considered a really good finish, it keeps building. It gets to the point it is the most insane thing on the album, and it keeps building. The drums pretty much start soloing, it keeps building. Bass pedals kick in. The room is now shaking (certainly if played live, the room is rumbling so much it no longer makes sense), and the music keeps building.
It seems like a shame Shadow Of The Hierophant was left off Foxtrot, although to be fair, it just wouldn’t be right to have something on there which would have the potential to rival the end of Supper’s Ready just through sheer, mind-numbing pomp. By no means do I consider this quality a bad thing, if anything, it’s the main strength here.
Recommended Tracks: Ace Of Wands, Shadow Of The Hierophant
-
A Farewell To Kings :tup
I have to check out that Hackett album, since I love early Genesis. Can't believe I haven't done so yet.
-
I've never heard of The Hoax, but A Farewell to Kings and Voyage of the Acolyte are great albums.
-
As I won't be up stupid early tomorrow (hopefully), here is another installment for today.
44. Peter Gabriel – Peter Gabriel (meltyface) (1980)
(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_BQaigIqXhFs/TBG-BLdYhdI/AAAAAAAAAqk/N1Hpe0us_LY/s1600/gabriel.jpg)
This is another album my stepfather introduced me to. I will admit that a lot of my early influence in listening habits is due to his own record collection. This album is a very dark album, and because of the gated nature of a lot of the drums, feels very aggressive in the darkness. It is definitely more rhythmic than it is melodic, and hell, it has its creepy moments. Just listen to Intruder, and I think you’ll probably agree, it’s not recommended listening in the dark with headphones unless you really do want to feel rather uncomfortable.
I think this album shows Peter Gabriel’s strengths as a writer very well, and also Steve Lillywhite’s ability as a producer. The album may not be sonically shiny and slick, but with music like this, that is not what it needs. That rough sound fits the songs perfectly, and although there are few moments when any particular musician shines on this, as a whole, it becomes something complete, bleak and frankly, it can be pretty frightening at times.
Oh, that and Tony Levin lays down some nice stick grooves on I Don’t Remember, but just don't test a hifi with this album.
Recommended Tracks: I Don't Remember, Intruder
43. Gazpacho – March Of Ghosts (2012)
(https://www.kscopemusic.com/gazpacho/marchofghosts/images/KSCOPE205-400px.jpg)
Here’s one I got pretty recently compared to most on this list. I think the thing that made me put it on this list is how coherent it is as a whole. It flows as one big piece, but doesn’t feel like it’s one drawn out thing as a result. I often put it on and when it gets to the last song, I’m there thinking “oh crap, it’s finished already”, which is something to this album’s credit. It doesn’t make me lose attention, and hell, the atmospherics are lovely.
I’m very much impressed by the seamless transitions both between and within songs, and the moments that I particularly like are the bits in Golem where the guitar gets heavier, and then this strange acoustic staccato thing happens, and also the bit earlier on with the transition to the irish folk-dance. It’s a very cleverly written piece as a whole and I just love it.
Even on the first listen, however, one thing really struck me about the album. There is one moment, which for me, is what makes this album. The final song has this bit where it just has a great build up, and that’s what swayed me about it. I shall need to get more of this band.
Recommended Tracks: Golem, When Hell Freezes Over pt IV
https://42. Caravan – In The Land Of Grey And Pink (1971)
(https://image.lyricspond.com/image/c/artist-caravan/album-in-the-land-of-grey-and-pink/cd-cover.jpg)
This album was probably always going to appear on here, as it is a classic of the Canterbury scene, and so beautifully whimsical. It has its poppish moments, such as Golf Girl and Love To Love You, folkier moments, such as parts of Winter Wine, and some beautifully jazzy moments, such as the introduction to Nine Feet Underground, and the rest of Winter Wine.
I think the main two things you are most likely to notice about this album are the slightly psychedelic organ leads and Richard Sinclair’s bass. It’s clear that he is a very competent player, and in an album where there is a lot of space (as it’s far from a heavily layered sounding album), having the bass wandering all around in that manner really helps to make it feel complete.
Recommended Tracks: Winter Wine, Nine Feet Underground
-
I got Melt from Goodwill recently, but I haven't listened to it yet. I'll definitely play it soon!
In The Land of Grey and Pink is one of my favorite albums. I love the poppy songs on the first side, but Nine Feet Underground is genius.
March of Ghosts is a good album, and Gazpacho is a fantastic band. However, Tick Tock is my favorite of theirs. Still, great pick! :tup
-
Love all 3. :heart
-
The Caravan album is #42 or is that an honorable mention?
-
@ Big Hath: thanks for pointing that out, I hadn't realised I'd slammed the wrong tags around the title. (I guess I should use the preview function in future).
It is indeed # 42
-
Ok, back to a few slightly unexpected things (maybe), after the last few of pretty much just prog.
41. The Doors – LA Woman (1971)
(https://991.com/newGallery/The-Doors-LA-Woman-460634.jpg)
This album is one I’ve liked for a long time for it groove-laden blues feel. I love how pretty much every track on this one is focussed on intense grooves, and some fantastic soloing from Manzarek and Kreiger. It’s not got particularly complex music for the most part, but the music that is on it has a really good feel to it, and by this time, the band obviously gelled well together.
Naturally, one of the standout tracks for me is Riders On The Storm, as I just love the way it builds slowly, and also how the sounds of rain and thunder are used as fantastic background elements, while the jazzy Rhodes piano and guitar interlock to make the track really atmospheric. It’s just one of those songs that I love immensely, and it always makes me smile when I get to that point on the album.
Another of my favourites on the record, however, is The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat), which is a spoken word thing over an absolutely monster groove of the stomping variety. It’s got a really heavy and simple beat, with fantastic jamming occurring, but the prophetic/pseudo-messianic quality of Morrison’s voice just takes it to another level. As he spake thusly “no eternal reward can forgive us now for wasting the dawn”, and I tell you what, I’d happily waste every dawn listening to that song, although I perhaps wouldn’t be “stoned immaculate” like he suggests.
Edit - now including Reccomended Tracks: The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat), Riders On The Storm
40. Xuefei Yang – 40 Degrees North (2008)
(https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2089/2392163894_83f993369b_z.jpg)
I love the classical guitar playing of Xuefei Yang. It seems a shame, though, that in later albums she’s largely neglected the Chinese pieces that she graced a lot of her earlier albums with, as I find them quite different, and that’s what I love this album for. Yes, she’s got the classical guitar standards, which she plays technically very well, but they are interspersed with some really wonderful Chinese traditional pieces, arranged for guitar. Those pieces, for me, are what makes this album special.
One of my favourite Chinese classical pieces is The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto, which is just sublime melodically, and this album contains the first movement of it, which is probably by a long way the most well known, as quite often it seems that only the first section is recorded. This seems a bit of a shame, to me, as I love the whole piece, but I can imagine that it’s possible it might not work as well in its entirety.
Another wonderful piece on this album is Yi Dance, which is recorded also on the Xuefei album Si Ji (four seasons) in a shorter arrangement, but I think the arrangement on this album is considerably more pleasing. All in all, I like this album a lot just for the contrast of Chinese and western classical traditions, and I’d love it if she’d return to doing that.
Recommended Tracks: Yi Dance, The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto
39. Yes – Tales From Topographic Oceans (1973)
(https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/514tJoH95-L.jpg)
And we’re back to the almost jazz-fusion style here with Yes’s Tales From Topographic Oceans. This album would probably merit consideration just for the cover art, and to be fair, the music is just something to seal the deal. This album is quite interesting from seeing what Yes had done beforehand. In previous albums, they’d been very much classical and tightly structured, which is something that they do very well to their credit. Then this album came along.
I know this album is one which divides Yes fans, and I can see why. In complete contrast to previous albums, this one is very loose and atmospheric. There aren’t really a large number of grand reprises, it’s just two LPs of straight up jazzy fusion jamming. As the previous entries on this list show, I’m very much into my jazzy side of music, more than the classical side (although I still like the classical side a lot).
This album is not so much one where there are specific tracks one would enjoy, rather some really standout moments, one of which is that solo in the first side. I remember the first time I heard this album, the hifi was playing up, so it kept fading in and out, but there was this one bit I had to listen to again, as I just heard what sounded like part of a really brilliant synth lead. So, I went back and listened, and that Wakeman solo just blew me away.
Recommended tracks: Ahahaha, yeah, about that. The whole thing.
-
I'm not that big of a Doors fan, but there are a lot of great songs on that album. The WASP is one of my favorites.
I hated Tales From Topographic Oceans at first. After several listens, I really started to enjoy and appreciate it. It's not an album that I listen to regularly, but I do like it very much now.
I've never heard of Xuefei Yang and I'm not familiar with Chinese classical music, but your write-up has me intrigued. I'll look into her music soon.
-
Up until now, a lot of the albums here have been not particularly "out-there", with the glaring exception of the first post. Well, This is where that will start becoming a little less true.
