Official Neal Morse Appreciation Thread

[gzarruk]

Just be sure to delete Talking Mega-Church Blues Agenda. Easily the worst song Neal ever wrote haha.

FTFY

[gmillerdrake]

Just be sure to delete Talking Mega-Church Blues Agenda. Easily the worst song Neal ever wrote haha.

FTFY

Yeah. I love NM but 'Agenda' is a really bad song. Not sure how that even made the cut as to be heard by anyone other than them when they wrote it.

[bosk1]

Just be sure to delete Talking Mega-Church Blues Agenda. Easily the worst song Neal ever wrote haha.

FTFY

Yeah. I love NM but 'Agenda' is a really bad song. Not sure how that even made the cut as to be heard by anyone other than them when they wrote it.

YOU JUST GO AN WASH YOUR MOUTH OUT WITH SOAP RIGHT NOW, YOUNG MAN!  AND DON'T COME BACK ON THIS FORUM UNTIL YOU HAVE DONE SO!   

[The Letter M]

I've been meaning to ask if Life And Times is worth getting. I own his first two solo albums and think they're pretty great (though I admittedly do not listen to them as much as his proggy stuff), as well as Songs From November, which I think I've spun once.

Would I find LAT to be as enjoyable as those three albums?

-Marc.

[Mladen]

I listened to it just today. It perfectly captures Neal's kind spirit and is truly gorgeous melodically and lyrically. Such a good album, one of my favorites of the year.

[DTA]

Unless you want a whole lotta Jesus and God talk, I would avoid the worship albums.

His first solo album, the self-titled one, is definitely one of my favorites.

It's Not Too Late, Songs from November and Life & Times are all good.  Not really any wow songs on them (he saves that for the prog stuff ), but all are good listens.

I don't mind the Jesus/God lyrics as I can honestly tune them out and just listen to the overall performance (plus I really only listen to music in my car by myself so I won't be embarrassed about playing it around my friends or girlfriend), as long as the music is catchy and there's melodic hooks. But for some reason, I associate worship music with boring dirges and lots of folky sounding stuff which I don't like. Pop songs I can handle but folk bores the hell out of me. But the 4 you mentioned are all on my list with the self-titled being my first choice.

Why would you be embarrassed about music you like?   

I will sometimes listen by myself if it's not their cup of tea, but f*** that.   I love Kiss, not apologizing for it, and I love both Harry Styles' new record AND Tyler Swift's 1989 and not apologizing for that.  Justin Beiber's "U Smile" is one of my favorite songs of all time.   Life's too short, man/girl.   If they make fun, it's on them.

Not necessarily embarrassed, but it's hard to enjoy listening to something if the person I'm with is being judgmental about it. I like to concentrate and absorb new stuff and people always want to talk in the car or ask me why the hell I'm listening to religious music if I'm not religious. I don't care as I like what I like, but it takes the fun out of it for me, so I generally only listen to eclectic or prog stuff in my car alone or on my earbuds at work.

[DTA]

I have a few of his non-prog albums. I plan on picking up the rest at some point. Honestly, I like most of the songs on all the albums I've heard. Only a few were not to my liking.

Neal Morse - Great full band pop album with a great Prog Epic at the end. Lost Cause, Emma, A Whole Nother Trip... worth picking up

It's Not Too Late - Another full band pop album. Got some good songs, but I don't go back to this one very often

God Won't Give Up - Full Band worship album. Not bad at all. The Crossroads is really good.

Songs From the Highway - All acoustic folk worship album. This one is actually REALLY good. Isaiah 60, That Crutch, Resurrection Ground, Make Me A Dishwasher... all great songs. Just be sure to delete Talking Mega-Church Blues. Easily the worst song Neal ever wrote haha.

Songs From November - Full band pop album. I like this one too. Eric Gillette makes an appearance on my favorite track Flowers in a Vase.

To God Be the Glory - Full Band worship album. This is Our God is really good. Haven't listened to it too much, but nothing really offensive on here.

