When did u not only "get", but actually love VDGG?

I am basically going to describe my relationship with the music of Van Der Graaf Generator, but my question to you users of ProgArchives is: When did you get to the point where VDGG's music was something you seriously loved, not just appreciated for its legacy in prog rock history?


It all started about 3 years ago, when I first listened to a Van Der Graaf song, after looking through the lists of top albums here as a newly realized progressive rock fan. I had gone from the unsatisfaction and confusion from my first listens of Yes, Genesis, King Crimson and Jethro Tull's TAAB to being amazed by their brilliance and regarding them as some of my favorite artists of all time. It didn't take too long for all of them, I was able to look at reviews and find where my best starting point for their music was, and then go from there. I still laugh at my reaction to first listening to "Supper's Ready": I thought it was weird and too long! So I had come to the point where I needed new music. I decided to go with VDGG and listened to Pawn Hearts, or maybe specifically the epic "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers", since from past experience, the longer the song, the better it was.

But I could not be more surprised and disappointed with the garish, completely unmelodic nonsense that was that song. My musical background in prog up to that point could not possibly prepare me for the blaring saxes, throbbing, oppressive organs and the absolutely one of a kind, and in my mind at that point, terrible, vocals of Peter Hammill. I was sure that if I had more listens to them, like the others who'd started off low, I'd be able to "get" their music. Still, it almost was a chore to listen to this band I could completely not understand... they were almost *too* proggy for me.

I think in the next year, I got myself to listen to their other major songs/albums. I realized at some point I preferred Godbluff, their higher rated album at the time (I think it still may be) compared to pre-hiatus Pawn Hearts. My first real love for their style of music was actually with the amazing glory of Peter Hammill's "A Louse is Not a Home" from the solo career that was more like a halfway version of VDGG. Somehow, I was able to finally connect to a song from them, remembered it and found myself singing melodies from it in my head. It was the breakthrough moment, looking back. But still this song would be nowhere near the best songs of Yes Genesis Pink Floyd and others at the time. I needed more time, it seems. It had probably been more than a year and half since first listening to the band, longer than any other prog band to "get".

But it inevitably happened, as my music taste took a hard turn away from "mainstream music", including the classic rock I used to love so dearly. The more I listened to VDGG, the more I would appreciate them and their weirdness. Songs like "The Sleepwalkers", "Man-Erg" and "The Undercover Man" were my songs to push me over the hump,
where I could finally mentally engage with their music (I "got" them") and could casually put them on when bored and wanting some songs to help pass the afternoon. But this was only the halfway point for my eventual appreciation level of the band, as I only liked a fraction of their material, and Hammill's vocals were just "listenable", "the part of the song I didn't focus on". Honestly I was hooked on the instruments of VDGG but just had to ignore the vocals because I still wasn't quite there yet. They were still weird! This was how it was for a little less than a year, late 2019-early 2020.

Enter this summer. I had a lot of time to entertain my music obsession with no school and quarantine, so the digging into prog, attempting to find new music I liked kicked into overdrive. It was about one year prior that I abandoned, for the most part, normal rock. So when I realized that I more than "got" VDGG, that I actually liked them, it was amazing to me how it could have taken this long, considering I was wanting this kind of music for a full year. Somewhere around early 2020, The Sleepwalkers made a huge jump in my "Top songs of all time" list (yes I obsessively rank songs), from unranked (out of over 500 songs), to instantly in my top 50. "The Undercover Man", "Man-Erg, "Arrow", "Scorched Earth" and "Childlike Faith in Childhood's End" became some of my most frequently listened to songs of the summer, and they all got good placements on the list. Hammill's vocals were something I actually appreciated now, and smiled to while listening. These vocals which I once detested now gave me chills.

And just in the last few weeks, I can say it has gotten to be more than that. I had previously neglected other Still Life songs, and I got around to listening to them, on repeat for more than a couple months during this fall (maybe the spooky orange cover gave me inspiration). Now I am loving "Pilgrims", "Still Life" (tho it's a little average for them I'll admit), and "La Rossa". I found that I loved "Lost" from the pre-Pawn Hearts albums as well, after it taking a long time for that to click as well. Everything that I previously found bad, over-the-top about Van Der Graaf Generator was becoming exactly what I strived to find in music. The beautifully cacophonous saxes. The melodically challenging, yet impressively emotional organs/keyboards. And one of my favorite prog vocalists, for his melancholic wails and perfect tone/pitch changing abilities, is none other than Peter Hammill.

