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Episode 25: I Know What I Like: The Rise and Fall of Prog
In Episode 25 of Rock and Roll Archaeology, host Christian Swain delves into the complexities and evolution of progressive rock, focusing on the pivotal Genesis album 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broad...
Episode 25: I Know What I Like: The Rise and Fall of Prog
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You
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The landlady's down on Broadway was the final Genesis album with Peter Gabriel.
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It came out late 1974 before PG started his distinguished solo career and before Genesis evolved into a 1980s commercial juggernaut one of the biggest selling bands in the world.
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Conversely, the land was a step backwards for Genesis. It barely cracked the top 10 in the UK and peaked at number 41 on the US charts.
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After just six weeks, the land left the charts for good.
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Genesis did better with their previous album, Selling England by the Pound, and Much Better with their next album, A Trick of the Tail, their first effort with Phil Collins, Fronting Band.
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Over the years, the land has gained Keshay with the writers and opinion makers, but back in 1974, the reception was mixed at best.
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The consensus seemed to be, I want to like it and it certainly has its moments, but really, what the heck is this?
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Even to those of us who love it, I think it's amazing, the land was and is inscrutable.
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It's full of weird, unsettling, lyrical imagery and unusual, sometimes jarring sound textures.
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The recording sessions for the land were tense and unhappy. There were sharp and ultimately insurmountable
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creative differences between Gabriel and the rest of the band.
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On numerous occasions, keyboardists and founding member Tony Banks said the land sessions were
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the worst time of his entire tenure with Genesis.
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The follow-up tour of America was plagued with frustrating technical problems.
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I don't think it ever went smoothly, not one show, Tony recalled in a 2014 interview.
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The setlist, the lame lies down a Broadway straight through, and its entirety 90-some minutes of new music.
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Now, a couple of years earlier, yes, had tried the same thing on their American tour playing
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tales from top of Grafic Ocean's straight through. Then a couple of familiar songs from the
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time.
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On the lame tour, Genesis doggedly stuck with it, almost daring the audience to like it.
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For the first handful of dates, the album wasn't even in US stores yet.
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The reaction was, perhaps puzzled, though they did start pulling some positive responses as the
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tour proceeded. The lame lies down a Broadway tour has become legendary. People still talk about it
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sometimes in reverend tones, and sometimes in a cautionary tale about the Rudy Tutti-Hi-Faluti
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excess of progressive rock in general. That and the bulging, postulating Sud Peter Gabriel,
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when he sang the colony of Slippermen. Remember that scene in spinal tap, Rock and Roll creation,
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where they start the song inside these weird futuristic pods, but the one containing basses,
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Derek Smalls, Stubber and Lee Refuses to open. We really love the part where the
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Rudy comes out with the blowtorch. Anyway, that scene also resonated with Phil Collins and
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Mike Rutherford. In the 2014 documentary, Genesis, some of the parts, Mike and Phil both
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referenced spinal tap when asked about the lame tour. On top of the technical bugs and interpersonal
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turmoil, Genesis took a financial beating on the lame tour, hundreds of thousands in debt by the
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time they made it back to the UK in the late spring of 1975. In the middle of it, Peter Gabriel,
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the main creative force behind the lame, let the other guys know he was leaving Genesis at
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tour's end. They kept it from the public for quite a while. When the news finally broken late 1975,
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Gabriel submitted a letter to the new music express in several other publications. He titled it
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out Angels Out and insisted they print all of it or none of it.
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Sorry Peter, we're going to summarize. As we interpreted, Rockstar Frontman, Peter Gabriel glimpsed
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the grand parade of lifeless packaging and decided he wanted no part of it. He was a new father
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and his wife, Jill's pregnancy and delivery had been difficult. He wanted to take a personal
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break and one can hardly fault him for that. He also wanted to work smaller, work more quietly
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and work more thoroughly on his own music. His early solo work seems to reinforce this interpretation.
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I walked right out of the machinery, goes a line in Salisbury Hill, the song that anchors his
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first solo album released in 1977. On his second solo album, another declaration of artistic independence,
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this one a bit more truckulent. When things get so big, I don't trust them at all. You want
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some control? You've got to keep it small.
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This podcast is intended to be education and commentary. It will discuss adult themes and may
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use course language.
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Pantheon podcast presents
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Rock and Roll Archaeology with host Christian Swain.
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Music.
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Culture.
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Technology.
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And Rock and Roll.
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And now on with the show.
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Hey diggers, Christian Swain here behind the mic in San Francisco. Welcome back to Rock and
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Roll Archaeology on Pantheon Media. Lots to cover so I will move fast.
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Shout out to some recent drawing winners, Joe Swain, Jay Dish, Kurt Shavr, Sarah Cody,
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congrats and thank you all. We do regular giveaways for our Patreon supporters,
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you know, bookspotters, t-shirts, you know, all kinds of Rock and Roll swag. Just one dollar a
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month puts your name in the hat. One more thing. All Patreon supporters, great and small,
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you get early access to an ad-free version every time we drop a new episode.
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Malcolm Clark from Australia. Hey, we see you Malcolm.
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Was one of our first T public customers. He bought one of our new R&R-8 logo mugs.
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So be cool like Malcolm. Do it our T public online store. It's called R&R-8 Swag Central
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and get yourself a mug or a t-shirt, whatever you need. All right, moving on.
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Social media, the links are in the front page of the website at rock and roll archaeology.com.
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The Facebook group, that's R&R-8 podcast. Add seems to be the most active currently. You can
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interact with us and your fellow R&R listeners right there. Our go-to place for research
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is an amazing online archive called rocks back pages and that is rocksbackpages.com.
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There's a link on the website as well. All right, next up we want to point
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to some past episodes that have a lot of relevant prologue and backstory to this one.
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Episode nine, where we talk about psychedelics and rock music. Episode 15, where we talked about
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Frank Zappa's hugely influential 1966 debut freak out. Episode 21 in particular,
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the discussion of electric lady land by Jimmy Hendrix. And of course the Beatles episodes,
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7, 8, 14, and 18. Finally, in one of our shorts, secret from a saucer, we discuss the origins
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and early work of Pink Floyd. Okay, let's take a quick break in here from our sponsors.
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Now for the setup. Progressive rock had its fullest flowering in the period we're going to cover
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the first half of the 1970s. Prog inspires more strong opinions, good and bad,
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than just about any other movement or genre across the history of rock music.
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Fans of progressive rock embrace it with a fervor matched only by heavy metal fans. And as one
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might expect, there's a lot of crossover between those two fandoms. Critics, including some that
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we like a lot and often quote like Lester Banks, Robert Chris Gal, Robert Hilburn,
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the critics just hated it. Back then, and many still do. Well, you know what? This time,
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we say screw the critics. They were wrong. Time has informed our perspective. And we think the best
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of 70s prog offers sub gravitas, some intellectual heft. You can sink your teeth into it. It's awesome.
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Some of the best music of the 20th century has to offer. Yes, there were plenty of misses.
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Lots of artsy-fartsy self-indulgent. We know this. But the prog rock that has endured,
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and a lot of it has, is some great, great stuff. Long, intricate, immersive works of music that
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compellingly address big things, spirituality, space travel, the cosmic fate of humankind,
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references to mythology, classical literature, contemporary stories too, non-Western traditions,
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and voices are in the mix as well. Delivered with virtuous of musicianship, presented with a sense of
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the grand and a flair for the dramatic boy, do we love it? It was short-lived, but an incredible
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period slash movement in popular music. If this all sounds real nerdy to you, well, strappy,
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and because the nerd factor is strong in this one, but we'll try to make it accessible to those
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of you who are not huge fans of Prague, and let us know how we do. Okay, that's the housekeeping,
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that's the setup. Let's get into it, friends. We're very excited and proud to present the next episode
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of Rock and Roll Archaeology, Episode 25. I know what I like.
