Why does everyone hate The Battle Of Epping Forest

essexboyinwales wrote: Sacro_Porgo wrote: essexboyinwales wrote: Don't hate it, but don't like it much either.  For me, Genesis had several albums where they felt they had to have a "silly" song (or silly-sounding song), and this is one of them... SEBTP-TBOEF+SR=GAOAT? How do you subtract Epping Forest and add Supper's Ready? SR is more than twice as long, and Epping Forest is already 11 minutes. Not to mention early Genesis albums are always in the 50+ minute range at the absolute capacity for vinyl records. Who said anything about vinyl?! I'm just playing fantasy album mash-up.  SEBTP is one of my all time favourite albums, but it isn't perfect due to TBOEF.  So it can't compete with (e.g.) The Human Equation, Weather Systems, Misplaced Childhood, The Road Of Bones, Images And Words... (for the same reason that Money spoils DSOTM) But, if SEBTP had included Supper's Ready, and not TBOEF, then (in IMHO) it would probably be the best of the whole lot...

Sean Trane wrote: Sacro_Porgo wrote: dougmcauliffe wrote: Man people are just looking for stuff not to like, who is trashing time tables? What’s so offensive about that song or more fool me? Man, I just like music, do people listen to stuff actively trying to find something not to like about it? Same. More Fool Me would rank as an absolute highlight on any soft rock or singer songwriter album in the 70s, but since it's on a prog rock record it gets a lot of flack for not being prog enough. Of course there was a recent thread where someone claimed Siberian Khatru was disco and totally didn't fit on a prog album, so who knows what's prog enough for a prog album?  Before you anyone on this board, you little , would you care to correct the first word in your signature??

dougmcauliffe wrote: Man people are just looking for stuff not to like, who is trashing time tables? What’s so offensive about that song or more fool me? Man, I just like music, do people listen to stuff actively trying to find something not to like about it?

zeuhl1 wrote: Sacro_Porgo wrote: zeuhl1 wrote: chopper wrote: Sacro_Porgo wrote: zeuhl1 wrote: I remember reading that the band had conceived and written it as an instrumental and were displeased when they found out Gabriel had gone in late night and laid this torrent of words on top of it without consulting with them about it. I've read similar accounts. According to Tony, Gabriel would do that quite a lot. That's why the end of Apocalypse in 9/8 isn't instrumental. In Gabriel's defense, he's usually doing the song a favor. Well, it wouldn't have made the most exciting instrumental ever. In the early 90's I approached a friend who ran a recording studio about removing the vocals from Epping to see what the band heard in it as an instrumental. Was told: a) it won't completely remove the vocals and b) it's going to cost more than you are willing to pay. I can't imagine Apocalypse in 9/8 without vocals though I think there are ways of isolating and/or removing tracks from songs nowadays that are basically free. I was listening closely to the instrumental for Epping Forrest yesterday and I though I could hear what Tony heard in it that could've justified it being instrumental. Or maybe Tony didn't want a full instrumental but just not so many words all over the place. I thought after I posted that what once was expensive and difficult to pull off is probably cheap or free and way more efficient. Ahh well. After I'd heard initially that it was designed to be instrumental, I'd had essentially your thought, what if there was a balance of vocals and instrumental with a proper hoedown in the middle? I'd imagine it would dissipate some of the dislike out there

Man people are just looking for stuff not to like, who is trashing time tables? What’s so offensive about that song or more fool me? Man, I just like music, do people listen to stuff actively trying to find something not to like about it?

Edited by dougmcauliffe - April 21 2020 at 21:28

I naturally speak in spanish but no one seems to speak it so I look forced to write in English. I like that song, all my friends like it and I have a friend that says that is his favourite Genesis song. Although I think that is is not a masterpiece and Genesis has better tracks.

Sacro_Porgo wrote: zeuhl1 wrote: chopper wrote: Sacro_Porgo wrote: zeuhl1 wrote: I remember reading that the band had conceived and written it as an instrumental and were displeased when they found out Gabriel had gone in late night and laid this torrent of words on top of it without consulting with them about it. I've read similar accounts. According to Tony, Gabriel would do that quite a lot. That's why the end of Apocalypse in 9/8 isn't instrumental. In Gabriel's defense, he's usually doing the song a favor. Well, it wouldn't have made the most exciting instrumental ever. In the early 90's I approached a friend who ran a recording studio about removing the vocals from Epping to see what the band heard in it as an instrumental. Was told: a) it won't completely remove the vocals and b) it's going to cost more than you are willing to pay. I can't imagine Apocalypse in 9/8 without vocals though I think there are ways of isolating and/or removing tracks from songs nowadays that are basically free. I was listening closely to the instrumental for Epping Forrest yesterday and I though I could hear what Tony heard in it that could've justified it being instrumental. Or maybe Tony didn't want a full instrumental but just not so many words all over the place.

I do rather hate The Battle of Epping Forest... why? I just find it annoying and can barely hear it... and then, it's way too long. I can think of the 3 classic Genesis songs that I hate for being annoying, which are this one, Harold the Barrel, and Take them out by Friday. But the longest of them all is Epping Forest. And then, ruining the masterpiece status of my otherwise favourite Genesis album doesn't help on how I feel about it (More Fool Me is not all that good either, but it's short and bland enough that it doesn't really harm the album much).

zeuhl1 wrote: chopper wrote: Sacro_Porgo wrote: zeuhl1 wrote: I remember reading that the band had conceived and written it as an instrumental and were displeased when they found out Gabriel had gone in late night and laid this torrent of words on top of it without consulting with them about it. I've read similar accounts. According to Tony, Gabriel would do that quite a lot. That's why the end of Apocalypse in 9/8 isn't instrumental. In Gabriel's defense, he's usually doing the song a favor. Well, it wouldn't have made the most exciting instrumental ever. In the early 90's I approached a friend who ran a recording studio about removing the vocals from Epping to see what the band heard in it as an instrumental. Was told: a) it won't completely remove the vocals and b) it's going to cost more than you are willing to pay. I can't imagine Apocalypse in 9/8 without vocals though

chopper wrote: Sacro_Porgo wrote: zeuhl1 wrote: I remember reading that the band had conceived and written it as an instrumental and were displeased when they found out Gabriel had gone in late night and laid this torrent of words on top of it without consulting with them about it. I've read similar accounts. According to Tony, Gabriel would do that quite a lot. That's why the end of Apocalypse in 9/8 isn't instrumental. In Gabriel's defense, he's usually doing the song a favor. Well, it wouldn't have made the most exciting instrumental ever.