The band that topped the list of the 100 Greatest Prog Albums at #1, Yes with Close To The Edge, rounds out the Top 10 with 1971's Fragile. With this album Rick Wakeman joined the band, replacing original keyboardist Tony Kaye, and its success brought the band into the mainstream. The album opens with a song that was a minor hit as a single (and concert staple), Roundabout.
In addition to group efforts, each member of the band wrote a song for the album (new to songwriting, drummer Bill Bruford's contribution is only 35 seconds long). Guitarist Steve Howe's contribution was the brilliant piece Mood For A Day:
And my personal favorite from the album, Heart of the Sunrise:
Every one of the recordings in the Top 10 is a masterpiece and worth owning. Over the next few weeks I'll post about some of the other albums on the list - there is a lot of really good music to be found there!
Today's album, in the #9 slot, is the only one of the Top 10 that is not from the 70s (or, in the case of In The Court Of The Crimson King, the 60s). Released early in 2013, Steven Wilson's The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories), is a fine example of modern Prog. The songs all deal with tales of the supernatural - for the most part, they are ghost stories.
The title track tells the story of a old man who had been very close to his sister, but she had died very young. He believed that a raven who came to his garden was a manifestation of his sister who used to always sing to him. The man convinces himself that if he could just get the raven to sing to him, he would know it was her come to take him to the next life.
The Holy Drinker is a tale involving a TV evangelist preacher type who is also an alchoholic. Unwittingly, the preacher makes a bet with the Devil that he can outdrink him - and, of course, the preacher loses, condemning himself to Hell.
Wilson has three solo albums, but is also well known for his association with Porcupine Tree (heck, for the most part, Steven Wilson IS Porcupine Tree). PT's Fear Of A Blank Planet was their highest in the rankings at #18 and is also worth a listen - Anesthetize is my favorite track from this one:
The band's third record to be voted into the Top 10 is Peter Gabriel's final record with Genesis, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. The only double album to make the list of ten, The Lamb is a surreal tale of a Puerto Rican boy in New York and his adventures after he gets swept underground, visiting some bizarre places and meeting bizarre creatures.
Track 1 is the title track and in it we meet graffiti artist Rael, the "imperial aerosol kid":
Rael finds himself mysteriously swept underground (tracks 2 and 3, Fly On A Windshield and Broadway Melody Of 1974) and wakes up in a cocoon (CD1/Track 4):
As Rael's adventure continues, he relives his first sexual encounter(CD1/Track 9):
Later on Rael meets The Lamia (CD2/Track 5), strange creatures with the head and breasts of a woman and the body of a snake:
Though he sees a light that could lead to his escape back to the real world, Rael sees his brother John drowning in the river below and must make a decision (CD2/Track 9):
And the final track:
I don't think there is any question that The Lamb is a very unusual story. The thing is, it still works - the musicianship is simply phenomenal. There is a very wordy website, The Annotated Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, that helps to understand it. Hell, there's even been a book written about it, Genesis and the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (which I probably need to get) by Kevin Holm-Hudson, a professor of music at the University of Kentucky.
Yes, there are times when you want to snap your fingers, clap your hands, maybe dance, or tap your foot. But, for me, there are just as many times when I just need to listen - and that's what makes Prog Rock, and albums like The Lamb, so great. So go, listen.
Today we have another repeat band in the Top Ten of the 100 Greatest Prog Albums: Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here comes in at number 7. Songs on the album explore feelings of absence and alienation, the cut-throat nature of the music business, and the mental health decline of former member Syd Barrett.
The title track is the fourth track on the album:
Welcome To The Machine is about the band's disillusionment with the music business, how it was becoming more about making money than artistic expression (see Miley, Justin, Pink!, the entire country music business, and we could find a host of other current examples):
Split into two parts (which are further divided into 5 and 4 parts, respectively), Shine On You Crazy Diamond bookends the other tracks and is a tribute to former member Syd Barrett:
Their fourth studio album and second with the "classic" lineup of Peter Gabriel (vocals), Tony Banks (keyboards and guitar), Mike Rutherford (bass and guitar), Steve Hackett (guitar), and Phil Collins (drums), Foxtrot is the second from Genesis to make the Top 10 in Prog Magazine's 100 Greatest.
