New Book

Yes it's true there were some I liked more than others, including in the extras that I included to round things out a bit. In those extra ones I didn't really want to do too much to expand on bands already included, although that kind of flies in the face of the fact that I included 90125, Genesis and Invisible touch, and some King Crimson....  oh I don't know I guess I had to draw a line somewhere.

The question of what should be included in something like this is tricky. I am not at all surprised that people will call me on this. As I was formatting it up after all the writing I was wondering, for example, if I should have put an album by The Flower Kings in. 

Anyway, thanks for your feedback, I really appreciate it.

As much as I like the Flower Kings and as good as some of their albums were I'm not really sure they had any albums that stood out in a way that it would make it easy to choose one over the other. In other words it would be sort of a like domino thing(if you put this one in then you have to include this one, etc). That said I guess I personally would probably chose space revolver but it's by no means the only solid album in their discography.

Thanks for taking the time to write all this, I found it very interesting. I know generalisations can be difficult, but are often necessary.  

I suspect that one of the reasons that the music of Krautrock is more well known than other arts aspects that may be been connected, is that music, especially instrumental music, does not suffer from the same language barrier that some other things do.  

Thanks for taking a look

Thank you, you are so kind. I spent a lot of time trying to make it look nice, and is the first time I have done something like that on this scale. 

I wonder if you might like my book "The Musical Instruments of Progressive Rock: An Illustrated Guide"

Thanks! That's really nice praise, it makes me feel all glowy inside

I have created this in Microsoft Publisher, and the internal links all stay perfectly intact as you add things, which is great. At the moment I am considering it to be "done", (unless I get alerted of glaring errors that really need to be fixed), but it would be possible to expand it if I wanted. It would certainly be tempting, as time goes by, to insert reviews of newer albums, for example. However, I do feel like it is big enough, and there is a danger that if I keep tinkering and adding I will never really finish, and it will just keep growing, and growing. I shall mull this over.

I am also not sure about indices (or indexes, I don't know which is correct) - you are the second person who has mentioned this. My "excuse" for not doing so is that as a PDF you can easily use the search function. My actual reason is more mundane - laziness. The publisher document has got so big that it actually takes about a minute to insert a link now. However, I'll think about it, and thanks for the suggestion.

My next "big" project like this is to go mainstream. I have compiled a list of the 1000 greatest albums of all time (like this book, by combining existing lists). I reckon it will take me about 5 years in total and will be an amazing voyage of discovery. Time I plan to do it as a blog rather than a book.

Thanks again.

I'm not really sure of everything you are saying. You obviously know more about the arts in Germany around the Krautrock time than I do, and it's great that you are sharing that knowledge with me. You seemed to first say that it is a shame that the other arts at that time don't get as much recognition as the music, and yet here you rightly point out that these film-makers are studied worldwide. I think you are right that "popular" music is not as recognised academically is it could be, although I think there are degree courses out there where all sorts of rock and pop will be analysed. It has often been the case that populist art forms are not taken as seriously as others, and it is interesting that film has managed to spark academic interest in ways that rock/pop, television, computer games and comic books have not, despite there being some excellent and thoughtful works in all of these areas. I guess you get more academic attention for Citizen Kane than you would for Avengers Assemble.

However, I do think that music, certainly in Prog and related genres, has created a lot of music that is not considered to be "throwaway". And I have had many amazing moments listening to music, I have never been to Filmore, and have never used recreational drugs. 

I am enjoying your posts, even though sometimes I struggle to understand your points. From context I deduce that you may be German, and if so, or regardless, if English is not your first language, well done for carrying on such an in-depth discussion in a non-native language. I think though, that there are times that you hint at things and I don't get the hint, or maybe refer to things that are outside my knowledge, like the 5 parts of a special on a subject - was this TV? I don't know of it.

I recognise that I could have gone into much more depth and detail in my book. If I had done, though, it would be a very different book, and the research I would have had to do would have been very different. The intention was to help the proverbial seeker to discover music that is new to them that they would enjoy. Of course I had no desire to mis-represent anything in the process, but I did want to keep context relatively light and simplified and let the music speak for itself.  When writing the reviews, the intent was to give an honest impression of the music in a way that would inform the reader, so they would know what to try and what might suit them. And, yes, there is some flippancy in there as well, I'm sure there are people who would be horrified by what I said about Meshuggah, for instance.

Whether somebody was "there" or not, at the time of a musical or artistic movement, surely is not something under the control of most people. Of course people discover music in retrospect much of the time. Many people are like me in that as they get older they discover more and more different areas of music and the arts and their appreciation deepens. And yes, of course it is true that for some people, the more they know about the context of that music or art, the more they enjoy it, but for many people they find they are able to enjoy music that is new to them without making a deep, academic study of what was happening. I think it is a shame in some ways that contemporary classical music went down the route where it was almost impossible to enjoy without contextual information. Music, however serious the intent, can just be something that somebody puts on in the background while they work, and there should be nothing wrong with that. We shouldn't try to put barriers up to the enjoyment people get from music, no matter how shallow that enjoyment is.

I was very interested in what you said about reviewers justifying their reviews as "it is all subjective". I hope I am not like that. Quality and appreciation are very complex, and this is something I discuss in my job regularly. It is self-evident that different people enjoy different music. It is also self-evident that there is such a thing as quality in creative contexts, and this applies to music. I think, however, that it must be complex, and that actually there are more than one quality parameter that can be considered.  So "good" music depends on what experience you want when listening to it, as background music for working, for dancing to, something with thought-provoking lyrics, songs that express what you are feeling, complex music you can say "hmmm, that's interesting". Yes, a lot of music that finds its way onto the radio is shallow, or lacking in substance in some ways, but even in pop there is good pop and bad pop. It's just that although there may be widespread agreement about what is good and what is not, there are many individual tastes and differences in opinion. 

I'm also quite interested in what you say about bass. As a bassist, myself, I know that bass can be so much more than rhythm, but I think a lot of people don't really notice the bass that much, or don't think about the bass, they more likely feel the bass unconsciously. Because I am a bassist I do notice the bass more than others. I think the bass can play varied roles in music, from laying down a solid, but boring foundation (like in Miles Davis' electric period jazz), to holding down a wicked groove in funk, to pounding out a beat in dance, to being complex and show-offy for Mark King of Level 42, to complex lines like Chris Squire. Probably my favourite bassist is John Deacon of Queen, for whom the bass is at times more like a classical cello, with understated harmonic lines which add an extra element of beauty to the music.  

I think the last thing I want to say is, you don't need to pile up any nickels to get my book - it is free. Please download and enjoy.

I'm looking forward to what you come up with next.