38. Miles Davis – Bitches Brew (1969)
(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ivdN2UGITUs/UO7AT11LVTI/AAAAAAAAHcQ/npQQyAwA_LI/s1600/miles-davis-bitches-brew-album-cover.jpg)
Bitches Brew is a rather special album. It’s Miles Davis being hugely experimental with loops, overdubs and more rock-influenced rhythms. This is by far not the most melodic of albums on this list, rather, it is focussed very tightly on endless rhythms and textures. I remember one time, sitting at my desk, I heard my boss humming this one riff I recognised but couldn’t place.
On further enquiry, he told me it was Bitches Brew, and then I remembered. This isn’t an album I listen to a lot, but do I really need to listen to it a lot for it to be one I hold very highly in regard? I would argue that it doesn’t. I do have to be in the right mood for this album, but when I hear it, it is something I enjoy hugely, as it is a very interesting and unique album. There is nothing else I have quite like this, and I think that’s an important thing, really.
I do have the complete sessions, which I need to get round to loading to my computer and hearing the second half, so my assessment of this album is only based on the two discs which were the original release, but if anything, I think the second half is likely to be something which only improves the full thing. For one thing, the later sessions (recorded after the release, I seem to remember) include a sitar player.
37. Van Der Graaf Generator – Pawn Hearts (1971)
(https://i396.photobucket.com/albums/pp50/Percy1969/pawn_hearts_cover-1.jpg)
Van Der Graaf Generator are an unusual bunch of musicians, and one which always produce interesting results, which is something I say as a compliment, although I understand it could be interpreted otherwise, especially with regards to their style. It’s not your average melodic, song based music. Well, it’s not necessarily melodic.
One thing I greatly admire about the music of VdGG is that it does not adhere to any particular style, and holds no guarantee that the next minute won’t be the most horrific racket I’ve heard in a long time, even if the current minute seems to consist of a rather nice piano ballad. I know that’s something that my parents consider to be “awful”, but I really like the surprise, and to be honest, it’d be a little dull if I knew a song was going to sound nice the whole way through.
It’s a little difficult to describe the music on this album, and certainly even more challenging to describe it in a way that would make you want to listen to it, as it’s far from the most accessible thing, but then, I do like a bit of noise just thrown in sometimes. It can make things really quite different and I like that uncertainty. It’s art.
36. Ahn Trio – Lullaby For My Favourite Insomniac (2008)
(https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/p480x480/401495_10150523764742834_170036504_n.jpg)
Here’s something a little different again. Ahn Trio are a classical trio consisting of three sisters who are all insanely gifted musicians. What interests me in this album is the combination of pieces chosen, as it includes jazz standards and even a Bowie song. Not all the pieces on this album are vocal, although some do have vocals.
This trio has been around for quite some time, and it shows, as the musicians really gel well on this recording. Everything complements every other thing, and so, even though the musicianship is evidently very competent, that doesn’t actually matter. It helps, sure, but it’s not as if the whole focus is on superior instrumental capability.
This album is one I very much like to listen to when having dinner. It’s not that it’s background music, because it really isn’t, it just has a very pleasant feel to it, which makes eating with it playing very easy. If anything, it makes the enjoyment of food a little too easy…
-
ah yes, the Brew!
I love the atmosphere and dynamics on that album. Lots of tension/release. Great cast of musicians as well.
-
Pawn Hearts is amazing. I recently got it on vinyl. It will be on my top 50 v2.
-
Pawn Hearts is one of my absolute favorites of all time. It's the definition of a masterpiece for me.
-
You seem to have an Asian woman fetish.
-
Pawn Hearts truly is one of the best albums ever. Probably my favourite classic prog album now.
-
Sorry it's been a while since the last post. Hopefully this one brings a few surprises for you.
35. Portishead – Dummy (1994)
(https://bloody-disgusting.com/photosizer/upload/portisheaddummycover.jpg)
Seeing as this is a list of my favourite albums, it was never really as if there was going to be a lot of happy music on here, and I can tell you for sure, number thirty-five, Portishead’s Dummy is no exception to this. It’s got this wonderful, semi-abstract, slightly electronic air of absolute and entirely crushing depression to it. Portishead are a band local to Bristol, and so I can see entirely where this style arose. Bristol is a rainy place (well, average rainfall for the globe, but that’s still pretty wet for British standards) with a lot of hills and Georgian and neo-gothic architecture, and this album is perfect music for it. It’s a place I love hugely, but it’s not really sun and waves, especially not this time of year.
The music consists of electronic grooves, with Beth Gibbons’s plaintive voice over the top, and somewhere in between, a murky sort of electric piano to fill out the middle. Granted, there’s a little more to it than that, but those seem to be the main elements, and they work together to make this wonderfully doom-laden, slightly jazzy result which is truly glorious.
This is another of those albums I should probably give a little more play time to than I currently do, but it’s one I find to be intensely special, and unlike a lot of the other music I listen to.
34. KT Tunstall – Tiger Suit (2010)
(https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41zy5Co77vL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
Here’s another album with a slightly electronic vein to it. Unlike Dummy, this one is considerably more up-tempo, rather than the very doom-inspiring sound found on the aforementioned album. This album does still contain the rock and folk present on the earlier Tunstall albums, but in the same way, it’s an entirely different beast.
For one thing, this album grooves more. Whereas the other albums had a more straight-ahead feel to them, this one actually makes me want to dance a little bit. As music goes, this album is really quite fun. I’m not really a fan of pop-ish styles, but this is good, honest pop. It’s still got all the hooks one would associate with pop, but it’s doing something interesting and unusual with them.
This album is more than just a collection of songs, too. It’s one definite, cohesive entity in itself, structured in a way that means that every song is just what contrast was needed from the previous song, and KT Tunstall does surprisingly good album closers, too, this providing no counter-example to that.
33. Camel – Moonmadness (1976)
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcThuUTPCSfqXUMyAjp__rWU4fLy_QDFkhx0eCPmrBee_xNtIdBu)
Here’s another of those albums I got into after my stepfather played me it years ago and it’s just kind of stuck. Moonmadness starts a little unexpectedly with a short, loud, little synthesizer-laden instrumental track. It’s certainly one of the most unusual things that Camel could have opened an album with, considering their style, but it works.
Afterwards, it drifts back more towards their more familiar style. It’s laid laidback (for the most part), and has some wonderful flute parts, and the way riffs slide in effortlessly and I know this sounds terribly cliché, but where they come in really takes the music to another level, such as on A Song Within A Song. One thing I love about Camel is that no matter what transitions occur in the music, the skill with which it is arranged leaves no part feeling incongruous. It all makes sense in how it comes and goes, and hell, it’s always strange when I realise I’m already on Lunar Sea. It just slides past so fast.
Again, this is an album where there is huge display of technical competence, although it is never really the focus of the music itself. I particularly love the manic feel of Lunar Sea, which half way through, just slides into this really spacey section with swirling synthesizers, before returning to that propulsive rhythm which characterises it. This album has some really wonderful forays into more jazzy territory than their earlier stuff, whilst still retaining that definitively Camel sound.
-
Portishead is amazing, though I prefer Third over Dummy. Moonmadness is great as well, though I'm not always in the mood for the Canterbury-esque stuff, though they hit quite the spot when I am. Good update Ivan. :metal
-
Thanks. I need to get hold of more Portishead, as Dummy is the only one of theirs I've heard. (They're also a local band. Glad you liked the update).
-
Dummy :tup I haven't heard Moonmadness in a long time, I guess I should give it a listen again.
-
I really like Moonmadness but I still prefer the self titled and Mirage.
-
I haven't heard about half the albums you posted so far, wow :P
-
Ok, sorry I have been a little lax of late, but here's the next update of jazz, prog and... uh... other. This might be one of the ones which contains at least one unexpected thing. I assure you there will be a few more (or at least I hope that will be so). But yeah, here are three more things.
32. King Crimson – In The Court Of The Crimson King (1969)
(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8bopEhq1-2w/UXhjKOAeoOI/AAAAAAAAByM/UT2WNU9uess/s1600/King-Crimson-In-The-Court-Of-The-Crimson-King1.jpg)
This album is a rather special one for me, as it was the first one I bought by a band that no-one else had already played me a lot of or given me albums beforehand. I read that it had inspired Genesis on their Trespass album, so I decided I’d find this album, which was meant to be really good. I went to a music shop (HMV in Bath, I believe), and found it in a list of “50 albums to hear before you die” they had (with all those fifty albums, I think it was set around the same place as I have it here), and I bought it. I’d also heard the title track and I Talk To The Wind on Steve Hackett’s The Tokyo Tapes, and I’d really enjoyed those songs, so I thought it was worth a listen.
So, I got home and put the album on, and it was a somewhat enlightening experience, I must say. I’d never heard anything quite like 21st Century Schizoid man before. It started and seemed really quite simple, that was until the middle section kicks in and everyone shines on it. After that kicked in the serenity that I knew as I Talk To The Wind, only with Greg lake doing a really ethereal voice, in contrast to the quite strong voice John Wetton has on the recording I had heard.
The level of mellotron orchestration that followed was something I’d not come across before, and it made Epitaph and the title track truly grand and haunting, yet separated by this wonderfully quiet little ballad with a long improvisation on the end. The improvisation which ends Moonchild is understandably disliked by many, but I think it’s really quite nice, and adds a little bit of mystery before In The Court Of The Crimson King kicks in with full grandeur. I became massively obsessed with this album when I got it, and my father absolutely hated it, so evidently I must have done something right.
