Welcome, Shawn Phillips

Welcome to Shawn Phillips in prog-related category!

Edited by jamesbaldwin - June 03 2019 at 12:18

dr wu23 wrote: Second Contribution is an interesting album....though I never really 'got into him.' But one wonders then why Al Stewart isn't here in the same category....? IMO Phillips is, at times,  not much more proggy than Stewart's early efforts .

Edited by kenethlevine - June 03 2019 at 17:46

Saperlipopette! wrote: occasionally awful singing as well

jamesbaldwin wrote: I strongly disagree with dark elf and saperlipopette. Is Shawn Phillips dull? Really? His opera (expecially in the 70s) is dull?

You may disagree all you like but I never wrote or meant that he was "dull". I just don't like any of his songs where the music resembles progrock. Not nessecarely because they bore me, but because so many did it better than him. I prefer his beautiful tunes and not his attempts to "rock".

I Don't Want To Leave You, I Just Came To Say Goodbye

kenethlevine wrote: dr wu23 wrote: Second Contribution is an interesting album....though I never really 'got into him.' But one wonders then why Al Stewart isn't here in the same category....? IMO Phillips is, at times,  not much more proggy than Stewart's early efforts . Both were suggested at the same time and the admin team considered both thoughtfully and ultimately decided that Al doesn't make the cut.  I'm not as familiar with Phillips even though I have known of him since 1974 and he got plenty of airplay back then in Montreal.  I certainly liked some of his stuff but never consistently enough to make me a fan.  Still, from what I have heard (and I"ve heard most of Al Stewart's output from the late 1960s and 1970s), I would say Phillips is indeed more prog related than Stewart.  I do consider myself a fan of Al Stewart.  Interestingly, I love best his most commercially successful albums

Edited by dr wu23 - June 04 2019 at 13:37

^ Steve,   your check is in the mail.  ;)

SteveG wrote: Hi doc. Yeah that's why I said 'yeah, whatever.' LOl!

First of all, great job on the addition.

And welcome back, it's those who announce their departures who seem the most likely to return often (or those are the ones we will most notice as it is most conspicuous). It's the ones who quietly slip away who most often stay gone. Speaking of slipping away, I don't see it as a slip as we discussed this and did our research, and I would expect that the team that suggested it to us would have thought about it carefully too before asking us to look into them. PR additions should be rare.

Every admission should be on a case-by-case basis, and I didn't see any necessity for both even to be decided on at the same time. In the case of Shawn Phillips, his involvement with Cosmic Debris which is included in Progressive Electronic (even if on only on one album) helped his case as Prog Related. It was quite a close call with Al Stewart and I can't say that he will never be included (I was most convinced by his "Nostradamus", which I found with my own research, which tipped me into a yes position, but I don't know anything else of his with comparable merit).

Normally we deal with one act act a time, in this case we were asked to evaluate both (I can get why that would be). The expectation has been that we don't decide based on listening to the music but based on the arguments that are presented to us. In this case we all did listen carefully and research.

With Shawn Phillips, he had enough of a connection to Acid Folk, Progressive Folk and Chamber Folk for me to find him musically compelling.

Perhaps we should stick to doing things the formal way: CLICK

So, then part of it should be about how well and thoroughly a case is presented and argued to us (and we shouldn't have to know a note of the music).

I do think it's best when there's some vibrant discussion going in Suggest New Bands (SP had a fairly recent thread started by Lorenzo which I participated in somewhat, of course Al Stewart would get more response, sure he's come up before), then it's PMed to us as formal suggestion after there's been some sort of forum consensus on it being Prog, from an SC with a solid case being made. Of course it also helps that the Prog team that most closely associates with the style of music supports the case (as they did with Stewart and Phillips).   In this case we did use our own ears and do research of our own.

I found Phillips case rather more compelling on the whole, but I was okay with both and I was okay with including both and with not having both -- I do like to give the teams the benefit of the doubt as I would expect that they would know this stuff well if proposing it to us. But we wont include everything and we won't include everything related at the same time. I would have been okay with neither (I'd be more interested in discussing Donovan's relevance). I do think we should be careful with what is added, and if there are doubts, then not give the go ahead to add (later on one might reconsider if someone makes a good case for which it gains support and traction). By the way, not generally a very high-rated album, but I like Stewart's Zero She Flies considerably.

Edited by Logan - June 04 2019 at 16:06