Where to start with Marillion?

I would reccomend Misplaced Childhood from the Fish era, though if you're going to listen chronologically then thats a good idea. :)

I always come back to Brave, it's an excellent concept album which took me a long time to "get". I would actually reccomend that to a prog fan but wouldn't reccomend to someone who doesn't listen to prog.

 

Their new album Happiness is the Road is also good and is availible legally for free via torrent sites.

 

Hey hey, thats 3 Marillion concept albums I've mentioned. :)

My apologies in advance for the forthcoming Wall of Text, and me being a newbie and all. That said...

 

I am a fan of all Marillion - some albums are better than others, just like with any band possessing an expansive catalog of music. I started out with Fish (my favorite album of that era is Clutching at Straws), and after giving Hogarth one chance, decided I didn't like them anymore. For me, the Marillion catalog began and ended with the first 4 studio albums.

 

Fast-forward a decade, and I'm desperate for new music in the progressive vein. I saw that Marillion had continued to put out new albums all these years even without the formidable Fish, and that the albums had plenty of decent reviews from seemingly knowledgeable listeners on Amazon.com. (This was before I knew about ProgArchives!)

 

So I gave the new era a chance again and WOW. I'm in love all over. Some albums, not so much - the first two Hogarth albums (Seasons End and Holidays in Eden) strike me as a little weak, a sort of bridge between the two eras. They seem to have Fish's thoughts in Steve's voice... and neither sounds quite right.

 

Hogarth and the band seemed to get more comfortable in their skin together in the subsequent albums. Again, among these, there are a few less-than-stellar songs, but overall the band continues to grow and mature. There are those who don't care for the commercial direction the music seems to be taking, but I love it - I love the new albums and I love the old ones, and most of the ones in between.

 

But just because Marillion are deemed by some as more commercial than they once were, this doesn't necessarily mean the music is less worth listening to. I've been listening to all sorts of prog and neo-prog for over 30 years, and I know everyone has their opinion - I'm no different! I love the direction they've been taking with their last few albums.

 

Rush once described their music as occurring in chapters. They tended to close each chapter of 3-4 studio albums with a live album before moving on to the next chapter. In this case, for them, a chapter meant "a direction they were taking" with their music. There are very clear differences between the first four albums (their transition from hard rock to progressive) and the next four (progressive into more mainstream hard rock), and so on. I believe any good band, progressive or otherwise, moves through chapters this way. Why would you want your band to produce the same sort of sound over and over?  It's good for them to mature and grow, even if you're not crazy about their effort on a particular release.

 

I know this has strayed from the topic of where, exactly, to start with Marillion. I think your idea of going chronologically is interesting, but it might be good to jump around a bit - if you don't care much for the Fish sound, you may not be inspired to keep going! Likewise, if you just started with the first couple of h-era albums, you might not want to keep going, either. And as with many progressive bands, the album that ultimately hooks you for life may be one you're not sure about upon first listen. My favorites overall include (as mentioned), Clutching at Straws, Happiness is the Road, Marbles, Afraid of Sunlight and Fugazi.

 

Sorry for the long-winded note. Hope this is helpful to anyone reading it.

 

-Erica

 

Fugazi was rushed, but still has alot of great moments on it.

 

Misplaced Childhood is fabtastic, but it is overrated slightly, in my opinion. I've compaired to to Pink Floyd's "The Wall" before, and I still hold to that, but to hear some of the fanboys talk, MP is the greatest album ever to exist. Just don't go into it with any preconcieved notions and you'll love it.

 

Clutching At Straws took awhile for me to get into, but once I did, it became one of my most-listened Marillion records.

 

After that they went pop. Steve Hogarth is very good, and much more melodic in his vocal style, so it fits the more straightforward style of the band from that point on.