31. Weather Report – Black Market (1976)
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GQxKHhvKJ3E/Tt6GbDeelxI/AAAAAAAAAlg/pYfR2CWcHoI/s1600/weather+report+black+market+front.jpg)
A little more jazz for you now, and it comes in the form of some Weather Report. I really love this album, it’s got a (multiple) fantastic rhythm section(s) and the duo of Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul just makes for some really powerful melodic and harmonic components on top of that. It’s a shame that the Weather Report rhythm section was so much of a revolving door, and it does show in the personnel on this album, as there are three different line-ups over the course of the album, although, that does include the drummers Narada Michael Walden and Chester Thompson of The Mahavishnu Orchestra and Frank Zappa’s band respectively, so it’s not as if any of the line-ups are bad at all.
I remember trying to jam along (poorly) to this album many years ago. I thought I was doing alright until Barbary Coast kicks in with Jaco Pastorius playing bass. That was the point at which I just put the bass down. The whole album just has such a wonderfully funky groove to it, especially on the opening track, and it’s entirely instrumental as well, which something I really like.
I remember I got it after I had decided it was time that I got into jazz and jazz fusion, and I can’t quite remember the reason I’d got it. I think it was most likely because the personnel included Chester Thompson, who I had heard on live recordings by Genesis and Steve Hackett, and I think it’s mentioned somewhere on the first Genesis Revisited album, or possibly The Tokyo Tapes. Either way, I saw this album in the shop and remembered the name, and I do not regret it.
30. Incubus – S.C.I.E.N.C.E(1997)
(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_rZRkMkHBXFg/TS9fRhrE-II/AAAAAAAABck/aJRctbJmkhI/s1600/cover.jpg)
It took me a while to really get into this album. As with a lot of the music on this list, it is very groove-laden, but it’s also really quite abrasive and I’m far from the biggest fan of rap and hip-hop (I know this album is metal, but it’s heavily influenced by rap and hip-hop). Once I got past the nu-metal nature of the album, I actually started to enjoy it. It’s rhythmically brilliant, and has a fair number of more mellow songs, as well as the instrumental “Magic Medicine” which largely consists of samples over a consistent backing rhythm. There is something quite amusing about Magic Medicine, and it also forms a nice little break from the rest of the album’s style.
I have to admit I got into this band from the first movement of The Odyssey, which appeared on one part of Halo 2, which you may remember. That level was one of the ones I used to play a lot just for the music, and at the time I was playing that game, I think if the style of Follow (1st Movement Of The Odyssey) had been anything like this album, I’d have not given it a second listen, and probably just turned the sound on the television off at that point.
That said, I don’t think I’ll ever own a lot of albums in the style of this one, and I certainly don’t listen to it very often, but as with a lot of albums on this list, I like to put it on from time to time. Like those albums already mentioned, when I put this album on, I really enjoy it.
-
Another great update! I like Incubus when I'm in the mood (though I do prefer Make Yourself and Morning View), and ITHYCOCK is amazing as well. I don't often listen to jazz, though when I do, Weather Report are pretty good, though I'm not familiar with that particular album. Keep up the good updates! :tup
-
Thanks, glad you like. There's some really good shit on SCIENCE. It's pretty good for just cranking up and alienating the neighbours to.
-
I didn't have a chance to reply to the last update, but I love Moonmadness. I think I like Mirage a little bit more, but both are masterpieces.
I don't rate ITCOTCK as high as other prog fans, but it's still an excellent album. Epitaph is one of my favorites, and the Mellotron is phenomenal.
Black Market is also fantastic. Great pick! :tup
-
ITT: COCK (courtesy of black_floyd) is awesome.
-
Hehe, glad you liked that one. Mirage is a pretty awesome album, and I love the solo at the end of Lady Fantasy (I tried to learn it once, but gave up after about three notes), and yeah, the I love the sound of mellotron to the point that a friend of mine and I have a running joke that I'll end up with a mellotron in a wedding dress.
Anyway, now for the next lot of albums. From here on, I planned when I drew up this list to do two albums a shot for a while (I can't remember why, but the numbers work out, so I'll stick to the plan, and it'll allow me to write up the last four, which I originally didn't have on the list when I drew it up last august or whenever).
29. The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night (2010)
(https://www.knoxroad.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/besnardlakes-roaringnight.jpg)
I remember when I first heard this. I had just come back from lectures one afternoon to find one of my housemates listening to this in the kitchen. I think he had only just started the album, and I strolled in, dumped my bag and coat on the floor and slumped into the sofa (it was nice having a sofa in the kitchen). I obviously looked really tired, as he started to move to pack up the computer, to make it easier to chat, but I insisted that he played the album, as it was really good and I was really enjoying it (despite looking very dead).
It must have been a really good first listen, as I remember when it ended I really wanted it to continue, just so I could have more of this band. Naturally, we chatted for a bit longer afterwards, before both returning to our studies, by which I mean he continued with his essay, and I went straight to my computer to order a copy.
The whole album is remarkably atmospheric, but with strong rhythmic undercurrents pushing it along at the same time. When the album finally arrived, it struck me just how beautiful the cover art actually is. It’s always been one of the things I love about this album, how it’s not just the music which is wonderful, but so is how the graphics have been done too. I love the cover so much, I’ve even bought a second copy on vinyl.
28. Paul Simon - Graceland (1986)
(https://musicthatisntbad.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Graceland_cover_-_Paul_Simon.jpg)
The first time I heard this, I didn’t like it at all. I don’t know why, it just bored the arse off of me. It’s one of my father’s favourite albums, and he loves to blast it from time to time, especially in the summer, but that first time I heard it, I just really didn’t like it. A few weeks later, he was playing it again, and for some reason it just clicked this time. So, naturally, I went and bought myself a copy shortly afterwards.
This album is very much a bass-driven album, and that incredible bass work is pretty much what makes the album what it is. It gives the album this incredible energy to it, which never fails to make me smile when I hear it now. There are some wonderful contributions from all musicians on this, from Adrian Belew’s guitar synthesizer work to that wonderful accordion on The Boy In The Bubble.
I don’t really know what else to say about this record. The use of African styles of music makes it something quite different, and really quite interesting to listen to. It has had me dancing around the room before. It’s just that sort of album.
-
You're right about the cover art for The Besnard Lakes. I've never heard of them, and I already want the album just based on the cover.
-
second mention of Graceland on a top 50 list
-
It's great how you can rave about that Besnard Lakes album without giving us any clue as to what the music sounds like. I have no idea now whether I should check it out or not.
-
Ah, sorry about that. I got so caught up in liking it, I completely forgot really how to describe it. I think the best description of it is "hypnotic", and it rocks pretty nicely with some sweet mellotron and hammond occasionally. It's pretty proggy in that it has long build ups and is pretty much structural music rather than song-based or melody based.
Now for more update, including the album I am currently listening to.
27. Astra – The Black Chord (2012)
(https://theobelisk.net/obelisk/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Astra-The-Black-Chord.jpg)
Now this is one hell of a good record. I had got a copy of Astra’s debut, The Wierding, quite a while back, and I really enjoyed that record. It had these long passages of dreamy psychedelic jamming, and arrangements that made sections of the songs slide in and out of each other in a completely effortless sounding way, so naturally, when this album was announced, I had to pre-order it.
Naturally, I was excited to hear what this would be like, when it arrived, especially after hearing the song “Quake Meat” from it. I was not disappointed. This album is quite similar in style to the debut, but considerably more focussed, but loosing none of the experimental psychedelic feel of the earlier. The style is very much an amalgam of the old bands from the seventies in their prime, and the recording is deliberately produced to reflect that song-writing style.
I remember my stepfather commenting that he had been about to say “they don’t write them like this anymore” when I was listening to it once, before he then realised that this was something that had only come out the week before. I think there is always the danger when imitating an old style of sounding a little bit contrived, especially when there are so many available recordings already from that decade, but this album (for me, at least) avoids that, and sounds as inspired as all of the old ones.
26. Steve Hackett – Out Of The Tunnel’s Mouth (2009)
(https://www.hackettsongs.com/images/album/cover.jpg)
In my first term at university, my stepfather insisted that I was to see a Steve Hackett gig, as it was only natural, as he had done the same at his first term over thirty years previously. It was a small place, although we got to go up in this balcony type place and have a decent view as my mother had her leg in a cast at the time and couldn’t stand for very long (she had broken her foot three miles into a marathon and continued running until the finish about a week before).
At that show, I got hold of this album (as that was the latest at the time), much of which was played at the gig. I really like the transitions between sections in the longer songs on this album, especially on The Sleepers and Emerald And Ash. The end section to the latter definitely displays the King Crimson influence in Steve Hackett’s music, and it’s incredible when that riff kicks in, especially with the stick backing.
There are some much softer moments on the album too, such as the short instrumental Ghost In The Glass, and moments like these act as a wonderful counterpoint to the heavier, more aggressive moments. What really makes the album so special for me, though, are the middle-eastern violin melodies on Last Train To Istanbul. That song is one of my favourite album closers, and I think it is just wonderful.