Watcher Of The Skies is the first track on side one, a Sci-Fi song about an alien looking down on a deserted and dead Planet Earth. In an interview Tony Banks said, "Early one morning it was totally deserted. It was incredible. We had this idea of an alien coming down to the planet and seeing this world where there obviously there had once been life and yet there was not one human being to be seen." The Mellotron and organ opening? In a word, amazing.
The 3rd track, Get 'Em Out By Friday, uses reality and science fiction as social criticism of corporate greed and oppression of tenants by landlords in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s.
Most of side 2 is taken up by Supper's Ready, a nearly 23 minute long suite consisting of seven parts. I am at a loss to even to describe it. Except that it is EPIC. In a 1986 interview Peter Gabriel described it as "a personal journey which ends up walking through scenes from Revelation in the Bible . . . I'll leave it at that" (which may explain my inability to describe it lyrically - consider what Thomas Jefferson had to say about Revelation: " . . . I then considered it as merely the ravings of a maniac no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences [sic]) of our own nightly dreams").
Simply put, Foxtrot is one of those albums that belongs in EVERY music collection.
Another of those bands that most people don't know is considered Prog, but that is the genre in which many critics (and those who write about music) place Tull. Some of their albums from the late 70s find them placed in the sub-genre "progressive folk" (in particular Songs From The Wood - #76 on the list of "100 Greatest"). They're music was initially Blues based but, by the release of Aqualung in 1971, they started to become more progressive in style, and Thick As A Brick completed the transition to Prog.
TAAB was actually created as a response to critics and writers who, in their reviews, kept insisting that Aqualung was a concept album, something Tull frontman Ian Anderson kept denying. So, in response, Anderson wrote this album, which consists of one very long song (43:46) that took up both sides of the original vinyl release. Satirical in nature, the album was said to be a poem written by an 8-year old (the fictional Gerald Bostock) set to music.
Though I'm somewhat surprised in came in as high as it did in the 100 Greatest Prog Albums poll, it is still great listening and certainly one of, if not the, best of Jethro Tull's output.
The big question is, who DOES NOT own this album? Who hasn't sang along with "Breathe" or tapped their foot along with "Money"?
While it only managed number four on Prog Magazine's list, as chosen by the staff and readers, the one thing we do know is that The Dark Side Of The Moon is the biggest selling Progressive Rock album of all time. Though it only spent one week at #1 on Billboard's Top LP and Tapes chart, it spent an incredible 714 consecutive weeks there (1973-1988)! It occasionally appears again and is approaching 850 weeks on the charts. DSotM has sold an estimated 50 million copies worldwide, with over 15 million in the U.S. alone (in 2007 it was estimated that 1 in 14 U.S. citizens owned or have owned a copy).
What? You didn't know you were listening to Prog when you were listening to this? Well now you know.
And while Pink Floyd is no more, both David Gilmour and Roger Waters are still performing songs from the album in their respective concerts to enthusiastic audiences - more than 40 years after the album was released.
Lyrically, the concept behind the album is about various stages or aspects of our lives - Wikipedia provides a good description. In a nutshell, the albums themes include conflict, greed, stress, the passage of time, death, and insanity.
Here are some examples if you've never heard it (or if you have, want to enjoy them again):
"Breathe, breathe in the air . . ."
"Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash . . ."
"Us and them . . . and after all we're only ordinary men . . ."
"And I know what I like, and I like what I know." - I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
So as we move through the Top Ten in Prog Magazine's "Top 100 Greatest Prog Albums of All Time" we come to #3, "Selling England By The Pound" from Genesis. Without question, if you could only pick one album from Genesis, this is the one. There are some other great releases but, for me, this really stands out, this is where they hit their stride. The next one, "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" (which came in at #8 so we'll be looking at that one in a few days), is a close second, but then things begin to unravel following Peter Gabriel's departure ("A Trick Of The Tale" and "Wind and Wuthering" are two good albums that close out the Steve Hackett era and, as far as I'm concerned, the band after that was Genesis in name only). The only piece that seems horribly out of place is a song with Phil Collins on lead vocals, "More Fool Me," that I don't even include on my music player. Everything else is just classic Genesis.
The album title is a line from the first track, "Dancing With The Moonlit Knight"
"The Battle of Epping Forest"
And "The Cinema Show" (the instrumental section that begins at about 5:25 - simply brilliant)
