100 Greatest Prog Albums: #6 Foxtrot (Genesis)

 

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.

100 Greatest Prog Albums: #5 Thick As A Brick (Jethro Tull)



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.

Here's the first part:



100 Greatest Prog Albums: #4 Dark Side Of The Moon (Pink Floyd)



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 . . ."

Prog's Top 100 - #3 "Selling England By The Pound" (Genesis)

"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)

Tomorrow we'll look at #4 . . . 

Response to (Yet) Another Stupid Meme

There are days (okay, most of them) when I can't help but laugh at the gullibility of some of my fellow Americans. This post was prompted by a meme that I have seen again recently on Facebook where the "tea fartiers" and gun nuts are comparing how different acts of terrorism were perpetrated using something other than a gun. And, of course, the meme ends with a comment about how godlessness is the real root of the problem.

I call "bullshit."

In less than three minutes and two Google searches, I was able to EASILY dispel that myth. I started by looking up the countries of the world ranked by how religious they are (the specific question from Gallup was "Is religion important in your daily life?", with only two possible answers: yes or no), and then I looked up the countries with the highest rates of homicide. What one will find is the least religious countries almost always have the lowest rates of homicide. For example, the religion survey shows that fully 83% of Swedes say that religion is NOT important to their daily lives, yet the country is tied for seventh in least number of homicides (0.7/100,000 population). On the other hand, the United States is one of the world's more religious countries, with 65% saying religion is important in their daily lives, yet has a homicide rate (4.8/100,000) almost SEVEN TIMES GREATER than that of Sweden.

Here are the rest of the top 10 least religious countries with their homicide rates:

Denmark (80.5%)	0.8/100,000
Estonia (78%)	5.0/100,000
Norway (78%)	2.2/100,000
Hong Kong (75.5%)	0.4/100,000
Netherlands (75.5%)	0.9/100,000
Japan (75%)	0.3/100,000
Czech Republic (74.5%)	1.0/100,000
United Kingdom (73%)	1.0/100,000
Finland (70%)	1.6/100,000

*(The number in parentheses is the percentage of those who say religion is not important in their daily lives.)

Except for the outlier Estonia, each and every one of these "not very religious countries" has a homicide rate significantly lower than that of the U.S., and the majority of them are at 1.0/100,000 or less. In addition, of the top ten countries with the highest rates of homicide per 100,000 population that appear on both lists, all save one of those had a greater percentage of respondents who believe religion is important in their daily lives than those in the U.S.

Given this information, can we HONESTLY look each other in the eye and say that godlessness leads to acts of terrorism and murder? I think the answer can only be a resounding "No!" While there almost certainly forces at work, godlessness isn't one of them.

For Pete's sake, I wish people would start using their brains again . . .

More on the Cattle Thief

One thing you can say about George Washington: He wouldn't tolerate antics by a bunch of anti-goverment wackjobs. Maybe, just maybe, the government should have used a similar tactic against that group causing the trouble in Nevada recently:

Throughout counties in Western Pennsylvania, protesters used violence and intimidation to prevent federal officials from collecting the tax. Resistance came to a climax in July 1794, when a U.S. marshal arrived in western Pennsylvania to serve writs to distillers who had not paid the excise. The alarm was raised, and more than 500 armed men attacked the fortified home of tax inspector General John Neville. Washington responded by sending peace commissioners to western Pennsylvania to negotiate with the rebels, while at the same time calling on governors to send a militia force to enforce the tax. With 13,000 militia provided by the governors of Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, Washington rode at the head of an army to suppress the insurgency. The rebels all went home before the arrival of the army, and there was no confrontation. About 20 men were arrested, but all were later acquitted or pardoned.

The Whiskey Rebellion demonstrated that the new national government had the willingness and ability to suppress violent resistance to its laws.

How long would those anti-government heroes supporting Bundy have hung around if there were a few thousand members of the U.S. military headed their way with some fighter jets providing aerial support? In my opinion EVERY SINGLE ONE of those people are little more than traitors.

The Cattle Thief

I've been trying to understand this whole issue with rancher Bundy and his cattle but, this being Tax Day, here's my take after researching the matter:

The guy owes the federal government, which is, ultimately, you and me, over a million dollars in grazing fees. His privilege to graze cattle (only 50 head in the Spring from what I've been able to glean, not the 900 head he has been grazing year round) was revoked in the 1990s (please note the word "privilege" at the beginning of this sentence - they are NOT rights by law).

Now, we don't seem to blink an eye when someone serves time, or has property confiscated and sold, because they owe back taxes (state or federal).

Yet there are people who think it's okay for this guy (and his family) to steal from us?

The answer to that question can only be a resounding "NO!"

Pay up or go to jail, Bundy.

And don't go waving a flag around either, because you are not an American. I don't give a f*ck where you were born - you are not one of us.