-
The Black Chord is excellent! It's not very original at all, but as you said, it's an inspired album that I love listening to. I liked The Weirding but I haven't listened to it since The Black Chord came out. I guess I should play it again soon to see how it compares.
-
Sorry I have been a little lax with updates of late, but here are some more albums. I have a strange feeling that these are somewhat popular on this forum, but I can't imagine why I have that feeling...
25. Spock’s Beard – Snow (2002)
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/75/Spocks_Beard_Snow.jpg)
While this isn’t the album that made me take up bass (that would be V), I think this album deserves to be on this list as I consider it to be one of the most fantastically sophisticated entire compositions in my entire collection. The transitions, playing and general flow of this album are all completely stellar. Just in terms of how good it is, it probably deserves to be much higher on this list, but almost everything above it have some sort of connection that I feel with them, which is what keeps this album as low on the list as it is.
There are, in true beard fashion, some wonderful moments of vocal harmony, namely on The Devil’s Got My Throat and especially Long Time Suffering, which elevate this album to some pretty high places. It’s got some of my favourite Spock’s Beard choruses (and seeing as they write some of my favourite choruses overall, that’s quite something) and that bass sound is so damn good.
Naturally, as it’s a Spock’s Beard album, there are going to be epic reprises, and naturally, this album has some pretty damn good ones, as well as some lovely little moments which are easy to overlook, such as that small organ melody in Wind At My Back pt. I. I love that little bit of organ. It’s really understated, but it’s really lovely, and the way the drums slowly evolve over the course of that song just make it something really special.
24. Opeth – Blackwater Park (2000)
(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PlGAV1RT_pc/TN05d_5B8aI/AAAAAAAABsw/G1MFQ_Xu5Wo/s1600/1320adgsihzxm%25C3%25B6.jpg)
This is the first Opeth album I bought, and it took me something like two years to get into it. I remember listening to it a couple of times over those two years and thinking that it wasn’t exactly bad, it just wasn’t my thing, but I could see why one would like it (that “Devious movement in your eyes” and subsequent bits of Bleak are to die for). Then, one day, I listened to it again, and it clicked. It just clicked so hard that I went and got more Opeth (and also went and listened to my copy of Watershed too, which has that organ solo of greatness on Burden).
Yes, the growls probably what turned me off Opeth originally, but now, I think I like them. I think I like them, partly because they’re balanced with those lovely acoustic sections, and it just adds a wonderful bit of contrast. It’s also great fun trying to imitate them really badly. But yes, what I love about this album is how those brutal-as-balls riffs are perfectly balanced with those heavenly acoustic sections, and hell, those guitar wails are really wonderful and eerie too.
I think the reason I went back and checked this album out again was that I had gotten really into Steven Wilson and Porcupine Tree, and I remembered I’d enjoyed seeing Opeth at Prog Nation. The moment I realised that was Steven Wilson on Bleak left me as a bouncing-up-and-down version of Milena’s avatar. It was great. That said, I was listening to this on the day of the funeral of my stepfather’s mother. The hearse turned up just as The Funeral Portrait kicked in. That was really creepy.
-
Two good updates! :tup
-
I love Blackwater Park but I kinda prefer Still Life.
-
Now, in this update will be two things many of you may not have heard of before, one of which is from the city I grew up in/around.
23. Takako Nishizaki – CHEN/HE: Butterfly Lovers Concerto/ZHANG/ZHU: Parting of the Newly Wedded (1992)
(https://media.oxfam.org.uk/images/products/HighStDonated/Main/hd_100067665_01.jpg?v=1)
It’s time for a little more classical music for you now. As I mentioned when talking about 40 Degrees North, I love the Butterfly Lovers Concerto. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. Anyway, I eventually got round to buying a copy, after first hearing it being played by a student orchestra which contained a girl on violin who I was madly in love with at the time (it ended up going no-where). Anyway, the music was beautiful, and so I eventually got a copy of it.
The story behind the concerto is a very well known traditional tale in China. It’s set in ancient China, and it concerns a young woman who falls deeply in love with a young man (represented by the violin and cello respectively), and dresses as a man in order to attend school with him. They become close friends, and eventually, she gets recalled home to be married to someone else. He goes to find out where she has gone, and finds out she’s really female (or it might be the other way round), at which point, when he finds she’s to be married to someone else, he dies (or something like that). She goes to his grave, at which point the earth opens up, and she leaps in, at which point, they become butterflies in order to be together.
Or at least it’s something like that. It’s a really beautiful and sad story, either way. I love the piece, and the fact that there are other Chinese pieces on this album just makes it even better. As I have previously mentioned, I just love Chinese melodies, they sound so evocative to me in a way that more westernised ones often don’t. Oh, and the violinist (Takako Nishizaki) who plays solo violin on this recording is not exactly terrible at what she does either.
22. Khan – Space Shanty (1972)
(https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSY6TLJlRVcAM0Tg_YbM3OKD3mO_LQgIjt-72NTTcgbY8UvuETNGQ)
…And now for some more music from my hometown. I love this album for its incredible flow. It also has some really groovy riffs, but the way sections slide in and out is something truly incredible, and I really love that bit in Stargazers where there’s a swing section in 7/4 and a really nice guitar lead over the top. That bit is just amazing.
There are lots of parts of this album which make it great, but for me, it is how consistent it is that makes it truly brilliant. The version I have heard (a rerelease) has a great bonus track called “Breaking The Chains”. There are some really bombastic moments, like the title track, but after that, Stranded shows that Khan were capable of some really pretty moments.
It seems a shame that the band broke up soon after recording this debut, as I think they had a hell of a lot of potential, but then again, asking a Canterbury band to stay together, let alone keep the same line-up for a long period of time, is not something which will usually produce results. I guess, in a way, that is what keeps the music fresh, unique and interesting.
-
Space Shanty has been on my Amazon wishlist for like 2 years. I really need to listen to it as I love Canterbury Scene bands like National Health, Caravan, Quiet Sun, etc.
-
Blackwater Park :tup
-
Blackwater Park :letam: :2metal: :metal
FTFY :biggrin:
-
So yeah, here's the next update, the music contained within being a little more well known around these parts than the previous update.
21. Anathema – Weather Systems (2012)
(https://theobelisk.net/obelisk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/anathema-weather-systems-cover.jpg)
This album is one I enjoy greatly, and has a special little significance to me. I remember when I was doing the technical test which led to my eventual getting a job (to be fair, that test was in January, so it’s reasonable I should still remember it), but at the point on the final day where I managed to get a small thing working which allowed me to actually get two thirds of it done in that single day, the full band kicked in on Untouchable Pt. I. That, I have to say, is an amazing feeling, just to get something working and then this insanely fanfare-ish, triumphant music kicks in. It was so damn good.
The album itself is really nice too. There are some lovely soft moments, but also some really energetic bits that I also love. I love how electronic The Storm Before The Calm goes in the middle, and I love that Kch-Kch sound on the guitar in The Lightning Song. The whole album just feels so immense and it makes me really happy to hear it every time I put it on.
I have to admit, the instrumental capabilities of Anathema are deceptively high. That’s not to put them down, they are insanely amazing musicians, but their musicianship is so subtle that it’s easy to forget how capable they really are. It’s particularly highlighted in the drumming, where the drums seem straightforward, but there are so many little fills which are truly remarkable when you realise they are there.
20. The Mahavishnu Orchestra – Birds Of Fire (1973)
(https://truefiretv.net/sites/ngm2/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/BirdsofFiremahavishnu.jpg)
Here is an album which has something which the absence from this list so far of this thing has surprised even myself. That’s not to say this thing has been totally absent, but it’s been less of a focus than I’d really expected, and less of a focus than it would have been, say, three years ago. What is that thing? Well, it’s shown on the Zappa, Rush and Hackett most prominently. It is: all out instrumental (particularly guitar) wizardry.
In the debut album, The Inner Mounting Flame, this is very much displayed, however, the reason this album makes it really high on this list and that that doesn’t come near this list is that here, it’s used in a fashion which always works. It’s just as good shredding from John McLaughlin, but in this album, it’s not shredding like a bastard over something which is really slow and melancholic, and really at odds with the solo, which if put on something like The Glass Prison would be one of the most amazing solos ever recorded. Anyone who’s heard that album will probably know the one I mean. It’s an epic solo, but in the wrong place.
This album, however, has no less manic playing, and if anything more manic playing, but it’s all right where the piece can support it, and so the calm parts of this album are incredibly beautiful while the less calm parts are utterly manic, and hell, I love it so damn much. If there’s a way to make me madly start air-instrumenting everything, it’s by putting this album on and turning the volume up. I think if I listened to it more often, I’d explode.
-
Weather Systems is very nice, although Anathema have at least 3 better albums IMO.
-
Today, two rather proggy albums which are pretty diametrically oposed in terms of style, both of which I love intensely, and both of which have some pretty epic playing on all instruments, and both of which have a second side which has at least a certain orchestral element in it.
