Van Der Graaf Generator

moshkito wrote: Chord Change wrote: ... Moshkito, I would love to read your book. Please let me know where I can find this content!  I also very much like the Cheap Thrills album, Janis was a truly great musician.  ... Thank you very kindly. I appreciate it well, and a lot. ... Thus, my point of view, is often contrary to many stated here and there and everywhere. I wish, that more folks were ATTUNED to the music, a lot more than they are towards their favorites, and they will be all over the favorite threads ... to show their choice.  Again, thanks a bunch ... and welcome to the board ...

Without assuming too much, I think I understand your sentiments and I have had similar feelings in the past about music in general. I'm a big fan of a lot of different genre's/sounds of the past and I like looking for the roads less travelled, for lack of a better musical term. I also like popular music and anything that sounds good.

Saperlipopette! wrote: ^ but Pawn Hearts is a prog masterpiece and if you like the VdGG-albums released before and after it, it's silly not to get to know what many considers their artistic peak on a deeper level. The similarities Pawn Hearts shares with the H to He..., is that the music is made by the same band. Pawn Hearts builds on where the band comes from, but it's grander, wilder, more ambitious and takes bigger risks than ever before. Just normal artistic development. The songs and the themes are brand new.

Evans and Banton really stepped their playing up after The Least We Can Do...

Evans' playing on H To He and especially Pawn Hearts is actually extraordinary. 

The albums in question do have some similarities, both contain Fripp guitar on one track for each album. Same studio, same producer and the same instruments(which I believe are stolen on the subsequent tour). The album artwork for Pawn Hearts is by Paul Whitehead just like H To He. 

I guess you don't own Foxtrot either?

Heaven forbid anybody would confuse this for a thread about variable digestions of giant granadillas! 

Frets N Worries wrote: ^ I see about Godbluff, but I need more on Still Life

 

Much of what I wrote above also applies to Still Life. However, the order in which I was first exposed to VdGG studio albums is:

 

1: World Record

2: Pawn Hearts

3: The Quiet Zone / The Pleasure Dome

4&5: H to He, Who Am the Only One and Godbluff (which I got at the same time)

6: Still Life

7: The Least We Can Do is Wave to Each Other

8: The Aerosol Grey Machine

...etc...

 

For the first five albums of this list, I enjoyed the album either from the first listen or maybe after just a few listens, but Still Life failed to grab me. I do like the title track as well as "La Rossa", but the others, not so much. I recall feeling at the time that the music on this album was a bit clichéd, and subsequently rarely visited the album. That didn't stop me from getting The Least We Can Do is Wave to Each Other, which I loved immediately that early-period sound (actually, I recently promoted this album to third position after listening to it quite regularly now). It was quite a long time after getting my first seven albums that The Aerosol Grey Machine eventually became available to me.

 

Around the turn of the century, I embarked on digitally recording all of my vinyl records. For most of these, I manually removed any obvious scratches, but for my favourites, I diligently removed every scratch that I could hear. This meant intensive listening to Still Life, which I thought may have finally led me to appreciate the album. In a way, it did, but ultimately I rarely returned to the album. I don't dislike Still Life, but unlike the albums before it in my first list, it just doesn't appeal to me. I should remark that the albums after Still Life in my first list are all modern-day albums that have not received much attention from me.

 

VDGG are surely one of the greats, an always unique, deep and fascinating band. I think I've seen Peter Hammill five times live, solo (3) and with VDGG (2); I'm not sure anyone has reached six.

Regarding albums I just make the observation that The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome is a stunningly good album, I have always rated it as high as Pawn Hearts and Still Life, my other two favourites of theirs. But then for some reason I never could make much sense out of Godbluff. Another great one that not many people love is ALT. Never standing still and often good for surprises...