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I
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Class is in session. We'll start with some definitions. First, a caveat, something we've said before.
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Labels, classifications, and genres, all those terms are just a loose shorthand, a convenient way
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of talking about music and audiences. No more, no less. Just want to get that out of the way.
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When we look at 70s progressive rock, we see lots of diversity and originality, but there are
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some commonalities too. We'll identify five defining elements. Well, maybe not defining elements,
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but certainly important. All right, here it goes. First, Prague goes beyond the early roots rock
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of blues, gospel, and country. Pragueers start with those roots, but also bringing classical elements,
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jazz vibes, avant-garde sounds, even the beats and rhythms of world music. The second key element,
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longer compositions, multi-part suites that take the listener on a musical journey with multiple
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stops along the way, concept albums, even concept double albums. Third element, diverse instrumentation.
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Prague rockers are about more than just guitars and drums. Keyboards, lots of keyboards,
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both traditional and electronic, plus woodwinds, brass, strings, experimental combinations.
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Number four, not always, but often. Prague rock lyrics take on big themes. Beyond boy meets girl
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stories or tales of life on the road, long-form storytelling, philosophy, and social commentary,
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plus frequent references to classical literature, science fiction, mythology, and more.
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Last, but not least, number five. Prague rock isn't for the faint of heart when it comes to musical
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complexity. It's demanding. Only virtuoso musicians need apply. Long pieces, and we mentioned that,
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along with tricky and abrupt changes in key and tempo, unusual time signatures. We even find
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poly rhythmic compositions where some of the musicians play in one count or time signature,
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while other members of the band play in a different count, and they do it simultaneously.
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This is very tricky indeed to make work musically. Here's a great example of poly rhythm from close
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to the edge, but yes.
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Poly rhythm is a really interesting thing in music. Let's stay right here and check out another
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example. This one is also from yes, same album, the song is Siberian Cottro. By the way, on any
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list of the greatest Prague albums ever, you'll find close to the edge at or near the top. It
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capped off a wonderfully prolific and creative three album run for yes. In just 20 months,
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February of 1971 to September 1972, this band put out the yes album, fragile, and of course,
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close to the edge. These guys were dealing. So let's set this clip up. It's near the beginning of
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the song. We're going to play about 45 seconds. Steve Howe on guitar and Chris Guarante's
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Rick Wakeman on keys and Bill Brufford on drums. We're going to play an outtake, a live in the
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studio run through rather than the album version. There's less echo and reverb, so the instruments
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are more distinct, easier to pick out. All right, here it goes.
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Howe, Squire and Wakeman all play in different counts and Brufford is somehow managing to hit
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accents and backbeads behind all of them. With each measure, they seem to be drifting further
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and further apart from each other. As howe's repetitive guitar trill moves up higher and higher,
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the whole thing is tight-rope walking, about to fall off into chaos, and then bang! They all
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land together on the same beat, plain and unison, a funky complex figure that sets up the first verse.
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All right, here it goes.
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Music
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Just killer on somber plane. A few bands have been able to match it, but nobody's ever done it better.
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So that's polyrhythm. We know it, and we love it. All right, back to the five elements. Let's recap and
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summarize one classical and jazz influences sprinkled in some avant-garde in Worldbeat. Two,
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longer compositions, three, diverse instrumentation, four, big lyrical themes, and five, technically
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demanding key changes, tempo shifts, complex time signatures. If a band or song ticks up most of
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these boxes, it's progressive rock, or at the very least it's prog rock adjacent. Now, let's move on to origins.
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Music
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The Canterbury scene was a musical incubator, late 1960s and early 1970s centered in that
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college town in the southeast corner of England. Sop machine formed in 1966 was a pioneering
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band of this scene. Psychedelic rock with jazz elements, and they got quirky with the time signatures.
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More a jam band than a progressive rock group, at least in our view. Sop machine were early adopters,
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and a popular live act. Their approach was bold and experimental. A lot of other musicians in the UK
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took note. They were definitely influential.
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Some called Days of Future Past, released in 1966 by the Moody Blues, the first prog album.
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Now, we do not entirely agree. In our opinion, it's interesting and it fulfills most of our criteria,
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but we kind of think it's a middle-an-album that hasn't held up all that well. The Moody's
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were not the first to cut an album with a rock band and a symphony orchestra, but they were one of
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the first. As best as we can tell, they were the first to make a splash with that, though,
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and Days of Future Past is an early example of a concept album, a song cycle about the day's
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progress. Commercially, Days of Future Past started out slow, but it had legs, stayed on the
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charts for a long time. It spun off two hit singles, Lush, but conventional pop tunes that were
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staples of American rock radio for decades, nights in white satin and Tuesday afternoon. So,
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no worthy. Interesting from a historical perspective? Yes, and yes, but we're going to go with this one.
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Robert Fripp is an intriguing character in the Prague Rock story. Well, in any story, really,
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he's a very interesting dude. Robert is a founding member of, and the one constant across all the
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different versions and reimaginations of King Crimson. He said to be prickly, demanding and
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tough to work with, and there has been a lot of turnover in King Crimson. He is uncompromising
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and extremely opinionated on matters of music, and on what it means to be a working professional
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in music. The rough edges in Fripp's character are smoothed over, though, by a puckish wonderfully
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British sense of humor. Surely some of that comes from his wife, Toya Wilcox, who's an unfettered
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delight in an accomplished actor, artist, and musician herself. By the way, these two happy creative,
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sceptigenarians are very active on social media, and they're great at it. It's really fun.
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If you're a fan, you gotta check them out. Robert has always been restless,
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uh, continually reinventing himself, and he's a worker. He started teaching guitar at 13 and
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playing professionally at 14. Practices four hours every day, still. He is incredibly
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prolific. In some form or fashion, be it playing, writing, or producing, Robert Fripp is credit
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on out of over 700 different releases, and he's still active at 78. He took a short break from
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music once in the mid-1970s after King Crimson's first run. During that sabbatical, Robert lived
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at a spiritual retreat in the North Country for a while. Then he came back to work on Peter Gabriel's
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first two solo albums. In 1977, his good friend and frequent collaborator, Brian Eno,
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rang him up and asked him to work on one of Rock's most significant and dispensable albums,
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David Bowie's Heroes. Yeah, that fuzzy insight out cuts like a naive guitar sound on the
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titled Cut is Robert Fripp. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Back to Fripp and King Crimson.
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Here's an assertion. King Crimson is to Prague as the
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Velvet Underground is to punk. It's a rough equivalency, but you get the idea. Their
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October 1969 debut in the Court of the Crimson King did reasonably well in terms of sales,
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certified as a gold record, number five in the UK, number 28 in America, respectable numbers,
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but nothing that would have the Beatles or the Rolling Stones looking back over their shoulders.
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This is where we draw the parallel. Like the Velvet's debut, King Crimson's first release is one of
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those albums that sold modestly at the time, but punches way above its weight in terms of
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influence and legacy. Right away, King Crimson tells you exactly who they are and what they're about.