19. Dream Theater –Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence (2002)
(https://www.metalmusicarchives.com/images/covers/dream-theater-six-degrees-of-inner-turbulence-20110802143639.jpg)
And talking of The Glass Prison and other assorted shred-fests of ultimate glory, here’s Six Degrees. From this album onwards, everything on this list is pretty much listed under “this is too damn good to be real” in my book. I love how the first disc is quite experimental for Dream Theater standards, and has some pretty neat song structures. It has a huge range of music from the wonderful piano and strings in Blind Faith and lovely ballad that is Disappear to the abrasive Misunderstood and fast paced The Glass Prison. Oh, and The Great Debate is pretty damn awesome too.
Then we have the second disc. Oh man, I love this second disc. I’ve always liked long, classical-inspired things, and this is no exception. It also probably contains the finest moment in any Dream Theater record for me, and one that’s not far off my overall favourite musical moment. That is the guitar solo in Goodnight Kiss. There’s that wonderful bit where it goes from that lovely, soaring melody, and then the music changes, and it just takes on that lovely lazy feeling, which just elevates it further in a really effortless way.
But yes, this album is full of fine moments, and I absolutely adore it. I probably should blast it more often, but it’s a nice treat when I do go and listen to it. Hell, I enjoy it so much, it’s almost an event worth celebrating in itself.
18. Camel – A Live Record (1978)
(https://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/50/cover_3634226112010.jpg)
So, you want all of the jazzy, fusion rhythmic goodness of the Rain Dances album with a full version of The Snow Goose (orchestra and all), with a few other traditional Camel songs thrown in, all with an additional (and godly) organ solo on Migration? Well, A Live Record might be exactly what you’re looking for. It probably is my go-to Camel album as it has all the things I love from both of the earlier incarnations of Camel. If it had a complete recording of Nude, then I’d be sorted (I was so close to including that album on this list too, I adore it).
There are some really interesting little quirks, like a different arrangement of Never Let Go, with a cracking organ solo (although I prefer the original mellotron solo), and some really groovy rhythm section parts throughout the song. I’m not entirely sure the saxophone in the live rendition of Lunar Sea maybe works as well as the original Moonmadness recording, but it’s certainly interesting, and I really love the rendition here.
There’s a lot to recommend about this album, especially the passion with which the performances are executed. Camel is one of those often overlooked bands, but I think they were masters of the progressive rock genre, although maybe let down slightly by the vocals, they more than made up for it (in my opinion) with their instrumental capabilities and fluid songwriting.
-
I love that Kch-Kch sound on the guitar in The Lightning Song.
ME TOO!
Best moment on the album for some weird reason.
Weather Systems is good, though I prefer We're Here.... and SDOIT is good as well, though it's not nearly my favourite.
Haven't heard the other two.
-
The main thing to note about Mahavishnu stuff is it's batshit crazy, but I imagine it'd go down well in DT fandom.
-
Weather Systems is my favorite Anathema album and Birds of Fire is an excellent album as well.
SDOIT is my second favorite DT album (after Scenes). I love Camel but I haven't heard that live album. They're one of my favorite prog bands so I really should get it sooner rather than later.
-
Six Degrees is awesome. I haven't listened to Camel any, so I can't comment on that album.
-
Awesome albums. All of them.
-
the mentions of both Weather Systems and Birds of Fire were the 2nd for each album in the top 50 threads
17th mention for 6DOIT, tying it with SFAM for 3rd overall in mentions
3rd Camel album to be listed
-
Here are another two quite different albums. One is jazzy and insane, the other atmospheric and hypnotic. One I first heard rather recently, the other of which is one of the first albums I ever owned. Both albums, however, I consider to be very special, at least for me, and which always make me happy to hear.
17. Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here (1975)
(https://www.vinylrecords.ch/P/PI/Pink_Floyd/Wish-USA/pink-floyd-wish-78.jpg)
I personally think this is a great album. It perfectly shows Pink Floyd’s atmospheric style, and also their experiments with whatever they had around in the studio at the time. This album runs from haunting soundscapes to some hard grooving (I love Shine On You Crazy Diamond pt VIII), and hell, that’s just in one single song, multiple times each (although, that song is half the album). I have long considered the slide guitar solo in the sixth part if that epic with the name so long I will put a placeholder instead of writing out the entire thing to be one of my favourite Gilmour moments ever, and I prefer it to a hell of a lot of his more famous solos. It’s just so fluid and soaring, and hell, when the synth comes in underneath, it just hits perfection.
After the beautiful saxophone on the first half of Shine On You Crazy Diamond comes the oppressive electronic sound of Welcome To The Machine. I love this song, and its highly synthetic texture makes it a really good contrast to the rest of the album. It’s the sort of music I would imagine playing in a church in a science fiction film. It has that air of oppressive grandeur which would really fit. The sound sample at the end is also a short but wonderful moment.
It’s easy to overlook Have A Cigar, it’s less distinctive than Welcome, it’s less epic than Shine and it isn’t as emotional or pretty as the title track, but I personally think it has a hell of a lot going for it. On any other album, I think it would be a really high point, but it’s just a shame that such a good song should be the one forgotten song in the album, although that is testament to how damn good everything else on the album is. Finally, we have the title track (because the second half of Shine comes back and I’ve already waxed lyrical about that. This song is really quite pretty, and is a nice little break on the album. It’s got lovely lyrics (and I’m sure as hell not usually a lyrical person), and by all means any other song of a similar vein would just have been swallowed up here, but it’s a really good song.
16. Hiromi’s Sonicbloom – Time Control (2007)
(https://www.eonet.ne.jp/~jmt/pictures/2007_hiromi.jpg)
This is one hell of a good album. It is to me one of the finest things I have heard in jazz or jazz fusion. Hiromi is a truly amazing keyboard player, and the weird sounds she makes on the synthesizers do slightly remind me of Jordan Rudess’s Rhythm Of Time album, which I really love too.
Aside from the instrumental craziness inherent in her music, there are also some of the most wonderfully beautiful piano parts I have heard in a long time. Hiromi Uehara is a truly versatile writer and musician, and judging by some of the music on this album, probably has a sense of humour about her music too.
I’m not really quite sure what to say about this album. It is an album which has some really quite infectious rhythms, and some really nice chords used (they are really nice), and all round versatility of musicianship. It’s really quite upbeat, and it never fails to make me smile.
-
Wish You Were Here :tup It's my second favorite Floyd album, Animals is #1.
-
Great update! :tup
Time Control is the only Hiromi album that I have, but I absolutely love it. And WYWH is, of course, a masterpiece.
-
Glad you guys be liking it.
-
Wish You Were Here :tup It's my second favorite Floyd album, Animals is #1.
Yep yep.
-
Ok, some modern prog for you now. There's not really much I can say about these albums which isn't in their individual reviews, however, both are quite different to the albums released by their respective artists prior to these albums.
15. Opeth – Heritage (2011)
(https://www.guitarmessenger.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/heritage.jpg)
I’m listening to this album as I type this up. In true Opeth style, it’s winding as hell, and completely unpredictable, which of course, I absolutely love. It seems to me fitting that for a band known for sudden jazzy progressive rock and folk sections in the middle of brutal death metal that they should do a really jazzy prog album after a long string of brutal ones (an entire career in fact). While some have seen this as a bit of an insult to their fanbase, I don’t. After all, if you were getting what you expected, then it wouldn’t be Opeth.
I have to admit, I was thinking yesterday about the lyrical style on this album (we’d been talking about typical metal lyrics at work), and I realised actually quite how sophisticated they can be at times. The words used are very abstract and figurative throughout, and I think the album benefits greatly that due to the non-use of growls, it’s not as easy to mishear what is being sung. I think at this point in my list, something either has to be really stellar and everything else good for an album to be this high, or art, music and words (for the non-instrumentals) must all be consistently high, if not stellar, and I think this is an album where that is definitely true. I love Opeth cover art in general, and yes, the music on this album is intriguing, mysterious and fluid, and the words are just glorious.
There is so much to love about this album, and so much I do love about it. I remember hearing it for the first time and just being so excited about it throughout the whole thing, including putting it on the 5.1 and just sitting down to listen. It’s wonderfully energetic, but also has some wonderful moments of atmospheric wonder, which are like lying on the lawn and looking at the centre of the galaxy. I would miss this album if I couldn’t listen to it any more.
14. Steven Wilson – Grace For Drowning (2011)
(https://www.thisisnotascene.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Steven-Wilson-Grace-For-Drowning.jpg)
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a huge Wilson fan. I got my copy of this album signed when it came out (and I was so happy). It’s a huge departure from a lot of his (then) recent work, as it’s a lot more brooding and meditative than the more driving work he was doing with Porcupine Tree. The focus is heavily on the layers of dark and ethereal atmospheres, with some amazing musicianship thrown in to add structure.
For me, the album hits an absolute peak of saturation with Raider II. I know that’s a weird way of putting it, but that’s where it feels the whole reason for the album just gets so concentrated that the tension is amazing. There are times when I get to that part of the album and it does feel like the air is about to shatter into a multitude of glittering shards.
