Update on my Gentle Giant hatred

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 dougmcauliffe wrote:

After my last thread, I was surprised to find most people were understanding. A handful of people recommended i try acquiring the taste. So I did, and damn, this album is awesome. Honestly can’t point to a weak track. So uh... I guess you guys cured me, gonna try three friends next.

Thank you 

Had a similar experience with Tull, couldn’t get into anything till I heard “Stand Up”. From there I was able to get into the rest of their stuff.

----I see now this your new thread on GG! So, I copy here the message I've just posted on the old thread:

I’ve really tried with these guys but I’m just not hearing what everyone else is. The only song that doesn’t give me a headache is proclamation. When I’m listening I realize their music is very unique but overall I just think... it’s bad. I’ve listened to power and the glory, octopus and in a glass house and free hand all a couple times now and I just can’t get into it. I can usually get into most prog, I hated van der graaf on first listen but now that’s a favorite, but with them I feel there is plenty of movement in their songs, with gentle giant I feel like they play 2 riffs a song and then do some uncomfortable vocal harmonies. I think so sincere may be one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard.

Spock’s Beard and Neal Morse imitating gentle giant is more enjoyable then gentle giant to me

Does anyone else have a similar experience with other popular artists?[/QUOTE]
GG are a group that has the merit and defect of condensing into medium-length songs (they have never written suites, not even mini-suites) many peculiarities in which they are masters: odd rhythm, polyphonic singing, electronic music, dissonances to keyboards, medieval melodic passage, blues guitar solos, violins that play classical music but often dissonant. The melody, when present, is never fully developed, insisted, dilated: indeed, it is soon contrasted with a dissonant musical passage, a contrapuntal moment, just look at Think Of Me With Kindness (Octopus), one of their most popular songs melodic and simple. 

This attitude is kept under control in their first two albums, in my opinion the best, because more related to rockblues: there their continuous variations are well integrated with the rock structure of the songs (consider the 4 songs longer on the first albums, all masterpieces), there are beautiful guitar solos (the three longest songs of Acquiring the Taste are among their masterpieces) and a song like Funny Ways (first album) shows how to make beautiful and engaging music by integrating rock with a score neoclassical with violins (from there they will try to repeat the miracle, putting at least one symphonic song with violins on each album) but they will no longer be able to write a similar masterpiece. 

From the third album, Three Friends, with a single masterpiece that draws on their initial formula (Peel the Paint), they will become math rock and pedantic, leaving more and more rock melody and power. Octopus is a partial exception, because it features songs inspired melodically and simple, so it turns out to be the easiest listening (also appreciated by classic-rock lovers) but by the subsequent In A Glass House (considered the best in the PA chart because, I suppose, "very progressive" as a structure but in my opinion it is the most overrated, the coldest and calculated and least inspired), GG exasperate their formula studied at the table, math and brain, to enter continuous variations and dissonances on the theme, giving up beautiful melodies and great rockblues pieces with Green's solos, and from there on they become less and less melodic, less and less rock and increasingly cold and cerebral (more prog, in a certain sense), achieving good results only when inspired by good melodies, as in some songs of The Power and The Glory and Free Hand and Missing Piece, not surprisingly you like Proclamation: it is one of the most immediate, clear and linear, with an easy melody and a good central bridge. 

From Interview included, it ends the compositional vein and apart from the second side of Missing Piece they get away with their instrumental ability. 

We may add that Derek Shulman has a beautiful voice but tends to sing in a rigid way, sometimes too screaming, not soft and tender, which exasperates even more the frantic musical pieces and with constant changes. Better the first 4 albums where Derek's voice alternated with that of Phil and the wonderful voice of Kerry, present mainly in the medieval melodic pieces. In the first 4 there are also winds. 

It is clear that to please their music must please these continuous changes studied at the table but I would advise you to listen to the their debut album and to Acquiring the Taste and to listen again Octopus, which are the three who, in my opinion, suffer less than the "prog excesses" that have forcibly enter into their music.  PS My fave is the first, "Gentle Giant". 

Edited by jamesbaldwin - August 01 2019 at 10:35