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The spiky, apocalyptic smash of 21st century Skitsoid Man is followed by, by Talk to the Wind,
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inspired by Joni Mitchell. And it's just as gentle and lovely as that provenance would suggest.
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The first and second cuts on side one of their debut and it just goes on from there, complexity
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and contrast. In the Court of the Crimson King was recorded in just a few days in early fall
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of 1969 and westx sound studios in London. It came out right away in October.
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A little bit more about this first iteration of Crimson, so many members have distinguished
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themselves as musicians both in the band and out. Frippy of course and he'll come up again.
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Singer bassist Greg Lake, big handsome and charismatic, went on to form the Prague Supergroup,
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Emerson Lake and Palmer. Emicked Donald, play keys and woodwinds, he went on to be a founding
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member of Forner. drummer Michael Giles became an eighth session drummer, Neo Paird of Rush,
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often sites his complex polyrhythmic work as a big influence. Peterson Field went on to
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right lyrics for ELP, all those long form multi-part suites about Armadillo tanks and robot
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uprisings in that sin field. An artist buddy of Peterson Fields, Barry Godbearer,
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did the cover for In the Court of the Crimson King. It's unforgettable and makes our great online
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provile pic. So we'll put a part down and we feel pretty confident about it and the Court of the
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Crimson King is the first important progressive rock album. It checks all the boxes.
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The words are all carried away. I took to the wind. The wind does not see.
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Okay, we're back. Brian Wilson integrated classical influences with rock. He
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mined the work of well-known western composers, Bach, Brahms, Copeland. The Beatles put to the east
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to the drone and pedal tone of Indian music and that came from George Harrison. John Lennon's
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lyrics pulls its ideas from the Tibetan book of the Dead. Tomorrow never knows how western
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influences too but not the state-lay progressions of Bach or the sweet melodies of Brahms.
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Paul McCartney had become interested in radical new ideas so about the form and she.
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But music from the likes of John Cage and Carl Heinz stockhouse.
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That's from Episode 9 of rock and roll archaeology. Tomorrow never knows closed out revolver
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and it is one of the most important tracks in the history of recorded music. There are more than a
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handful of musicologists that agree with us on that and you can check the show notes for our sources.
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Then came Sargent Pepper and another game changing album closer a day in the life. So spurred on by
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Brian Wilson, fueled by psychedelics and mentored by George Martin, the Beatles forever changed and
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forever elevated the conversation about what was possible for a rock album. The first notable
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double album by a rock artist was Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde in the summer of 1966. Frank
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Zapp and the mother's released Freakout a week later and let's throw in the wide album and
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Electric Ladyland from 1968. In 1969, Pete Townsend went all the way there with the concept double
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album 80 90 minutes movie length long form rock and roll. He called it Tommy, a rock opera.
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Now here's the thing about what they were talking about Tommy by the who or put
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a lot of time thinking about pivot points or character motivation. Just let the songs wash over
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you and you'll be fine because well, here's a few plot summaries. Lobo M 19th century Parisian
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hipsters have heating problems, get drunk and die. Tommy, deaf dumb and blind kid gets healed by
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pinball and becomes a cult leader. A position he ultimately rejects. Hamilton, young, scrappy and
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re-orfin learns to talk less and smile more. Mary's well cheats on his wife and gets killed by
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his best friend. Okay, that last one is actually pretty good, but the point stands. Opera plots tend to
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be flimsy, so talk less, smile more and just enjoy.
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The who toured the hell out of Europe and America behind Tommy? Live at Leeds, one of our
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favorite candidates for the best live album ever was a product of that tour. As a live act,
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the who were at the peak of their ability? Pete described them as this powerful precision
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steam hammer of a band. Coming off nearly two years on the road in late 1970, Pete Townsend
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immediately set out to write another double concept album with a working title of Life House.
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But he couldn't complete it. The hardest part, and we can relate to this, was crafted a storyline
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that pulled all the different ideas together. Years later, Pete said the pressure had him close
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to a nervous breakdown. Roger Daltry recalled the who were never near to breaking up.
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After months of frustration and false starts the whose manager, Kit Lambert finally got through
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to Pete with a workable suggestion. Take the best musical ideas from Life House,
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and with the help of ace producer, Glenn Johns, craft them into a single album.
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From the time Glenn Johns came on a board, it took just a bit over two months to complete the
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new project. Most of the work was done in the Linux studios in London. Eight Pete Townsend songs
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and one offering from bassist John Antwistle. July of 1971, Pete Townsend was drunk and moody
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at the release party at Keith Moon's Country House in Chertsea. He hated the new title and thought
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the cover was crude and ill-conceived. But as he watched people respond to the playback,
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Pete Townsend's mood turned. In Pete's own words, he quickly realized, from the rubble of
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Life House, Glenn Johns had rescued a great collection of songs. Not only that, it was the first
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who material to really be properly recorded. Whose next is one of those albums, special,
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electrifying. It jumped out of the speakers and into the hearts and minds.
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I'm sorry.
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By the 1970s, if you were young and artistically ambitious, chances are you were a rock musician
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trying to record the ultimate concept album.
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The musicologist Kevin Holtzson and the sound collage that introduces an album
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Every Rock Van Knows, by heart, from first track to last. We've talked about songs and albums from
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the rock era that are more than recorded music that are enduring cultural artifacts and artists
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appeal to history and posterity. Everyone has something to say about Pink Floyd's March 1973
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release, Dark Side of the Moon. Our take and this is not an original thought, but we think it bears
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repeating. There are many, many good albums from the 1970s. What a few great ones, like the one we
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just talked about, who's next. But only a tiny handful that are perfect. Dark Side of the Moon
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is a perfect album. Everything clicks. It all works. Great songwriting and strong musicianship,
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spare, beautiful arranging, innovative production that doesn't get in the way, but fully serves the
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music. Dark Side unfolds as an integrated 42-minute suite, but it also includes distinct
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verse-course, verse songs suitable for radio play. Powerful, relatable songs that stand on their
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own or as thesis statement in a larger cohesive musical essay. Songs that speak to things we all
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know, experiences we all share, feeling the passage of time, keeping hope and sanity alive in a
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cynical world, struggling to understand our place in that world. Even the album cover is perfect.
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Simple, beautiful, classic.
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Dark Side of the Moon was also a noteworthy technical advance. Recording engineer Alan Parsons,
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who got his start working in the Beatles on Let It Be an Abbey Road, was part of the creative
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team, from the first note to the final master. They ended up making the ultimate test record.
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If you bought a sound system in the 1970s or at any time in the 50s, since then, well,
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Dark Side of the Moon is how you gave it a test drive. Find out what your new rig really can do.
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In Prog Rock's Hay Day, bands like Genesis, King Crimson, Jethro Tall and Yes were constructing
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sweet-length songs and unveiling elaborate album-length conceits. Lots of big think in the lyrics and
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lots of metaphysical. But the early 1970s were also time when the utopian promises of the hippie
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era were fading. Dark Side perfectly captures those naive hopes falling away. Even if you
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weren't around in 1973, and most people alive today weren't, if you ever feel restless, dissolution,
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feel like an opportunity was missed, then Dark Side of the Moon speaks to you perfectly, still,
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across half a century of time.
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We'll move on, but we don't want to be reductive or dismissive when it comes to Pink Floyd
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and the Who. They were huge all through the 70s made some of the best albums ever in embarked
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on legendary tours. Floyd and the Who don't check all the boxes on her Prog Rock elements list,
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but they were very much progressive in the sense that they were pioneers who pushed Rock music
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forward. And like the Beatles, they did it before massive audiences.