Counting in "A Louse is Not a Home", their top 10 songs rank alongside the best of the best, Yes' top 10, Rush's top 10, KC's top 10, all equipped or surpassed, and to think I once thought of this band as strictly inferior. Crazy how music taste changes, doesn't it? Even the original song I listened to of theirs, "Plague of...", while still a little too long and meandering at times, has become one of my go-to prog rock epics to put on and get lost in. The funny thing is my original belief that best song of a band = longest song of a band has been completely disproven now, as Plague is worse in my mind than the only ( ) 12 minute Sleepwalkers and 10 minute Man-Erg. Perhaps this is the way to go when recommending a newbie to their music.


To sum it up, after over 3 years since starting my journey with this band, it has finally come together and I love this kind of music. Symphonic prog is so much different than VDGG, so it is to be expected. But I'm just happy I stuck with it and let my music taste warm up to something so eclectic. I'm at the "all things are a part" part of the VDGG appreciation arc, if you were to match the duration of that song to the length of the journey. It feels good, man. :)

Edited by ClosetothSupperBrick - November 15 2020 at 23:16

VDGG music was a common thing in my childhood, no matter if I liked it or not  

The music of Van der Graaf Generator had never really generated much interest before I joined Prog Archives, but after reading all of the appreciative comments about VDGG on PA, they sparked my interest and I went out and bought their two 1970 CD albums without even hearing them first. I wasn't disappointed, but it's a good thing I didn't buy the Pawn Hearts album instead.

Edited by someone_else - November 16 2020 at 05:36

Well, one doesn't have the username "I prophesy disaster", an avatar that is the album cover of "Time Vaults", and a signature that says "I was thinking about thinking but it really didn't get me very far", without being more than a little obsessed about Van der Graaf Generator.
 
My first exposure to the music of VdGG was the album "World Record" in 1978. The music was quite different to the type of music I was into at the time, and I initially rejected it. But because I'm a science-type guy, with a name like "Van der Graaf Generator", and that paradoxical font used for their name on the album, I felt this was a group that I really should like, so I gave "World Record" another chance. This time, I did see value in their music, and with further listening, I came to enjoy it a lot.
 
Then I listened to "Pawn Hearts". I immediately fell in love with this album. It was like "Where have you been all my life?". It cemented my love for VdGG. Oddly enough, it was only a few years ago that I first heard "Pawn Hearts" with headphones, and was impressed with the stuff you don't really hear with loudspeakers. One thing I love about "Pawn Hearts", especially "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers", is how the music sounds like it just exists in the space of my room rather than something played by musicians. I think that is what is referred to as a "sound painting".
 
My third album was "The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome". This was also an album I immediately loved. With this album, I became impressed with how different the three albums are from each other.
 
Then in 1979, I got "H to He, Who Am the Only One" and "Godbluff" at the same time. Neither of these were immediately liked, taking a few listens to eventually love "H to He, Who Am the Only One" and at least like "Godbluff".
 
Later, I got "Still Life", which apart from a few tracks, didn't impress me, and even to this day is not an album that I am very fond of.
 
A few years later, I got "The Least We Can Do is Wave to Each Other". I immediately liked that album but considered it inferior to most of the other VdGG albums I had.
 
It was nearly a decade later that I got "The Aerosol Grey Machine". Earlier, I had foregone an opportunity to get this album because it was too expensive at the time, a decision I regretted until I eventually got it on CD. Prior to getting "The Aerosol Grey Machine", I got a compilation CD called "I Prophesy Disaster" which contains some tracks from the "The Aerosol Grey Machine" era. Thus, "The Aerosol Grey Machine" didn't surprise me and I accepted it for what it is.
 
It was only on PA that I discovered the modern era of VdGG music, of which my favourite is "A Grounding in Numbers".
 

Please explain what it means to "get" an artist. Is there something in VdGG that is shared by a secret society?

I have two of their albums and a solo work by Hammill. Like them both. Good but not earth shattering.

I didn't get the hype for VDGG for a LONG time.

Grumpyprogfan wrote: ^So this is the pre-liking of a band, something your not sure about?

Sean Trane wrote: I suppose you know that your username is firstly the best part of Lighthouse Keeper?