Life & Times - Mostly acoustic band pop album. This is GREAT. One of my favorite albums by Neal. He played a bunch of these songs at the Morsefest 2017 Inner Circle concert for the first time. They make a good first impression because most of those ones are my favorites: Selfie in the Square, He Died at Home (such a heartbreaking song), Old Alabama, Manchester... very good album. Worth picking up.

Awesome, this is helpful. I just downloaded his self-titled and liked what I heard. The sound quality/mix is a little funky, but the songs were really good. Early favorite is That Which Doesn't Kill Me, and the epic seems a bit underwhelming but they usually all are on a first listen. I think L&T will be my next choice and I'll probably skip the worship albums as they probbaly won't get too much play other than a few listens out of curiousity.

[DTA]

Just be sure to delete Talking Mega-Church Blues Agenda. Easily the worst song Neal ever wrote haha.

FTFY

Yeah. I love NM but 'Agenda' is a really bad song. Not sure how that even made the cut as to be heard by anyone other than them when they wrote it.

Agenda is my favorite song on The Grand Experiment. I think it's an excellent pop song with a great chorus hook.

[Indiscipline]

Unless you want a whole lotta Jesus and God talk, I would avoid the worship albums.

His first solo album, the self-titled one, is definitely one of my favorites.

It's Not Too Late, Songs from November and Life & Times are all good.  Not really any wow songs on them (he saves that for the prog stuff ), but all are good listens.

I don't mind the Jesus/God lyrics as I can honestly tune them out and just listen to the overall performance (plus I really only listen to music in my car by myself so I won't be embarrassed about playing it around my friends or girlfriend), as long as the music is catchy and there's melodic hooks. But for some reason, I associate worship music with boring dirges and lots of folky sounding stuff which I don't like. Pop songs I can handle but folk bores the hell out of me. But the 4 you mentioned are all on my list with the self-titled being my first choice.

Why would you be embarrassed about music you like?   

I will sometimes listen by myself if it's not their cup of tea, but f*** that.   I love Kiss, not apologizing for it, and I love both Harry Styles' new record AND Tyler Swift's 1989 and not apologizing for that.  Justin Beiber's "U Smile" is one of my favorite songs of all time.   Life's too short, man/girl.   If they make fun, it's on them.

Not necessarily embarrassed, but it's hard to enjoy listening to something if the person I'm with is being judgmental about it. I like to concentrate and absorb new stuff and people always want to talk in the car or ask me why the hell I'm listening to religious music if I'm not religious. I don't care as I like what I like, but it takes the fun out of it for me, so I generally only listen to eclectic or prog stuff in my car alone or on my earbuds at work.

Sorry for the pyramid, but I felt the same exact way for some time. Then I realised:

"So, you don't have a problem with me listening while not believing in giant hogweeds, crimson kings, calls of chtulu and temples of Syrinx, but you're making a fuss about God?"

The fun came back immediately.

[KevShmev]

Someone in-the-know said on FB today that pre-orders for Morsefest 2017 will begin...soon.

[MinistroRaven]

Someone in-the-know said on FB today that pre-orders for Morsefest 2017 will begin...soon.

All I know is that it will be released in November

[OpenYourEyes311]

Just be sure to delete Talking Mega-Church Blues Agenda. Easily the worst song Neal ever wrote haha.

FTFY

Yeah. I love NM but 'Agenda' is a really bad song. Not sure how that even made the cut as to be heard by anyone other than them when they wrote it.

Agenda is my favorite song on The Grand Experiment. I think it's an excellent pop song with a great chorus hook.

First of all, Agenda isn't a bad song at all. Yeah, it's not a prog song on an otherwise prog album, but it's alright for the pop song that it is. Second of all, the song that I was talking about is just plain awful. It's basically Neal trying to do a Bob Dylan impression for 7 minutes. My only guess is you have not heard it.

[Fritzinger]

I think people realize that Agenda is not a prog song and don’t rate it as one.. of course it’s supposed to be a catchy, somewhat goofy pop song. But it’s still not a GOOD pop song, and Neal HAS written good pop songs (June).

[kaos2900]

I used to dislike Agenda as well but now I find the chorus infectious and catchy as hell.  Not my favorite song of Neal's by any means but it's just a fun song.

