Need a few pointers

Not your fault darkprophet - it's just that sometimes it's difficult to differentiate between heated intellectual exchanges - with just a dash of evil humour, and a flame war.

In this case, it is most sincerely the former - There is no flame war.

I have always been very passionate about music - not just prog, and got into Marillion before they had any chart success. As soon as they did, the idiots who were into Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and all the other posey groups started to dismiss them as "Oh - they sound just like Genesis". This proved beyond all doubt that the poseurs hadn't listened to either band - and it annoyed me then and it annoys me now (note, I have nothing against Duran Duran OR Spandau Ballet!).

Welcome aboard - and please enjoy checking out Camel, Marillion AND Genesis, as well as all the other fine bands that have already been mentioned!

All:

As a somewhat-late-to-the-fold-but-dead-to-rights Marillion fan - who owns every single thing they ever recorded - I would still have to agree that, certainly during the Fish era, there was much of what they wrote that sounded derivative (not necessarily in a bad way) of Genesis.  For Pete's sake, if Fish wasn't deliberately trying to sound like Gabriel, he nevertheless did - sometime almost too much.  And his compositional approach - again, on some but by no means all of his stuff with Marillion - was Genesis-Gabrielesque.  It is disingenuous for anyone to suggest otherwise, as the similarities (where they exist) are so obvious.

This does not, however, detract in any way from Fish's particular brilliance, or the quality or enjoyability of the Fish-era Marillion compositions that are influenced by Genesis.  Marillion rightly and justly deserves their place in the pantheon of neo-prog: if we agree that the "seminal" bands I noted are indeed the "granddaddies" of "original" prog, then Marillion most certainly belongs in a similar pantheon of groups who were "seminal" to "neo-prog."

Peace.

Dick Heath wrote: why do you think they were called neo-prog?

That doesn't even begin to imply that they sounded like Genesis - and anyway, who wants that kind of argument? Not me - although I will say

NI!

To the next person who makes that kind of comment!

Hair raisers on "Script..." now, where do I begin?

"So here I am once MORE..." - the piano coming in on "MORE" does it for me every time! Then the simple chord progressions that accompany the voice for the next few bars...

OK, bigger drama needed, since I hear the entire album in a microcosm of hair-raising episodes, and the title track is packed with them, unrelenting bliss!!!

The two singles are great, if you can somehow blot out the overplay they used to get, but the remaining 4 are outstanding - the guitar solo in "Chelsea Monday", the keyboard solo in "The Web", but the Big One, for me, is the guitar entry just after "Approach, Friend" in "Forgotten Sons" - I get goose bumps simply writing about it. Also, during the fade-out, you can hear the children's choir singing "Ring-a-ring-a-roses we all fall down, Rule Britannia, Rule Britannia...".

Nothing elaborate or technically masterful - except the quality of the songwriting;  natural yet dramatic harmonic progressions that break few boundaries yet sound fresh, exquisite formal structures, beautiful song-like melodic fluency, sublime counterpoint and magical timbres (getting my own back on the opinions front!). And that's just the 1st album in a tiny nutshell.

I'm perfectly happy to do a blow-by-blow via Personal Messenger or email, for anyone that has an interest and isn't taking the ps, although I'm also happy to taunt the latter category...

Dick Heath wrote: Now seriously: Oooh - I'm not going to let you get away with that! As an obvious  fan of Marillion I would hope you would defend them and tell me why you like them - and hopefully there may be something in what you write which turns me on. It may surprise you but I'm very open minded and I'm here for my education but you'll have to work hard to change my opinion gained from broad exposure to prog over a long time  - but surely one of the functions of this website? You'll find I'm doing something similar wrt Soft Machine elsewhere. Being educated, educating? "Instrumental breaks lack dynamics?" The dynamics make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck!! Give me an example or two from the first three albums so I can back and perhaps revise my ideas.

Dick, go with your gut feelings man, your previous post on this thread was concise and echoed my own thoughts with regard to Camel and Marrillion precisely. When you're right, you're right!

Let the pantomime commence:

Oh yes they did!!!

why do you think they were called neo-prog?

Do I hear:

Oh No They Don't!

Stop Stop! No need to go any further. You play Marillion up your end of the playpen and I'll play something I enjoy, my end.

Certif1ed wrote: The 24-Bit Remastered version of "Script for a Jester's Tear" is one of the most magnificent tomes ever, IMO - and I would definitely recommend "Fish-era" Marillion over "Hogarth-era", since the latter does not seem as progressive, to my jaded ears! You really can't go wrong with early Camel.

Never a great Marillion fan. While I liked their first album - it screamed Genesis at me and a good period of Genesis at that.  But  I guess I preferred Fish in small doses, while the instrumental breaks lacked some of the dynamics I wanted.  I largely gave up on them after  purchasing 3 vinyl albums - I think also I felt there was a bit of a sell out as they focussed on the singles chart market in the 80's. Similarly, the feeling Genesis selling out as they largely stop progging, aiming instead  at the stadium rock market - especially Collins superstardom.  I have a Hogarth period Marillion on CD, which I like but perhaps for what I hear as gloomy version of Supertramp.  I suppose my problem with neo-prog is that I tend to  hear the roots and references.

I'm also sure there are a significant number of prog fans (certainly the older generation) who will categorise Camel as second rank prog. Their earlier albums have something of the easy listening, softer edge prog  about them. Perhaps this was due to the lack of vocalist and the tunes/instrumentation not quite being interesting enough to hold one's attention for 40 minutes or so - there was plenty else around that did. (I did try with "Snow Goose"). But again, that reflects my tastes:  I prefer my prog to be  harder edged (while providing something fresh).

Thanks for all the replies, guys, sure is a big list!

I think Transatlantic and Marillion would be my first purchases. I've also found my dads record collection, which has just about every artist maani named. King Crimson, Yes, Jethro Tull... heaps more.

I guess I'll lock myself in my room for a while with a few good albums, drive my folks crazy

thanks again guys.