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Right, right, right, you got to bloody right to say, right, you got to write to say,
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An interesting shift in rock culture occurred at the beginning of the 70s. It had a lot to do with
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the breakup of the Beatles, although there were other forces to play. Simply put, the big unifying
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thing at the top was no longer there. For quite a while, British and American Rock had been kind of
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pulling along together. Now they're starting to diverge. Yeah, we're generalizing here. Of course,
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there were exceptions and outliers, but we can draw a rough line. In the new decade, North American
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Rockers are we discovering the roots, the band, the Almond Brothers, singer songwriters, Outlaw
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Country. Over in the British Isles, its future shock, metal, proglam rock, or ascendant,
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Sabbath and Zap, yes and Genesis, boe and T. Racks, a state of flux and fragmentation.
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New things popping up, monoculture had given way to polyculture. Crossovers were common,
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experimentation was encouraged, let 100 flowers bloom, right? It helped that the money was
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really flowing. That more than anything is what enabled a broadly tolerant artist-friendly culture
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in the executive suites. Records were so popular that even stinkers and duds could turn a profit.
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On February 13, 1973, Time Magazine's cover story was Inside Pop Records. It was one of the
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years biggest selling and most discussed issues for America's most popular and influential news
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magazine. The cover art featured Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, Harry Nelson, Roberta Flack,
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and Carol King. Time was late to the party, the cover story presselessly describes hot new trends
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that had really been years in the making, but it was good. It's a detailed piece written with
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some attitude and packed with quotes and facts. Time noted the explosive growth of the record
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industry in compared 70s rock stars to luminaries from the Golden Age cinema, the 30s and 40s.
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Music for the first measurable time in history is the most popular form of entertainment in America.
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Today's pop rock pantheon is the new Hollywood. It's principal gods that fill the void left by
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the Harlow's Engaibles. Along with the long cover piece, Time included several side bars,
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so there was a glossary of rock music slang. Profiles of record company moguls like Clive Davis and
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Ahmed Erdogan and a technology explainer who about some of the new gear rock artists were using.
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Oh, we won't give in, let's go let me in the past.
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Living in the past was one of Jethro Tull's early hits. Ian Anderson says he cranked it out in
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about an hour in a Boston hotel room. Ian is clever as they come and have Scottish on his mom's side,
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so naturally he delights in taking the piss. A great frontman too, unique. You cannot take your
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eyes off him and his stage pattern between songs is priceless, even if you're not entirely certain
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he's on the level. Tull's manager, Teri Ellis, heard the song, thought it had potential. The band
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was doing well in the UK and Europe, but still knocking on the door in America. A radio hit
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just might kick that door in. Ian knew was just beginning to assert himself as the principal writer
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for Jethro Tull couldn't help himself and he had to make a little mischief, so you got a little
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proggy arranged the new song in five four times to make it challenging to dance to.
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And he titled it Living in the Past thinking American kids would find that completely uncool.
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Ian's attempts at mischief now with standing, Living in the Past got radio airplay in America
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and the sales that go with it. Jethro Tull went from opener to headliner on their next tour.
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Oh, we all know that riff. What we didn't know until we went to rocks back pages and read some
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reviews from that time, in early 1971 most everyone thought that riff was the opening salvo
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of an ambitious concept album. Here's where the third party omniscient narrator comes in and says
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it was not. Aqualung is a killer song and a strong album, a career maker for Jethro Tull.
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But there's no grand concept at work here. The album does nicely show off the band's versatility.
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Moving from bouncy folk rock arrangements like Mother Goose to Balsey Rocker's leg locomotive
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breath and Martin Barz guitar solo on the title cut is an absolute scorcher.
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But Chris Welsh at Melody Maker and several other writers decided Aqualung was so much more
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than it was a towering work of transcendent genius. Born prankster that he is,
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Ian Anderson saw an opportunity to do an epic multi-level piss take. Here's Dave Weigel from a
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book we really like and recommend the show that never ends. The album did everything Anderson
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had hoped it could. Jethro Tull broke out and toured America. Anderson who'd always been noticed
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for his stage presence started being covered as an actual musical genius. The culture besieged
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Anderson to be deep. He decided to have fun with them.
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So you ride yourself over the seas and you make all your own melodies and your wise men don't know how it
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is. Sick as a break was one track two sides 43 minutes uninterrupted. In Ian Anderson's own words,
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the mother of all concept albums. We're in he sings to all the wise men in the music press and
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elsewhere. Your thick as a brick one track but not one song. Dave Weigel identifies nine distinct
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Ian Anderson songs with some connective tissue improvised by the band and that sounds about right.
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As Scott and Sultz go, I yeah thick as a brick isn't all that savage. One can imagine it being used
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not unkindly but rather in a friendly jousting kind of way. Ian Anderson is witty and talkative so
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of course he gets interviewed a lot because a brick always comes up. He points out correctly that
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a lot of that barbed humor in thick as a brick is in right back at him and the band taking the
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piss on their own pomposity and pretension. Ian maintains it was all in good fun and tongue in
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cheek and some humorous darts tossed at their audience. Other musicians depressed and not necessarily
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in that order. Well not everyone took it in that spirit. Think as a brick got reviews in the
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music press. Oh yes it did a few good ones in the British press a few more reviewers called
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a head scratcher didn't know what to make of it but mostly think as a brick got bad reviews.
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Well not so much negative reviews more like crazy tie rates. Some of these reviewers seem
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genuinely outraged pissed off they had to listen to think as a brick and write about it. It was
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awesome.
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For the other as a failing light illuminates. So what's our take on thick as a brick? Well first off
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we really don't mind someone taking the piss as long as they're funny about it.
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Considered solely as a piece of music we give thick as a brick like four out of five stars.
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The first side has some strong bits but it doesn't sustain and that's our short take on this
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long track. But here's the thing about thick as a brick. There's a lot here. For starters it's a
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Prague concept album and a pretty good one that also manages to be a funny on target spoof of
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Prague concept albums. There's an absurdist money python-esque brand of humor throughout and of
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course we love it. God help us we love it. And it's an early example of a multimedia presentation
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very clever very detailed presentation. So thick as a brick has got some layers. It's really
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quite an achievement nobody has ever done anything quite like it before or since. Like we said in
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the intro this time screw the critics they're wrong.
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This is a triumph for conceptual art for the first time in the history of album covers.
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The medium becomes the message in a complete fashion by not only containing the record physically
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but also providing a hypothetical situation for the album to exist in. And that's a good take
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from the middle of one of those bad reviews by John Swenson in Crod Eddie magazine and we retrieved
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it from Rocksback pages. In the podcast format we have to work a little to convey how utterly
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fucking cool the album packaging really is. I mean you just have to see it open it up,
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leave through it while the album plays. Spotify just doesn't do it justice. There's a little
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photo in the corner of your screen that appears to be a newspaper front page with the headline
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thick as a brick. What you don't see the album cover is in fact a newspaper front page that unfolds
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into an entire 12 page newspaper the St. Cleve Chronicle and Lin-Will advertiser. We've classified
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ads cartoons and a crossword puzzle births and deaths a horoscope column that tells Capricorns
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to get out a bit more and in its entirety the epic poem thick as a brick by Gerald little Milton
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Boss Doc. It was all written by Ian Anderson, bassist Jeffrey Hammond and keyboardist John Evan.