[Stadler]

Unless you want a whole lotta Jesus and God talk, I would avoid the worship albums.

His first solo album, the self-titled one, is definitely one of my favorites.

It's Not Too Late, Songs from November and Life & Times are all good.  Not really any wow songs on them (he saves that for the prog stuff ), but all are good listens.

I don't mind the Jesus/God lyrics as I can honestly tune them out and just listen to the overall performance (plus I really only listen to music in my car by myself so I won't be embarrassed about playing it around my friends or girlfriend), as long as the music is catchy and there's melodic hooks. But for some reason, I associate worship music with boring dirges and lots of folky sounding stuff which I don't like. Pop songs I can handle but folk bores the hell out of me. But the 4 you mentioned are all on my list with the self-titled being my first choice.

Why would you be embarrassed about music you like?   

I will sometimes listen by myself if it's not their cup of tea, but f*** that.   I love Kiss, not apologizing for it, and I love both Harry Styles' new record AND Tyler Swift's 1989 and not apologizing for that.  Justin Beiber's "U Smile" is one of my favorite songs of all time.   Life's too short, man/girl.   If they make fun, it's on them.

Not necessarily embarrassed, but it's hard to enjoy listening to something if the person I'm with is being judgmental about it. I like to concentrate and absorb new stuff and people always want to talk in the car or ask me why the hell I'm listening to religious music if I'm not religious. I don't care as I like what I like, but it takes the fun out of it for me, so I generally only listen to eclectic or prog stuff in my car alone or on my earbuds at work.

Yeah, that's different.  I understand that feeling.  I mean, now, I'm more like Indiscipline in terms of lyrics, but I get where you're coming from.

[bosk1]

I think people realize that Agenda is not a prog song and don’t rate it as one.. of course it’s supposed to be a catchy, somewhat goofy pop song. But it’s still not a GOOD pop song, and Neal HAS written good pop songs (June).

Correct.  It is a FANTASTIC song.

[bosk1]

Okay, "first-world problems" and all.  But:  It really annoys me when a label can't get the track list correct AND the disks don't have digital tags that download the album info.  I got Similitude Live and ripped the CDs to my computer.  No disk info.  It just had unknown album by unknown artist, with "track 1," etc.  So I had to go and enter all the info manually, track by track.  Which is annoying in and of itself.  That was compounded by the fact the track listing printed on the back of the album was wrong, which screwed everything up and made me have to go back and fix it a couple of times. 

[gmillerdrake]

Just be sure to delete Talking Mega-Church Blues Agenda. Easily the worst song Neal ever wrote haha.

FTFY

Yeah. I love NM but 'Agenda' is a really bad song. Not sure how that even made the cut as to be heard by anyone other than them when they wrote it.

YOU JUST GO AN WASH YOUR MOUTH OUT WITH SOAP RIGHT NOW, YOUNG MAN!  AND DON'T COME BACK ON THIS FORUM UNTIL YOU HAVE DONE SO!   

 

[Mladen]

I think Agenda was just meant to be a fun tune. Nothing more. And it is.

[The Letter M]

Okay, "first-world problems" and all.  But:  It really annoys me when a label can't get the track list correct AND the disks don't have digital tags that download the album info.  I got Similitude Live and ripped the CDs to my computer.  No disk info.  It just had unknown album by unknown artist, with "track 1," etc.  So I had to go and enter all the info manually, track by track.  Which is annoying in and of itself.  That was compounded by the fact the track listing printed on the back of the album was wrong, which screwed everything up and made me have to go back and fix it a couple of times. 

I noticed something was wrong when I put the discs in my CD player first, and checked to see if the encores were on there (which the on-package track list does not show), and sure enough, all four were there, so I knew something was up. Then I listened to the opening of Disc 2 and noticed it wasn't the first song on TSOAD's second disc, so going back to TSOAD Live's disc 1, I checked the number of tracks and sure enough, the missing disc 2 tracks were at the end.

Luckily I did all of this before ripping the tracks to my computer so I was able to manually input all of the tag data correctly the first time. Still a huge pain, though Neal did send out PDFs for people to print out the proper inserts for TSOAD Live, though it was some time after the release of the album. Just checked my email and the updated insert was sent out July 3rd, two and a half weeks after the album was released.

