Epics are a fickle thing, them and me... when I was a fledgling progger in my late teens/early twenties, I used to be amazed at albums that had one (or sometimes two or three...or four, looking at you Yes...). They felt like musical marathons, an excuse to show off their performing and writing skills, an exercise in self-indulgence and musical masturbation, and when I discovered prog, the idea that rock and metal music could stretch beyond 4-8 minute songs felt exciting to me, no matter how good or bad the song really was.
Between the few that Rush did, one by Genesis, several by Yes, I definitely garnered an appreciation towards epics, and as I discovered more and more bands, I always gravitated towards listening to those side-length masterpieces first. In the case of The Flower Kings, I heard "Stardust We Are" the song before the rest of the album, despite that title track being the album closer. With Spock's Beard, I'm pretty sure I listened to "The Great Nothing" before any of their other songs. Now, in hindsight, these are definitely benchmark songs by these respective bands, and discography highlights for many fans, but had I gone in blind (without research of fan-recommendations) and listened to something like "Love Supreme" by TFK or "The Healing Colors Of Sound" by SB first, my opinions on them might have been different. When it came to discovering new bands and epics, I definitely did my research, found what was most well-liked and beloved, and started from there.
In the case of my second favorite band ever, Dream Theater, I came into them before Octavarium, so hearing that title track epic blew me away, and it definitely set a precedent for how I would perceive future epics by DT (and other bands). I would wrestle between picking ACOS or 8VM as my favorite of the two, but as I discovered SDOIT, that song definitely took the top spot for me.
So needless to say, I began my prog journey absolutely LOVING epics, even the mediocre ones, simply because they were so unlike most of the music I had ever heard before in my life. Now fast forward about twenty years, several dozen bands and hundreds of albums later, I think the idea of epics as exciting pieces of music has begun to wane on me. I still enjoy them a lot, and if they're written well, I'd say I even love them, but with people like Neal Morse, the album epic has slowly become less unique, especially as some bands in the 2010s have really dug into the 70s and 80s prog sounds and a lot of modern prog borrows from the masters of the heyday. That isn't to say there aren't bands writing NEW epics that don't instantly remind me of "2112" or "Supper's Ready" or "Tarkus", but for the most part, I'll listen to new epics and they tend to bring to mind a lot of older epics, even by the same artist! Neal was VERY criticized for self-plagiarism in the 2000s but has since made his epics a bit more varied (no more expected Spanish guitar/Flamenco section, or Gentle Giant Vocal breaks, etc.), but he still very much has his own style of crafting epics, especially with Mike Portnoy around to arrange them.
So, the TL:DR of it all is - Yeah, I guess my feelings have changed slightly. Maybe it's me, maybe it's the way the music just doesn't feel as fresh or exciting anymore, but for the most part, I still love a good epic, and heck, I may even still enjoy a bad one, too (looking at you "Monsters & Men" from TFK's Paradox Hotel).
-Marc.
Topic: Has Your Feeling About Epics Changed Over Time (Read 1288 times)