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It took them longer to write the paper than it did to record the album. The St. Cleve Chronicle
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includes a review of the new tall LP under the byline Julian Stone Mason. It concluded.
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Not blatantly commercial then but a fine disc which although possessing many faults should do
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well enough. Ponderous, pompous and a giant piss take full of parochial inside joke references
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to small town life in the UK but America didn't care. Thick as a brick shot to number one on the
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US album charts and stayed there for three weeks. It took a new album release from the Rolling Stones
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to move it off that spot. Alright we're gonna take a quick break get a word from our sponsors.
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Welcome back my friends so maybe we missed something on our definitions list a six element to
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progress abroad and that would be the live show or more accurately the live spectacle. We're on
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to Emerson Lincoln Palm now. Carnival 9 first impression parts one and two now there's a suitably
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proggy pretentious title as beaters in field lyrics about the most amazing show we've got thrills
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in the shock super sonic fighting cocks you gotta see the show it's a dynamo um no mention of a
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flying piano though. Sinfield should have included that you gotta see the show it's got a flying
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piano no okay in April of 1974 Emerson Lincoln Palmer headlined California jam before a paid
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crowd of at least a quarter of a million fans as best as we can tell canal jam was the only time
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the flying piano bit was caught on video um truth be told it looks precarious not safe at all
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but along with his Steinway Grand Keith Emerson left the ground spun around and safely came
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back down the whole time banging out of fast complex improvisation on the aforementioned Steinway
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here's another quote from Dave Wigel's terrific book the show the never ends they were not merely
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one of the world's most successful bands the scope of their shows and the scale of their songs
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gave them a sort of Olympian pretension take in the drama appreciate the art
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scene next up on the side will you please sit on 20 times right time back to
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something about these bands that have names like law firms Emerson Lincoln Palmer
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Crosby stills Nash and young they can't subsume their individual egos enough to agree on a
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groom name so it's no surprise they're notorious for stories about rock star arrogance and
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entitlement run amok elp 1974 North American tour is legendary or notorious if you like
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not for petty infighting or even for backstage debauchery all though there were plenty of those
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things too it was more like nobody and i mean nobody on planet earth was willing to say no to
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these guys every whim was catered to every grandiose cocaine fueled idea from the band was fully
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pursued is it hideously expensive oh yes that's even better let's do it we're probably going to
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piss off a few pro rock fans with us so we'll just get it over with we like but don't love elp
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they did have some great moments and we'll get to some of our favorites here 1972's trilogy it's
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a strong album and we like it all the way through in and various interviews over the years all
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three of the guys expressed a lot of satisfaction about trilogy and rightfully so the next album
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brain salad surgery dropped at the end of 1973 the welcome back my friends bid from carnival nine
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is undeniably one of rock's great songs they nailed that one it is brilliant but the long sweet
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of music that surrounds it well it's flashing cool but in our view not nearly as strong according
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to ygle the album's title is basically a sex joke it it is that but we kind of thought elp lifted
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the line from the dr john song right place wrong time which came out about six months earlier
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brain salad surgery was in the right place and him must have been the right time it was a
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multi platinum smash and it teed up that massive stadium tour europe and the spring and north
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american the summer and fall 40 tons of on stage gear the sound system required four semi trucks
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just to carry it from town to town Greg Lake played and sang standing on a five thousand dollar
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Persian rug in 1974 you could buy a nice car with that 13 keyboards including Keith Emerson's
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flying piano a rotating drum riser for call Palmer dozens of drums and sundry percussion instruments
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including a Chinese gong and a massive church bell you know you gotta have a massive church bell
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long live progressive rock
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let's talk about the dean of american composers Aaron Copeland born in Brooklyn in 1900
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he lived to be 90 years old he wrote that piece fanfare for the common man as a musical tribute to
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american soldiers during world war two if you're a progressive rock fan well some of your favorites
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elp king crimson and yes are influenced by Copeland uh mcjager's also a big fan Bob Dylan
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same Brian Wilson too in summary Aaron Copeland is one of the heavyweights of 20th century music in
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america and around the world when elp approached him for permission to record his music Copeland was
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initially skeptical he wanted to hear it before he gave final approval upon hearing the track
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though Copeland happily granted permission and he warmly praised elp's adaptation whenever he was
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asked about it since we drag the op a little bit a few minutes ago we want to make note of that
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if Aaron Copeland thinks you're good well then you're good so here goes our favorite off the
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trilogy album elp often played this as their concert opener and from Aaron Copeland's ballet rodeo
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this is called hoedown
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so
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And you and I each have the reasons to call home.
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Yes, music is a sound painting, a moneye canvas.
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Actually, Chinese painting might provide a more appropriate analogy in both style and concern.
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The colors are subtle, almost imperceptible tints, but the main strokes are bold and thick, applied with churnis and natural instinct.
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Not all the critics should on yes. Richard Krumman wrote that review of Close to the Edge in Rolling Stone.
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He also wrote several yes-concer reviews for the LA Times. He was warm with his praise, metaphoric with his descriptions,
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form very much in tune with content. True to his form, our favorite groucher Robert Criskel wrote a snotty dismissive review of Close to the Edge.
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What a waste. They come up with a refrain that sums up everything they do. I get up. I get down.
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I apply it only to their ostensible theme, which is the seasons of man or something like that.
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Now, make no mistake, unlike ELP, we are huge fans of yes. Their run of albums and tours in the early and mid-70s was incredible.
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We aren't quite so fanatical about their later versions of yes, but there's a lot to like there too.
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That said, Chris Gow is not wrong. John Anderson's lyrics often devolved into Space Cadet Gobble the Gook.
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What Frank Zappa mortally referred to as Cosmic Debris. He loses me sometimes. He said yes, bases Chris Squier, years later in our Rolling Stone interview.
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Chris chuckled when he said it, but John Anderson's response in the same interview was defensive.
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Hey, I'm looking for words and phrases that sound good with music. I'm another instrument.
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John has a moment of lyrical clarity. Roundabout has relatively straightforward, accessible words about a beautiful country drive.
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It's their signature tune, their concert encore.
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Southside of the sky, also from the fragile album, tells us a story with tough visceral imagery and the arrangement, especially Rick Wakeman's piano and the harmony scene in the middle section is just...
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Chef's kiss incredible. But we can't help ourselves though.
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Here's a simple lyric from the ritual. The fourth side, the strongest side of the mammoth bloated double album opus,
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Tales from Top Graphic Oceans released in 1973.
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Tales does have its moments. Yes, still plays the ritual in concert, usually near the end of the show and it is powerful.
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Anyhow, check out this line.
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As clearer companions shall call to be near you, they move around, tell me that.
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Move around, surely sing.
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We have no idea what that means or what one is supposed to do with that thought.
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But when John Anderson sings it, his clear strong tenor soring out over the band.
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Well, it's just beautiful, spine tingling.
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Kind of like when we talked about opera plots a few minutes back.
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Don't overthink it. That's the takeaway here.
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Okay, Steve Howe. Time to get your money.
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Now that's a guitarist. John Anderson thought when Steve Howe auditioned for Yes in April of 1970.
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But Steve in the full, they cut their third album on Atlantic and it was their breakout record.
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The Yes album includes perennial live favorites like Starship Trooper and The Last Cut I've seen all good people.
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We think Steve Howe is one of the all-time grades of rock guitar playing a true virtuoso, a complete guitarist with a thousand different tricks in his bag.