Actually, that’d be pretty amazing if that did happen, but it really does feel like that to me. It just builds through the course of the album until that point. If anything, Like Dust I Have Cleared From My Eye is intended to stop people keeling over dead when they then put on something considerably less Steven Wilson.
-
Heritage is a surprising top 15 pick (and so is GFD, due to both being relatively new), but I'm among those who enjoy the record. Grace for Drowning is my least favorite SW solo album, but it has its moments.
-
I'm listening to Heritage at the moment, I must admit.
-
Heritage is amazing. Maybe not top 15 material for me, but it's my second favorite Opeth album.
GFD is currently my second favorite SW-related (including PT, Blackfield, etc) album. I love just about everything on it and it's pretty close to being a masterpiece IMO.
-
Yet again we have two pretty different albums. One is really rather mellow and accoustic, the other very grand and powerful. One is very much vocal in nature and the other is mostly instrumental. One is in English, yet still mostly incomprehensible to pretty much anyone who hears it, and the other is in mandarin, and looking at the translations of the lyrics, still pretty incomprehensible. I love both a lot.
13. Cold Fairyland – Seeds On The Ground (2007)
(https://www.coldfairyland.com/m/seeds2009.jpg)
This album is a really lovely one, with Chinese influenced progressive rock and folk throughout. The Cold Fairyland frontwoman, Lin Di, (and main writer) plays a truly lovely instrument called the “pipa”. It has a really earthen quality to its sound which gives this album quite an exotic feel in comparison to the rest on this list. I love the feel of Chinese melodies, so naturally there would be some Chinese music somewhere in the top twenty.
This album is mostly instrumental (I love instrumentals) and rhythmically very intriguing. Mixed metres and odd groupings of beats are thrown around throughout the album in a truly effortless way, and to be quite honest, it doesn’t even click as being an odd rhythm most of the time, as the melodies just fold themselves around the rhythms. For the western world, 11/8 is considered a very “far-out” and technically difficult thing to play, but in the east, these sorts of rhythms are commonplace, and really not that terrifying at all.
The pipa is not the only instrument in the sound of this band which will maybe strike you as unusual for a band which largely falls under progressive rock (although it is progressive rock, so I guess it’s a bit of a moot point). There is also a cellist. The story behind how they got a cellist is one which amuses me, so I may as well tell it. Back in the early days of the band, it was just a guitar/bass/drums/Keys-vocals-pipa lineup, and the girlfriend of the drummer used to have to sit outside during rehearsals (band members allowed only). The band had the chance to tour to another part of China, but there was only the tansport for band members, so they allowed the drummer’s girlfriend to join the band in order for her to come along (she’s a cellist in the Shanghai opera), and it worked, so she stayed. To be fair, the cello does add such a lovely smoothness to the sound, so I personally consider it a damn good decision.
12. Genesis – The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (1974)
(https://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/1/cover_125662112008.JPG)
My stepfather often comments that this is good Saturday afternoon music in the autumn. I think I can see exactly what he means by that. If it starts getting dark and rainy at about six or seven, after some lovely, long summer days, that point when the light dies down is really depressing on a Saturday. It just feels like the entire day has just gone, and chances are, it was raining, so you were inside all that time too. The concept behind this album is notoriously hard to fathom, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was dreamed up one November. I hate November.
Anyway, this album is not a happy one, but it’s really bloody good. It’s not a surprise that it was not well received, just as much as it’s not a surprise it’s now regarded as one of the best (if not the best) work that Genesis ever produced. It feels very coherent in how it slides from one thing to another, and the musicianship is also brilliant. It’s a very engaging listen, and if you do listen to it on a Saturday afternoon in November, chances are the more depressive passages of the album will kick in just when the afternoon fades.
Sometimes it seems a shame that Peter Gabriel left after this album, but some how, I don’t think so. It is very unlikely that they could have done anything to top this musically afterwards, it’s just one of those things, so I guess something would have had to change afterwards anyway. Besides, it gives the album a sort of mystique in a way, and even with out that, it’s far from a grand parade of lifeless music.
-
The Lamb! :heart :heart :heart :heart :heart
-
only the second time Lamb has been mentioned in a top 50 list
-
:omg:
-
Yet again, there is a huge difference in the two albums presented here. One is really very mellow and the other really is not. One is an album I like to play late at night before I go to bed, and the other often gets played in my mother's car, windows down, while she's racing down the country lanes. The albums are separated by nearly fifty years in release date, and both are, to my mind, pretty innovative. One brought unusual meters to jazz, and the other is... Well, it is what it is. Wierd, heavy and really fun, with a whole blast of atmospherics to boot.
11. The Dave Brubeck Quartet – Time Out (1959)
(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iRdWMZ0m-yE/UL_FIumF5DI/AAAAAAAAfJY/zUtMBqJd83E/s1600/Brubeck+Take+Five.jpg)
As you can probably tell by now, I like things which are rhythmically quite unusual, and also I am a bit of a jazz-fiend at times, so naturally, this has to go here. It amuses me that Take Five was originally intended just to be a thing to showcase a drum solo, but then ended up being an unintended hit. I think that pretty much sums up the entire album. It is composed entirely of jazz musicians experimenting with something that hadn’t really been experimented with much in jazz before that time, namely, unusual rhythms, and the experiment worked.
This album is a really rather mellow one for the most part, or at least it seems that way to me, but it contains some really interesting ideas hidden within the music, especially that bit in Blue Rondo A La Turk which switches between 9/8 and 4/4. That bit is absolute genius.
I don’t really have much more to say about this album. It’s not one which I feel is greater than it is given credit for. It’s a really well known album, and quite deservedly so, I just really like it.
10. Opeth – Ghost Reveries (2005)
(https://www.metalsucks.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/opeth-ghost-reveries-fron.jpg)
Five or six years ago, I would have hated this album. Why? First: it is metal. I really did not get into metal until I started mellowing and bought a Dream Theater album. Second: it is growly metal. Growly sounds were pretty much one of the main things I hated about metal. To be fair, I still don’t like growls for the most part, and I have somewhat drifted back away from metal, except for some of the odder metal, and that is what this is.
So, given that, what the hell do I like about it? First: the growls are interspersed with clean singing, giving a lovely contrast in the appropriate sections. Second: Opeth’s music is unpredictable as hell. I love that, as on first listen I never have any idea of where it is going, and with very few exceptions it ends up somewhere massively different from where it started. Third: I guess, as a result of experimentation with keyboards, the album is really quite atmospheric. It is a very heavy album, but the keyboards give it this denseness I like. The album feels so thick that sometimes it’s almost as if I could reach out and run my hand through it. It’s like sonic treacle.
Not just that, but Mikael Akerfeldt can really riff. His riffs are not generic or background, and when one is starting to run to the end of its useful duration, it gets swapped out for something new, making it always seem fresh. I guess that’s back to the unpredictability element that I love about it. I remember at the PN09 show I was at, which was the first time I’d heard Opeth, I was massively impressed by them, and naturally bought BWP at the show, but there was this song with a rhythm I could not get my head around, and to this day still have not got it right, but it fascinates me. Yes, that song is Harlequin Forest.
-
Ghost Reveries :metal
-
Time Out. :metal
-
Love those two :tup
-
two spectacular albums
-
I'm listening to some Cold Fairyland samples on Amazon. They sound great! And The Lamb is an excellent album, even though I don't listen to it often.
Ghost Reveries and Time Out are also fantastic! :tup
-
Ghost Reveries is by far the best Opeth album.
-
two spectacular albums
Agreed.
-
Now, it is time to bring the MEHTUHL. Here are two heavier albums, both of which are rather popular on this forum.
9. Dream Theater – Images And Words (1992)
(https://www.paradiserock.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/1992-Dream-Theater-Images-and-Words.jpg)
This was the second Dream Theater album I heard, I seem to remember. I borrowed it off a friend who is also rather keen on this album, and I remember initially being surprised that I didn’t recognise the name of the keyboard player, having not really looked up the band much, and not realising that there had been some line-up changes. It was a while before this album rose to be my favourite album by this band, although I do remember initially thinking my computer had gone wrong when I first heard the synthesizer solo on Under A Glass Moon. It’s got a much lighter, shinier style than Scenes From A Memory, although I did like the fact that the song Metropolis had some similar riffs and melodies in it.
I didn’t really listen much to it until I heard Score a few months later, and wondered why this one song sounded so familiar. It was after that I really started listening to and appreciating this album for its sheer glory. It is definitely a rather eighties album, and although I am largely not keen on that style of eighties hair metal (even if it is quite fun when it comes on as incidental music), I really like the songwriting on this album, and that shininess really works for me here.
This album is one which I do put on if I just want something fun to bounce around to. It is highly enjoyable, and is something really rather special. Besides, it has all those silly little moments which just sound so fresh, even though they are over twenty years old. I guess some music never truly gets old, even if it has such a definitive style that was passing even at the time of its recording.