Still a shame that these things happen, though someone needs to have their work double checked before it goes off to printing. Between this and the Snow Live stuff, it's frustrating to have all of these digipaks and artbooks and what not with the wrong tracklisting on the packaging.

-Marc.

[Zydar]

I think Agenda was just meant to be a fun tune. Nothing more. And it is.

This. I don't understand the hate for it.

[Stadler]

And it's not like it costs anything or extends the time.   I'm a fan, I get it, but I'd be happy to go to Neal and say "Look, bro.  I will sign a non-disclosure agreement; I won't even talk about my involvement in the project.  I want no credit. I want no money.  Just give me a deluxe version of the album when it's released.  In exchange I will proof the entire package; I will play the recording on not less than three different players (including my home stereo, my computer and my car stereo) and will confirm the mastering and the typesetting.  Any errors will be double-checked and documented, with a full report back to you within 72 hours.  Oh, and sorry for calling you "bro"."   

[Indiscipline]

I think Agenda was just meant to be a fun tune. Nothing more. And it is.

Good fun infectious tune, trascendental hilarious videoclip.

[KevShmev]

Neal talks Agenda:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQmjtoRvtCI

[Fritzinger]

Okay, "first-world problems" and all.  But:  It really annoys me when a label can't get the track list correct AND the disks don't have digital tags that download the album info.  I got Similitude Live and ripped the CDs to my computer.  No disk info.  It just had unknown album by unknown artist, with "track 1," etc.  So I had to go and enter all the info manually, track by track.  Which is annoying in and of itself.  That was compounded by the fact the track listing printed on the back of the album was wrong, which screwed everything up and made me have to go back and fix it a couple of times. 

Not sure if I mentioned it here already, but it was the same with the SNOW LIVE Vinyl. On the back it lists all songs from SNOW, and no Falling For Forever. But on the actual vinyl, the songs are spread over the sides totally differently, and FFF is on the very last side. That was a pleasant surprise of course, but I don't get how you can release a huge live album on multiple formats, coloured vinyls and everything, and then can't pay attention to the f*ckin tracklist on the back. It's REALLY not that hard. How did they even come up with that tracklist? Someone must have invented it somehow, there's really no way to mess that up. 

[bosk1]

Listening through Similitude Live yesterday, I initially felt that the encore was a bit underwhelming.  I really like Momentum and Agenda, so it was nice to see those songs get some love.  I'm glad they are there.  But in terms of "encore material," whatever that means, they both felt a bit underwhelming.  I have a bit of a love/hate thing with Author of Confusion.  It has some really great parts and is a cool concept, but it just has issues as a song for me.  The Call is cool.  But it doesn't feel like a bit, epic closer that you would have as the final encore song. 

But then I got to thinking:  Neal doesn't really have anything in his solo material that really qualifies as THAT song for an encore.  I think that is largely why he has often drawn from his other projects to give a little bit different flavor by doing things like The Light, We All Need Some Light, and Stranger.  There really isn't anything in his solo discography where I think to myself "THAT is the must-hear encore song." 

Anyway, that's all I've got for Wednesday morning musings at the moment.

I guess I'll leave the discussion with a "controversial" opinion of the day:  The Grant Experiment is a better album than Similitude.

[OpenYourEyes311]

Listening through Similitude Live yesterday, I initially felt that the encore was a bit underwhelming.  I really like Momentum and Agenda, so it was nice to see those songs get some love.  I'm glad they are there.  But in terms of "encore material," whatever that means, they both felt a bit underwhelming.  I have a bit of a love/hate thing with Author of Confusion.  It has some really great parts and is a cool concept, but it just has issues as a song for me.  The Call is cool.  But it doesn't feel like a bit, epic closer that you would have as the final encore song. 

But then I got to thinking:  Neal doesn't really have anything in his solo material that really qualifies as THAT song for an encore.  I think that is largely why he has often drawn from his other projects to give a little bit different flavor by doing things like The Light, We All Need Some Light, and Stranger.  There really isn't anything in his solo discography where I think to myself "THAT is the must-hear encore song." 