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His go-to acts as a hollow body Gibson ES 175 plugged into a Fender Showman amp.
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But Steve plays pretty much anything with strings.
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He moves from general acoustic playing to soring textures on slide and pedal steel to balls out electric shred all in the same song.
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He's actually a tad reserved on the studio recordings down in the mix a bit but live.
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Holy shit.
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Watching him switch out instruments move through all the complex parts is super interesting a show in itself.
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And when it comes time for a solo, look out.
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Steve Howe can and will melt your face.
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The Yes album is a great song for all of you.
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It's a great song for all of you.
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It's a great song for all of you.
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It's a great song for all of you.
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March of 1971 at Morgan Studios in North London, 21-year-old Rick Wakeman was noodling on the piano.
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He was sketching out the opening bit for a new piece, a gentle mid tempo exercise and counterpoint.
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Eventually, Rick titled it Catherine Howard and ended up on his excellent 1973 solo album, The Six Wives of Henry VIII.
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Catherine Howard, by the way, was wife number five and it didn't end well.
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Old Hank, a cute star of adultery and chopped her head off.
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Rick grew up nearby in North London.
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He was a child prodigy, dad was a swing band pianist, and he started Rick on formal lessons at age seven, first classical piano then church organ.
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Rick distinguished himself immediately and won numerous competitions and awards.
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By the time he was 13, he was playing professionally.
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In his own telling, he was a terrible student in secondary school, but on the strength of his audition, he was accepted to the Royal College of Music.
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He dropped out in his second year, he didn't see the need for it.
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Rick had all the work he could handle as a session player in London.
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In 1970, he joined a band called The Strops, who already had a record deal.
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In July of 1971, the Strops would open a show for yes, of North at Hall University, but for now, back to North London and Morgan Studios.
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The singer-songwriter, Kat Stevens, was also there, cutting his fourth studio album, Teaser in the Firecat.
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He wandered by, stopped and listened.
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Rick, could you come up with something like that for me?
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Released in October 1971, Teaser in the Firecat went platinum, hitting number four on the album charts in America.
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It established Kat Stevens as a major star.
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Teaser spun off three hit singles, Moon Shadow, Peace Train, and this song, which hit number one in America.
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It's actually a reworking of an Anglican hymn, which was, in turn, a reworking of an old Scottish folk melody.
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The song was played by the R.I.P.
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The song was played by the R.I.P.
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Morning has broken, like the first morning, black bird has flown.
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Keyboard is Tony K, who's a founding member of yes.
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Tony played big church chords on the organ and jazzy flourishes on the electric piano.
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He thought synthesizers were a bit of a joke, and played them only reluctantly.
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And this melaton gadget didn't do much for him either.
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It worked well enough for two years in three albums.
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But then John Anderson, Chris Squier, and their flashy new guitarist, Steve Howell,
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all stood in the rafters spellbound as they watched the Strabs open at the Hall of University show.
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Rick Wakeman, all six foot three of him, towered over a battery of five different keyboards,
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a grand piano, a melaton, a Hammond B3 organ, and not one, but two moog synthesizers.
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Once again, John Anderson thought to himself, that's our guy, Squier and Howell readily agreed.
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It was utterly ruthless.
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For the second time in less than a year, yes, sacked one instrumentalist and picked up another.
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Chris Squier broke the news to Tony K.
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A couple days later, he hopped the garden wall at Rick Wakeman's house,
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and through a side window, pitched him on joining yes.
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Bill Brufford made it through the fragile and close to the edge sessions, and in between a world tour.
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A relentless non-stop year in July 1972, recording for close to the edge wrapped,
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in eleven days another long tour would kick off.
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Bill was tired of the pace, tired to the soul.
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Old friend Robert Frib had in lobbying him for months about joining King Crimson,
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and Bill decided to take Frippy up on it.
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Alan White, a well-respected session drummer, best known for his work on John Lennon's Imagine, got the gig.
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Alan had three days to learn the set, three days to learn two plus hours of yes music.
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He pulled it off.
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Through all the many future iterations of yes,
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drummer Alan White and bassist Chris Squier were the two constants they only left the group when they died.
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Chris passed in 2015 and Alan in 2022.
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The path is clear, though no eyes can see.
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The course laid down long before.
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And so with God's amen, the sheep remained inside their pen,
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though many times they seem way to leave.
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In the 1970s, using the best available analog gear,
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one could put about 40 minutes of recorded music on a two-sided 12-inch record,
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with reasonably good sound quality and dynamic range.
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We're not going to get into the weeds with technical explanations about why this is.
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Just suffice it to say it's inherent, a limitation of the format.
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If a site gets much longer than 20 minutes, the sound suffers.
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Mastering an LP, creating a final mix and transferring that for magnetic tape to the physical medium of a vinyl record,
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Mastering was both an art and a science, a complex set of trade-offs and compromises.
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No surprise that artists were often deeply unhappy with the end results,
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but most of the time they just had to live with it.
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Foxtrot was the fourth studio album from Genesis, their second LP with what we call the classic lineup.
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Keyboard is Tony Banks.
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Mike Rutherford who played multiple instruments, but whose primary role was bass guitar,
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Peter Gabriel of course, and two relative newcomers, guitar Steve Hackett and drummer Phil Collins.
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Foxtrot clocks in at over 50 minutes.
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As a consequence, we're speculating here, but it seems a reasonable surprise to us.
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It sounds a bit squished and compressed.
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Tony Banks has said more than once he was not happy with the final mix of Foxtrot.
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None of the guys like the cover art very much either, and we tend to agree with that.
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Notwithstanding these challenges, it's a great record.
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In our view, the first Genesis album that really showcases their full abilities as songwriters and performers.
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The two newer members made only slight contributions to the writing,
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but they really shine bright performing the songs.
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Steve Hackett fills it out, beautifully decorates the sound.
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To us, he's the ultimate textural guitarist.
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A virtuoso who also knows how to step back and just serve the song.
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And Phil Collins brings the rock and roll.
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With Phil holding it down behind the drums, Genesis now has some visceral punch, some real urgency.
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Good singer too.
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Groot vocals got a solid upgrade when Phil joined.
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Tracks like Watcher the Skies and the Epic 23-minute sweet Suppers Ready
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became essential parts of the Genesis canon.
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The gods of me go, go, I'm throwing a rock.
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The white, white, the big, these children underground.
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Grabbers, call me, I don't want to see.
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Shimmer,immer, sooner, I'd always do look in at me.
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He brings down the fire from the skies.
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We were dead he stood by the slope and you were nice.
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Didn't I compromise him on me?
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Advent arrival.
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One week before Christmas, 1973, Genesis played three nights at the Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood.
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After seeing the middle show Richard Cromlin from The Los Angeles Times wrote this
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for the December 19th and 1973 edition.
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Genesis has finally made it to the West Coast with one of the most thoroughly sophisticated rock shows of all time.
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The School of Rock It represents emphasizes control and discipline over spontaneity and release.
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Its music reminds of yes, but this quintet is infinitely more witty and only slightly less adept instrumentally.
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The Roxy dates finished off a very successful North American tour for Genesis,
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their first of many.
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College venues and small auditoriums, 24 shows and six weeks promoting their fifth album,
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Selin England by the Pound.
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Here's a vivid description from the author John Meshad from a great piece published in the New Yorker.
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The four instrumentalists sat or stood in a semicircle rooted into their spots, intently playing.
