Gentle Giant is hard to get into, but worth it.

Interesting that I'm watching a Gentle Giant video as I type this.  The first time I heard GG was on a prog box set "Supernatural Fairy Tales" in the form of their song Free Hand back in 96.  I liked that song a lot so I got the album Free Hand, but that was hard to get into at the time, so I put it away for awhile and came back to it later.  Got a couple more of their albums and still had trouble getting into them.  Somewhere around 10-15 years ago it finally clicked with me and now I have all their albums,  their oddities stuff (Scraping the Barrel, Under Construction) and their most recent box set, which I got mostly for the live stuff since I had all of their studio albums anyway.  By the way, Kerry's daughter (who debuted on Scraping the Barrel saying "On fasari" when it should have been "On safari" when she was like 3 years old) is an incredible vocalist working with Dave Bainbridge (of Iona).  Mostly live stuff, and some vocals on his Celestial Fire album, but hoping for a full fledged studio album from the pair at some point. 


Edited by The Doctor - April 24 2020 at 22:53

I remember when I first joined the forums I made a very fiery immature post about how much I hated them, someone suggested acquiring the taste and a week later I made another post about how I had changed my mind and I loved them. Could not a have been a good first impression to many!

Argo2112 wrote: OK, I may have just found the album that brings me on board with GG.  Just listened to In a Glass House all the way through.  For me this was the prefect combination of weird & accessible .  Really like it a lot!

I loved GG from the first. Never found them "difficult" to be honest. Just awesome!!!

I went backwards, liking them when I first discovered them in the 80s to disliking them greatly. They are worthwhile in that there are some things they do well: complex polyrhythms and harmonies, and medieval music, for instance.

Edited by HackettFan - March 11 2020 at 16:31

Yeah, I was like 12 when I first evoked interest, I saw their work from recommendations via Spotify, (Probably because I was listening to Frank Zappa, and King Gizz), and at first this was when I first listened to Prog and I was like: "What is this?? This sounds like full on Medieval sh*t", but I listened to Proclamation, and I was just groovin' to it.

Grumpyprogfan wrote: Loved them the instant I heard them. One of my all time favorite bands. Welcome

They were sort of an acquired taste for me because I kept trying to get into them via Octopus and their self-title album, but the Power and the Glory, it grabbed me immediately and I haven't looked back since.

In a Glass House is still their supreme entry for me. TPATG is a close second. What a powerful band!

For me they were definitely 'hard to get into'....bought Acquiring the Taste at college ..it had been out for a year by then but I saw it at the local record shop in Bloomington, Indiana at IU.