Anyway, that's all I've got for Wednesday morning musings at the moment.

I guess I'll leave the discussion with a "controversial" opinion of the day:  The Grant Experiment is a better album than Similitude.

I would say that the closest things to a "must-have" encore in the NM solo catalogue are Testimony Part 5, and Reunion. Both are from his "oldest" prog solo albums, closers on those respective albums, and pretty epic songs (regardless of length).

And while I disagree with you on TGE being a better album than TSoAD, I respect your opinion. TGE has one of my top 5 NM songs (The Call), along with his best "ballad" (Waterfall), and a very good epic (Alive Again). I just think the goosebumps I get at the end of disc two of Similitude trump anything off their first album.

[Fritzinger]

Listening through Similitude Live yesterday, I initially felt that the encore was a bit underwhelming.  I really like Momentum and Agenda, so it was nice to see those songs get some love.  I'm glad they are there.  But in terms of "encore material," whatever that means, they both felt a bit underwhelming.  I have a bit of a love/hate thing with Author of Confusion.  It has some really great parts and is a cool concept, but it just has issues as a song for me.  The Call is cool.  But it doesn't feel like a bit, epic closer that you would have as the final encore song. 

But then I got to thinking:  Neal doesn't really have anything in his solo material that really qualifies as THAT song for an encore.  I think that is largely why he has often drawn from his other projects to give a little bit different flavor by doing things like The Light, We All Need Some Light, and Stranger.  There really isn't anything in his solo discography where I think to myself "THAT is the must-hear encore song." 

Anyway, that's all I've got for Wednesday morning musings at the moment.

I guess I'll leave the discussion with a "controversial" opinion of the day:  The Grant Experiment is a better album than Similitude.

Well, I guess Lifeline qualifies for that, at least in my opinion. Maybe Reunion. But I get what you're saying, Neal had his "classics" with other projects. Like Thoughts, June, At The End Of The Day, maybe The Doorway (although I personally don't really like this one), but most of all the mentioned Stranger, The Light and We All Need Some Light.
Btw, this doesn't mean I don't like songs like Thoughts Pt. 5, The Call, Author Of Confusion, The Conclusion (........) any less. But the above mentioned are the "classics" which will always be met with a big round of applause by fans.
Still, this is a little weird, because obviously ALL of those songs have been written by Neal (or 95% of it), but were just released by different projects.

[ErHaO]

People hate Agenda?  Such an inoffensive, solid song to my ears (except for that horrible video they made for it, but at least Neal is having fun there it seems).

Anyways, as a relatively new Neal Morse listener, The Grand Experiment is my favourite album of his. And I include his work with Spock's Beard, Transatlantic, Flying Colors etc. And Similtude of Dreams kicks ass too and is not far from being my favourite, so I am really looking forward to the next Neal Morse Band album!

That latest singer songwriter album from him was solid as well. I didn't like his previous country/singer songwriter (non progrock)  albums all that much, but the newest one is a surprising good listen for me.

[MinistroRaven]

[The Letter M]

A January release sounds good to me. Gives me time to digest the Morsefest 2017 release that's coming out!

-Marc.

[MinistroRaven]

How about a DT and NMB same release date?
I think NMB it’s still on IO

[KevShmev]

When it comes to prog, In Neal We Trust.

[The Letter M]

https://youtu.be/s1qAjOGJ928

New promo for Morsefest and Neal's new rock opera!

-Marc.

[ytserush]

I've been meaning to ask if Life And Times is worth getting. I own his first two solo albums and think they're pretty great (though I admittedly do not listen to them as much as his proggy stuff), as well as Songs From November, which I think I've spun once.

Would I find LAT to be as enjoyable as those three albums?

-Marc.

Depends.. It's got a more mellow lighter and looser feel than those other ones, which was by design. 

 I enjoy it. It has it's place. Liked it better live probably. I probably don't listen to it more than every few months or so, but I do enjoy it. Probably depends on what kind of mood you're in.  I like the low tech approach to it myself.

If you're looking for something "essential" though this probably isn't it.