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Front and center was Gabriel, who looked like he'd stormed in from a comedia del arte show in the theatre next door with face paint
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and overgrown monks haircut in a tight-fitting black jumpsuit.
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He bounced around the stage telling stories, dawning costumes and masks and pantomiming.
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It's one o'clock in time for lunch, ponder d'un d'un.
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When the sun beats down and I lie on the bench, I can always hear them talk.
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There's always been an echo, cheeky wake up, we got the time to hear them now.
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Well, that's our theme song for this episode.
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I know what I like was a modest hit for Genesis, and number 21 on the UK Singles charts.
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It's clearly influenced by the Beatles, and nothing wrong with that.
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It originated with a jam that Steve Hacken filled columns like to play together as a warm-up.
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Selling England by the pound was their biggest selling album yet, top 10 in the UK.
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And for the first time, Genesis snuck into the top 100 on the US album charts.
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The single, the album, The First Two of America, 1973 was a big step forward for Genesis.
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Small time, though, compared to what their Prague rock peers in ELP and yes were doing,
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four months after Genesis played the Roxy, where 500 people saw the show Richard Kromlin raved about in the LA Times.
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Just four months later, ELP headlined at California Gym, flying that piano in front of a quarter million fans.
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Behind their third hit album in a row close to the edge,
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yes, toward the world in late 72 and well into 73, headlining at the big sports arenas.
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In May, they released a triple live album of songs called from that tour.
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Yes, songs was another big hit, even at the much higher price for a triple LP.
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It moved half a million copies in its first year.
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Genesis did another tour in Europe and made it back to London in May of 1974.
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The next month, they moved down to Headley Grange, where they spent the summer riding and rehearsing the next album.
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That was the hood!
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Genesis had been to New York City only once and very briefly before that 1973 tour.
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Christmas 72, one year before those legendary Roxy shows, they flew in, did their American debut, a college show near Boston.
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Two nights later, a benefit show had fell on her own on a call in the Big Apple.
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Then, right back on a plane in Hamburg, Germany, for a show the night after that.
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The guys mostly remember all the technical problems caused by the different voltage standards in the US.
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They learned about that the hard way.
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The Gritty Grimey reality of New York City in the 1970s seems an odd backdrop for a concept album by a British progressive rock band.
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Just as New York had inspired Walt Whitman, George Gershwin, and Andy Warhol.
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So it also pulled in a young upper middle class Englishman named Peter Gabriel.
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James has always worked collaboratively.
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For example, all five members got writers credits for I Know What I Like.
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Gabriel wrote lyrics, but so did Banks and Rutherford.
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Typically, they would all just set up in a room and hash things out.
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If something was contentious, they put it to a vote.
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Not so, with the landlays down in Broadway.
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They all agreed. The next step was a longer album with a theme or a through line.
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But there was lively debate about what shape that would take.
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They put the various ideas to a vote in Gabriel's idea one.
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Having won the vote, Gabriel now insisted on writing all the lyrics himself, a big departure from the established way of doing things in Genesis.
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Novels aren't written by committee, he argued, and at least two other band members found that persuasive.
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So Peter Gabriel took sole ownership of the story in lyrics.
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A sort of Pilgrim's progress tale set in the streets of New York City was how he described it.
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The protagonist, Rail, a young half-white half-potarican street punk with a pension for tagging subway cars.
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The sort of guy who would proudly hate Genesis if he ever hurt us was another way Gabriel put it.
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Rail stands a stonch, doubt to his sight, struck by beauty, grit and fright.
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Three familiar snakes are female faces, the smallest motion filled with grace.
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If one measure of a work of art is the quantity of critical exegesis it inspires, then the lamb is the Ulysses of concept albums.
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The clip is an excerpt from the Lania.
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If Rail's story has a pivot point, it occurs in this song.
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The quote is from John Machaud.
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Before we close the discussion, we do want to pause, and once again appreciate our main sources here, John Machaud's New Yorker article, David Wigel's book, The Show The Never Ends, and another great book,
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some real critical exegesis here, Genesis and the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by the musicologist Kevin Holm Hudson.
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Like we said in the open, we are lifelong fans of this album.
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These three excellent writers, though, took us on a whole new level of appreciation and understanding for the remarkable and wonderfully bizarre work of art that is the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
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I wander normally as a cloud, until I gain upon the steady street.
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I've never seen a stranger crowd, summer decolors on squeaking feet, continually facing with non-jolent embracing.
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Each artist is racing, one facing, and he moves to say that they...
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50 years have polished the link to see this album. Starting in the 1990s, one can find positive retrospectives and reconsiderations of the Lamb.
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Serious scholars have published book-length deconstructions on it.
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The Beatles and Bob Dylan are the only other rock artists we've seen so far who've attracted this much deep analysis.
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Simply put, the Lamb was way ahead of its time, like, way ahead.
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Back then, we just thought the Lamb sounded different, real different, and that made it cool.
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Lots of moods and variety, a great soundtrack for plain Dungeons and Dragons.
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Yes, the Venn diagram of D&D players and fans of 70s' prog rock is basically a circle.
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We were the only kids who threw funny-shaped dice while listening to the Lamb on repeat.
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Only dig a little deeper. This is what we love about the Lamb.
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Gabriel and the band placed this street-wise, tough-talking character, this very American character, within a progressive rock context, with all of its high-brow British-ness.
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It's just so incongruous, even a little baffling, but in the most pleasant of ways.
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We know where outliers hear from the majority of Genesis fans, so the Lamb lies down in a Broadway as a curiosity, a quirky footnote from the band's early years.
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Rutherford, Banks and Collins, later date Genesis, well, they seem to think so too.
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After 1980 or so, only the title cut and a few other snippets from the Lamb were regular parts of the live shows, usually as part of a medley of oldies.
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Alright, one last time, a day wigal from the show The Never Ends.
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By 1977, yes, and ELP and Genesis were writing shorter pop songs.
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The second wave of progressive bands, North Americans like Rush and Kansas, wrote thoughtful hard rock in the form of sweets and epics.
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They didn't expand much on what the English bands had built. The Prague wave was rolling back.
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So, Rail Imperial, aerosol, kid exits from the main line, Sprig Unhead.
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Even before 1977, in the record company Sea Suites, the money guys were looking for an exit from progressive rock.
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Changing tastes and shifts in the culture of mood, punk and disco, hip hop and pub rock were on the rise, but really came down to money.
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The profit margins were shrinking.
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For one thing, vinyl is a petroleum product, and the 1970s were when the US and Europe experienced the first wave of price shocks, sharp increases in the price of oil that hit the record industry especially hard.
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It was around this time that records got noticeably thinner.
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And top tier artists were demanding and getting a bigger slice of the pie on album sales.
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In the last episode, we talked about the superstar ray, that artist likes Stevie Wonder and Elton John, able to negotiate.
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On a macro level, the UK experienced a sharp economic downturn in the mid and late 70s, and the US ran into its own set of economic and social challenges.
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Against this austere economic backdrop, the record companies were less willing to make long-term investments and acts that weren't sure things, guaranteed hit makers.
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This is Klefacetta. From a good piece he wrote from the New Yorker titled, The Persistence of Prague Rock.
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In the conventionally told story of popular music, progressive rock was a dead end and embarrassment.
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A warning to future musical generations don't get carried away.
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In the past 20 years, there were a number of critics and historians have argued that Prague Rock was more interesting and more thoughtful than the caricature was suggest.