8. Porcupine Tree – Fear Of A Blank Planet (2007)
(https://stevenwilsonhq.com/sw/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/foabp.jpg)
My main recollection of my first term of university is of the Tuesday afternoon laboratory sessions, where I was paired up with this other long-haired, music-obsessed serial collector of instruments. The one main thing is that there was this album I’d never heard of by this band I’d never heard of that he was really into, and that it had this insane drum fill in the first song. Eventually, he played this album to me. I was hooked. I went out and bought it pretty soon afterwards, and to this day, I am still finding new things about it I’d never realised before (such as that almost video-game laser gun synthesizer noise on the title track).
I am a huge fan of the works of Steven Wilson, especially with respect to how he organises atmospherics in his music (yes, I know Barbieri is the one who played the synths and creating most of the atmosphere, but the atmospheres are really reminiscent of Steven Wilson). I like how oppressive yet expansive the textures feel here, and how cleverly they are worked into the songs. This is an album which truly eats time like nothing else quite can, and I have spent many days lying on the sofa and just spacing out to this music.
Naturally, as a result, shortly after this, I did buy the entire studio discography of Porcupine Tree in the space of a year (layabout student I was, listening to progressive rock rather than spending my time down the pub, like I should have been doing. Such laziness I’d never dream of displaying now). Either way, this album’s strength, like all Porcupine Tree for me, is in how it creates soundscapes with layers and layers of textural elements. It all is rather experimental in a way, but still slick enough for that to not really be particularly evident.
-
Two more spectacular albums. :metal
-
I think I'm in the minority here with those two albums. I&W is my third favorite DT album (it seems like the majority of people here rank it as their favorite or second favorite) and FOABP isn't one of my top five PT albums. However, I still love them and they're both brilliant. :metal
-
Two more spectacular albums. :metal
-
Now for my first vinyl and also my first album ever truly owned (well, alongside Wish You Were Here and Foxtrot). I have huge love for both of these, one of which is massively divisive with fans of its respective makers and the other I think is often sadly overlooked when people discuss the discography of the band which produced it.
7. Storm Corrosion – Storm Corrosion (2012)
(https://p.playserver1.com/ProductImages/4/8/0/9/8/2/0/3/30289084_700x700min_1.jpg)
This album is somewhat of an experience, and as you can tell, it’s one I like a lot. It’s not exactly like anything I have heard before or since, so I’m not entirely sure how to do the write-up of this album. It is the first album I ever owned on vinyl or blu-ray, and to be honest, I’ve not yet had the chance to hear it on either of those, but I’m sure I will at some point. I find the album to be very heavy. As you will no doubt know, it is distinctly not heavy in a metallic fashion, but atmospherically, it is very oppressive, viscous and a bit frightening.
As you may have gathered so far, that is the sort of heavy I most enjoy. This album is distinctly non-conventional, and has prompted at least two people I know to check their speakers weren’t actually just broken. I also played it to one of my housemates when we first moved in to our current place, and he wasn’t quite sure whether my computer was just going wrong or whether the music was just intermittently being weird again. It turned out my computer was going wrong.
That isn’t to detract from the album at all, however. The album is, for want of a better term, distinctly fascinating, and somewhat puzzling, but I like that. I like that a hell of a lot. It is best to enter into listening to this album for the first time with zero expectations, as no matter how close it is to what they were, it will still be something entirely incomprehensible, and for that reason, amazing. It just depends if you’ll be amazed that something so wonderful can exist or how something so terrible could have been made.
6. Genesis – Nursery Cryme (1971)
(https://i.ebayimg.com/t/Genesis-Vinyl-LP-Gatefold-Nursery-Cryme-Charisma-CA-1-2162-Canada-VG-VG-/00/s/ODAwWDc5NA==/z/EH0AAMXQjWtRJeke/$T2eC16RHJHQE9nzEzNQUBRJekd4GLQ~~60_35.JPG)
This is an album I was given for my thirteenth birthday, alongside Foxtrot and Wish You Were Here, both of which are albums I very much like. My father gave me the albums, as about six months previously, I had listened to Dark Side Of The Moon, and decided it was amazing, and Pink Floyd being one of his favourite bands, he decided he’d give me some albums of his other favourite band, Genesis.
What is it about Nursery Cryme which makes it so special for me? Well, I think it probably was the first of the three which I listened to, but it just clicked instantly. From the first opening notes I thought it was brilliant. This is an album which manages to be spooky, whimsical, grandiose, beautiful and above all, intensely fun. Not just that, but it manages this without anything sounding out of place or forced. It would be easy to forget the shorter, acoustic songs like For Absent Friends and Harlequin, but somehow they still hold their own against the memorably grand songs like The Fountain Of Salmacis, incidentally, being my favourite song by Genesis.
This is another album I feel is completely unique to me in a funny sort of way. There are few bands, I feel, who could have managed to contain all the elements that this album displays and not feel incoherent. This is one more album I feel will always be on this list.
-
I love Storm Corrosion. It exceeded my (admittedly high) expectations and I'm still blown away listening to it.
I find the album to be very heavy. As you will no doubt know, it is distinctly not heavy in a metallic fashion, but atmospherically, it is very oppressive, viscous and a bit frightening.
Well said. I know so many fans of Wilson and Akerfeldt were disappointed that this wasn't more metal or whatever, but I prefer this type of heaviness over traditional metal/prog metal.
And Nursery Cryme is a favorite of mine too. It's probably my favorite or second favorite Genesis album.
-
this is the second mention for each of these albums in top 50 lists
-
I love Storm Corrosion. It exceeded my (admittedly high) expectations and I'm still blown away listening to it.
I find the album to be very heavy. As you will no doubt know, it is distinctly not heavy in a metallic fashion, but atmospherically, it is very oppressive, viscous and a bit frightening.
Well said. I know so many fans of Wilson and Akerfeldt were disappointed that this wasn't more metal or whatever, but I prefer this type of heaviness over traditional metal/prog metal.
And Nursery Cryme is a favorite of mine too. It's probably my favorite or second favorite Genesis album.
I think I would have been dissapointed if it had been metally, but yes, I also massively prefer a heaviness that plays on my mind rather than one which is straight up aggressive, although, I do like traditional heavy too.
-
this is the second mention for each of these albums in top 50 lists
First mention of Nursery Cryme was Lolzeez. :lol
-
So yeah, here's a post with two of my favourite currently active musicians. One is a full band album, and one is a solo album, one of which is probably the most unique thing on this entire list, but both of which have a fair amount of experimentation, albeit one being a lot more uncompromising and dark than the other, despite being not being the one which is least similar to anything else. Actually, they're both a little dark, just one of them is in mandarin.
5. Lin Di – Bride In Legend (2004)
(https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQYEzL9ToqZ5QorsgEfDDc724PmnpeANWeeixQVX5NlJZFarVKTuw)
One thing that seems a real shame to me is how terrible a lot of Chinese contemporary music is. I remember in my time there (and this is backed up by Chinese friends of mine too) that a lot of it sounds like 90s pop, but with anything that could have been mistaken for being good taken out. A lot of it is truly awful. One person I know even commented that to her, it was like China was constantly trying to throw away its wonderfully rich traditional heritage.
This album, however, is very much an antithesis to that. One of the things I love about the music Lin Di does is that she takes that wonderful traditional music heritage which is part of what makes China so special for me, and she effortlessly combines it with European forms of rock and also other more western genres. This is what makes the Bride In Legend album so fantastically unique and beautiful.
The album is entirely in mandarin, and I find the way it is sung here to have such a liquid feel to it. It just flows nicely with the music and altogether just helps make this one of the most wonderfully emotion-filled albums I have, even if I don’t really understand what is being sung.
4. Porcupine Tree – Signify (1996)
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQpeE2nxKEri01kXtHQCF6K8dfqGBYGTic8zaZShvXwru_BkTgD)
Signify is an interesting beast. At once it is very psychedelic and abstract, and at the same time, quite straightforward. Porcupine Tree, for me, are one of the crowning bands in terms of atmospheric wonderment and the ability to create music that, for me, it is possible to drift into a mindset where I no longer am required to focus on small details or think about anything in particular, which is rather liberating and fantastic to paint to. As a consequence of this, there have been many hours on dark winter nights where I have been lying on the sofa listening to this album. There’s usually a dog (or three) on the sofa too, as removing my dogs from the sofa was recognised as a futile activity years ago. They aren’t always overly keen on the noises during Sever, but they don’t seem to mind too much.
What is my favourite part of the album? I really don’t know. I think I’d have to answer “all of it” if asked that. To me, it is a very coherent and consistent piece, almost a slab of music, and I look forward to getting a vinyl player, so I can hear the final side of the album which the CD does not have. I have also noted that the vinyl has a rather nice shiny pattern on the cover which shows up in certain light as well, so I sometimes take it out to look at.
I will admit that it took me a while to get into all parts of the album, especially Light Mass Prayers, but even if I thoroughly disliked that track, this album would at least make it onto this list for such lovely moments as the guitar solos on Waiting (Phase One) and the bit where the bass and the drum loop enter on Idiot Prayer. Hell, the entire thing is just great.
-
Ok, more prog for you now. One modern and one old. Enjoy.