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We've noticed that too. 1970s progressive rock is getting her reputational makeover lately, and well, we can't help but feel a little vindicated.
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Back to the story, by 1976, King Crimson was on a long hiatus. Emerson Lincoln Palmer were about to implode.
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Charles Rottal, yes, and Genesis were retooling and moving towards something we'll call progressive pop.
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Last well-known Prague bands like Camel, General Giant, and Renaissance did much the same thing with varying degrees of success.
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Stain, wind, my love, I hope you always be.
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Paulish crafty pop songs with great playing and some of that Prague sensibility, but shorter, identifiable hooks less of the pretentious, not so much of the cosmic.
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Look here, we've even got some love songs in heartbreak ballads.
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We love Prague, and we love pop, so of course we love Prague Pop.
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Some favorites, some acts who were super about it, rocksy music, Todd Rungren, TNCC, Supertrip, and Electric Light Orchestra.
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After leaving Genesis, Peter Gabriel made Prague Pop, some of the best as a matter of fact, albums that were brainy and quirky, sometimes more than a little dark, but full of hooks, and built around beats that made you want to move.
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Rush started in the mid-70s as a high-energy metal-munching power trio.
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As British Prague rock faded, these Canadians buck the trend, pushed against the tide.
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By the end of the decade, Rush had devolved into a Prague rock band, one of the best ever.
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We're big Rush fans, and we will have more to say about that in the later episodes.
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We will say this right here, though.
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Moving pictures from 1981 is one of progressive rock's landmark albums, it's every bit as good as close to the George Selling England by the pound.
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Rush was kind of the exception that proves the rule, though.
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By the late 70s, record companies, and record buyers had decisively moved on from the progressive rock we defined at the beginning of the show.
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British Prague did get one last hurrah right at the end of 1975, and it was pretty great.
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It's the big daddy of them all. The most downloaded song of the 20th century, a multi-generational hit, and in our opinion, the best part of all, it's a progressive rock song.
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A masterpiece of the genre. Is this just fantasy?
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Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
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It's a fantasy.
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Caught in a landslide.
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No escape from reality.
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Open your eyes.
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Look up to the skies and see.
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I'm just new group.
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2.5 billion streams on Spotify.
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Again, the most of any song released in the 20th century.
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The video has 1.5 billion streams on YouTube.
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It's a cultural benchmark, familiar to four generations from the boomers to the alphas.
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As far as charts stats go, Bohemian rap city has been a hit single, three different times.
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Despite its long run time, almost six minutes, it was number one in the UK and top ten in America when it came out.
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The lead single from Queens, November 1975, album, A Night of the Opera.
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Number one again in 1992, after Freddie Mercury's death.
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Around the same time, it was prominently featured in the soundtrack to the hit comedy Wains World.
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According to Mike Myers, Freddie was basically on his deathbed when he gave them permission to use the song.
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And a third time in 2018, when the Freddie Mercury biopic of the same name was released, you get the point.
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It's one of those songs that moved the needle, impacted the culture in a big way and deservedly so.
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So for our last little bit here, and I'll just while we do a little musicology, we want to drill down into one particular aspect of this great, great composition, the whole rap city thing.
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Rap city has a specific meaning to a musicologist.
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It denotes a long, episodic composition that moves through different emotions and textures.
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A rap city is typically through composed.
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That means it has no regular form, no repeating sections.
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In contrast, most pop and rock songs, even epic 20-minute suites from Prague bands, take you on a long trip, but they bring you back home again.
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Close to the edge by yes, suffers ready by Genesis.
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They recapitulate, come back home, at or near the end.
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A rap city just takes you.
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A rap city has a free, flowing character to it, even though it's very intentional, not typically a jam or an improvisation.
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It's a demanding format, definitely for the advanced glass.
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The 1924 George Gershwin composition, Rhapsody and Blue, is a masterpiece of the form.
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It starts with a fast, tricky bit on the clarinet that sounds like a jazz improv, but it's not. Gershwin mapped out every note of it.
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There are a few pop and rock songs written in sweet formats, songs that did well commercially.
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Unusual maybe, but not unheard of. A day in the life and good vibrations come to mind right away.
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We've talked about both songs in length.
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Some 1970s examples, Paul McCartney's Uncle Albert, Admiral Halsey's Sweet, Deja Vu by Crosby Stills in Nash and Young, Steely Dan's Asia.
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Heck, there's even a punk rock sweet, Green Day's Jesus of Suburbia.
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But a through-composed Rhapsody that was also a massive pop hit.
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As best as we can tell, that's a unicorn.
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In the realm of rock and pop over the last 50 years or so, we can't think of any other notable examples.
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In our opinion, that helps explain why Bohemian Rhapsody is so delightful. It's surprising even on repeat listening.
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It's hooky, it's catchy, but it never repeats, just keeps moving.
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Introduce a bit, give just enough of it to get you familiar, and then it's on to the next mood, the next feeling.
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So Bohemian Rhapsody really truly is a Rhapsody, a most unlikely hit single that uses that no format format.
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In our view, that's the secret sauce. That's what makes it unique.
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Oh yeah, and it's a true banger.
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So you think you can stop me and spin my eye?
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So you think you can stop me and spin my eye?
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We could go on for another two hours, but we'll wrap up with this.
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Progressive rock musicians tried to push rock into new, more complex and socially important directions.
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They made rock music that was meant to be taken seriously. Well, most of the time anyway.
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Even when it fell short of that lofty ambition, we can't help but respect the attempt.
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When it does hit the market, then we gave quite a few examples of that. Well, Progressive Rock is amazing.
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It's thrilling, it's thought provoking, some of the best music in the 1970s, and we hope your appreciation for Prague got at least a little boost today.
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There was this perfect mix of social, musical, and economic factors that came together to make Prague happen in the early 1970s.
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It was a unique moment, very unlikely to ever come around again.
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But we'll always be grateful for that moment in the culture, and for all the weird and wonderful music that's sprang up from it.
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I'm Christian Swain, and I gotta get out of here. Just gotta get right out of here.
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Thanks for listening to Rock and Rockology on Pantheon Media. Be safe, be well, and we'll catch you later.
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Okay, keep up the rockin'.
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Rock and Roll Archaeology is written by Richard Evans and Christian Swain, produced and hosted by Christian Swain.
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I'll sound design and incidental music by Jerry Danielson at BusySignal Studios. Find all of our shows, notes, and links at PantheonPodcast.com.
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All songs can be found for purchasers streaming wherever you get your great music.
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Please pick up these amazing tracks. Contact us on social at PantheonPodcast on Facebook and Instagram.
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Tweet us at PantheonPod's.
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This is Mark Schaefe from the Performance Anxiety Podcasts on the Pantheon Podcast Network.
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We've teamed up with TeamCantraAmerica, the charity founded by Sir Roger Dahltree and Pete Townsend of the Who, to bring you the most anticipated tribute album of the past 41 years.
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The Med See of Rock, the most anticipated tribute album of the past 41 years.
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The music is 35 of the best spinal tap cover songs you'll ever hear.
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You'll hear spinal tap songs done by Robert Hitchcock, Alan Johannes, members of TOOL, FU Fighters, KIAs, Failure, Soul Asylum, and so many more.
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And every dollar raised goes to help teens and young adults diagnose with cancer.
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This is a limited edition of 5,000 downloads, so go to TeamCantraAmerica.org, check out the store, buy the album, and give teens and young adults the help they need.