3. King Crimson – Lizard (1970)
(https://www.king-crimson.com/images/covers/Lizard500.jpg)
This album is probably one which won’t appear in many lists of this nature. Even when I mention that this is my favourite King Crimson album to most King Crimson fans, I get a look which mixes pity with absolute distain for my perceived lack of taste. To be perfectly honest, it took me about two years to even consider this an album I liked, but it’s just one of those which just has that effect which makes you keep coming back to it just to work out what the hell it is you thought you heard in that first listen which prevented you from writing it off instantly. Despite its all-out cacophony and assortment of seemingly careless noises, there is something. There is something really subtle about this album.
My appreciation started with hearing Lady Of The Dancing Water. That was the point of the album I knew I liked. There’s nothing quite like it. It’s calm, it’s lovely, and just sublime. The rest of the first side gradually grew on me, despite it’s clumsiness, and I quickly grew to love the first part of the title track. It’s so unsettling, and feels like a shard of ice coming out of the speakers.
Eventually, I think I began to get comfortable with the album, and then I realised that there was a bit in the title track which enters in a very classical manner, but then everything starts becoming more jazzy, and eventually it all really begins to groove. When I realised this, I was making a cake, and I had to stop my baking because I was so surprised. I had to sit down (with my half-made cake mix) and just listen to the rest of it. It’s once I noticed that part (the drums don’t change their pattern throughout that section, which almost makes it more amazing), suddenly the rest of the album made sense to me. There is nothing like this album, and to be honest, I’m glad that there’s nothing like this album, as I don’t think anything else would do justice to it. To say it is a grower is somewhat of an understatement.
2. Steven Wilson – The Raven Who Refused To Sing (And Other Stories) (2013)
(https://www.kscopemusic.com/wp-content/MOON-600px.jpg)
Yes, this is probably a little recent, but there’s something about this album which makes it really brilliant to me, and so I feel justified in putting it here. I think this album probably would be regarded as a progressive masterpiece had it been released forty years earlier. I wouldn’t say it’s out of place being released this year, because it really has an edge to it which still makes it feel current, but it is also an album which feels like one of the classic progressive records. It has everything, from jazz drums to orchestras and some manic instrumental talent the entire way through.
This album is one which really does come across as distinctly a Steven Wilson record, even if his name on the cover wasn’t enough. Even though it is far more upbeat than his other recent efforts, and far more earthy sounding than Porcupine Tree, it still has that distinct, dark atmosphere. It’s a dense album, and probably about as psychedelic as Porcupine Tree’s highest points. The use of flute and saxophone is also rather nice, and something which probably helps add to how much like classic prog this album feels. I also like the prominence of the twelve string guitar.
I remember when my copy of this album arrived (I bought the book), when I read it, annoyingly the light I was using was not keeping a constant brightness. Irritating at the best of times, combined with the book, it was just downright spooky. The artwork is also somewhat wonderful, and not much less spooky than the text itself, especially under a flickering light.
-
Didn't see your previous post - Signify is a neat record! :tup TRTRTS is pretty high indeed, but it's the best SW solo album IMO.
-
SIGNIFY!!!!
Also, the rest of your top 11 is looking great (although I don't know Lin Di), but the love for Signify is great. I love the album. My second favourite Porcupine Tree album, but one that gets better over the years. Someday, it will overtake In Absentia and enter my top 10 as well, I suppose. And that day is coming soon.
Signify :heart
-
This update is great!! :tup
I absolutely love Lizard. It's not even in my top 3 Crimson albums (that's just because they had so many great albums) but it's still a near perfect album.
The Raven is still my album of the year, and I think it'll keep that title.
-
Glad you guys are enjoying. When I originally drew up the list, the top five was basically Steven Wilson projects plus the current number one (to be revealed when I've written it up), but then Lizard clicked and shuffled right up there. It's nice to see other people's love for Signify and Lizard, though. They seem to be two of the more overlooked ones sometimes.
-
first mention of Lizard
first 2013 album to appear in a list
-
Lizard and Raven are both fantastic :tup
-
FERNEERL ERRRRRLBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERM
1. Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon (1973)
(https://www.gregwilson.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Dark-Side-sleeve.jpg)
(https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRahzu73QlE0VNSVyF1C9Z-u3Am_oTDxYMnk11ND_zcakd3nF7tDo_r3dvY)(https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTgxoj-L5L_B0rRDubbPYLrbldud_R6QsuTKWqi4rItGgf2kWv61Q)
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/p480x480/601911_10151604585121118_659359696_n.jpg)
I know this probably comes across as a rather cliché choice, but this is, and probably always will remain, my favourite album of all time. Why? There are many things I love about this album, some music related and some just because they give me sentimental attachment to it. I guess this is the album which first got me to really appreciate music as art rather than that background noise that goes on. I guess the story really began when I was searching through the stack of old records my father kept behind the arm chair at home. Admittedly, I was just fascinated by the artworks on the covers and the black discs inside rather than what was contained on those discs. This one, I remember, was one of the more striking ones and it must have stuck in my mind.
A few months later, optics was being covered in science class (ah, back in year eight, probably just under eleven years ago now), and there was this picture in the textbook of this prism. The teacher was evidently a bit of a Pink Floyd fan and asked if anyone knew which album this was the cover to. It must have been the last week of term as I got chocolate for being the only person who had any idea, and I’m pretty sure it was in mid-summer.
Anyway, I went home and asked what this “Pink Floyd” thing sounded like, to which my father handed me the CD and just told me to sit in the front room and listen to it. I was instantly captivated by it. Music like this was something totally alien to me beforehand. There were no instant beginnings to songs, there were few defined boundaries between songs, even. There were huge changes in mood and sounds throughout, and no matter what sound was at the forefront, it all sounded so full and complete.
Before, I had never come across the idea of music using general sounds, like cash registers or even people talking, to give it another dimension, but that’s exactly what this album did. Since then, I have always been a fan of carefully placed samples to just enrich the music. It almost gives it a connection to the world around, rather than just being this thing which you are merely listening to. It is something which I personally feel causes me to feel completely absorbed into the music, and not merely observe it from afar.
It’s not just the samples, either. The haunting lap-steel guitars on Breathe and The Great Gig In The Sky make the most wonderful sounds. There’s this beautiful, ethereal quality to them which just feels like it adds this really fluid, yet chilling, feel to the music. It also reminded me of one of my favourite worlds in the first Spyro game, which was one of my favourites at the time.
Keyboards were another dimension to music I’d not really come across (despite taking keyboard lessons at the time), as most of the music I heard on the radio in my father’s car was very guitar based, to the point that the guitar was almost an uninteresting sound. However, I’d never come across the beautiful piano sounds, futuristic synthesizer sounds and almost ocean-like organ sounds which this album has. They just added this intrigue which I had not felt before in music. That’s not to say that I found the guitar sounds on this album to be uninteresting, because they really were not the sounds I was used to. I had not before encountered those full soloing tones, I had not encountered that languid tone which is found all over Breathe, this album just had an organic and natural feel I had not come across.
I ended up playing this album so very frequently afterwards, there must have been a period where I would listen to it twice, even three times a day, almost every day. This was something special. I found a friend of mine was also into Pink Floyd, a little while later, and so there came a period where whenever we bumped into each other, every sentence either of us spoke to each other would have either a Pink Floyd song title, album name or lyric hidden in it. Well, not really hidden, sometimes they would be the sentence.
My father’s old room at my grandparents’ house had this poster in it of four men with long hair in an outside environment. I’d always been fascinated by this poster and wondered what the hell it was from. Unfortunately, my grandmother had thrown it away about three months before I realised that it was Dark Side Of The Moon era Pink Floyd. Shame really, I’d have loved to have had that poster.
Anyway, when I left school and went to teach in China before I began my time at university, I had cooled off on listening to this album quite so often a lot (maybe even listening to it only once every two weeks), for the last lesson I gave, it didn’t really feel right to give a standard lesson. I wanted to share something which I felt was special to me with the class, and I wanted to give them a taste of just what was regarded as one of the most important musical works in the west. So, I got my laptop, one of them found speakers, and I just played them this album. It was a really special moment (although there was a pause and a rushing around to find batteries when the speaker ran out of battery in the middle of Brain Damage). I like to think that more than three of us in that room of fifty one thought it was good.
-
I kind of never comment on top 50 lists because I rarely have anything to say but that is one of the most beautiful things I've ever read on this forum.
-
Thanks. I'm glad you liked. I had intended to make the post shorter, but I kind of got caught up in it all, so I decided to put the album on again. It's been months since I last heard it, and it still feels like the first.
-
Great finish! Honestly, it's not even one of my favourite PF albums, but I still enjoy it a lot, and your write-up was great. :tup
-
9th listing for DSOTM. The previous high ranking for the album was 3rd by WebRaider.
-
Outstanding album (I had it at #11) and a great write-up. Also my favourite PF album and an all-time favourite :)
-
DSOTM isn't even my favorite Floyd album, but of course it's a classic. I enjoyed the list, there is some overlap in our tastes :)
-
A fine album to put at #1. :tup
-
Great album!
-
I'm glad you've enjoyed it. Thanks for following this, it's been pretty fun, and yeah.
thanks.
-
DTSOTM is outstanding. There's nothing else to really say about it, other than it'll always be a favorite of mine.
This list has been great! Really enjoyed following it.