Epics easily loved

As prog fans, we all have a fair share of knowledge of epic length songs. That's a huge part of being prog fans. But it seems to me that a band can get acclaim just by having one or two songs past fifteen minutes.

Well, this is a bit of a pet peeve for me, I never get the deal about epics and haven't since day one. I like some of them but sometimes it seems to me that the mere presence of an epic in the album assures masterpiece status - or close, obviously I am exaggerrating outrageously! - for it and naturally, the more epics you make, the more highly you are regarded. And is that supposed to be the point?  Isn't it about making the kind of music you do best?  Personally, I don't dig epics - here I am referring to songs at least over 15 minutes,  if not 20 - unless they give me something the band don't achieve for me in a longish format, viz, upto 10 minutes.  It pretty much beats me why epics would get so much love when two of the giants of prog, King Crimson and Gentle Giant, relied far less than most on constructing epics.  

I've never worried about the length of a song, just whether it's good, and Awaken, for example, is DAMNED good

I think I agree, though I've lost track of the initial statement.

My personal source of irritation is the padding that goes on in a lot of epics, some of my pet peeves:

The last minute of 'I am the Sun' by The Flower Kings.  Once the music is over, the last bass note resonates for like forty seconds, why?

'Milliontown' by Frost* has a minute of gentle piano that is so quiet compared to the rest of the song that's an after thought, not to mention it sounds suspiciously like Mad Man Moon.

Some of the Transatlantic epics go on waaay too long, 'Duel with the Devil' should end three minutes and twenty one seconds earlier than it does.  I detect the Ronnie Stolt influence there (and don't get me wrong, I love just about everything that Ronnie does except for the 'let's slow the epic down for the big powerful chord progression to finish it off', it's getting a bit cliche).

And to address one of your specifics, topo, I think the first seven minutes of 'Octovarium' is a little overindulgent.  'Octovarium' would be a stronger piece without Jordan's extended solo (IMNSHO).

My point is that many epics (in my opinion) aren't as good as they could be because too much padding is added and at times, I really do think the padding is added just to have bragging rights.  I can imagine the guys sitting around at progfests, 'I wrote a twenty-five minute song' , 'yeah, well I wrote a twenty-six minute one'.

I'm joking with the bragging rights, but only to a certain extent.  I've read more than one review of 'Experiments in Mass Appeal' that expressed disappointment as there wasn't an epic on it, before they even listened to the CD.

Genesis is my favorite band, but give me 'Cinema Show' or 'Dance on a Volcano' over 'Supper's Ready' any day (Don't get me wrong, I love 'Supper's Ready', just not as much some of their other songs).




Edited by Roland113 - April 11 2009 at 20:10

lazland wrote: I've never worried about the length of a song, just whether it's good, and Awaken, for example, is DAMNED good

DAMN RIGHT!  Probably the best epic Yes ever composed - and it one of their shorter ones, just under 16 minutes...

^ Do you think that people will praise a 20 minute song more for simply holding their attention or a 5 minute song that gives them a huge rush of energy or brings them to tears? Something tells me a lot of fans prefer the former, just because it seems to be better, if a bit more superficially.

p0mt3 wrote: topofsm wrote: ^ Do you think that people will praise a 20 minute song more for simply holding their attention or a 5 minute song that gives them a huge rush of energy or brings them to tears? Something tells me a lot of fans prefer the former, just because it seems to be better, if a bit more superficially. Well, who says a twenty minute epic CAN'T bring someone to tears? Personally, PT's "Voyage 34" and Yes' "Gates of Delerium" choked me up in places. I think that's the point, though. Epics are so huge they can't keep the emotion going the entire time, so it happens in stints.

I'm not saying an epic can't bring you to tears. As I've already said, "Octavarium" is a moving piece for me, and "Gates of Delerium" I can agree with will choke you up.

topofsm wrote: ^Well I certainly don't dislike epics if that's what you do (correct me if I'm wrong). I can name several off the top of my head that are absolutely brilliant.   Maybe I could explain it better if I said that some epics aren't unimaginative, but they aren't really masterpieces either. This is something I didn't bring up in my original post. Some epics are great, while others aren't. There are some not so great ones that either repeat sections too long just to extend the length of the song (padding) while others cannot expand on an idea very well so they just move to a different riff, or tempo, or key or something else. The former ones are easier to spot. I'm talking about the latter. It's like stitching a bunch of unrelated songs together. Now the shifts in mood take a lot longer to become familiar with since they're stuck together on one track with no breaks in the music. Since there are more surprises, it's regarded as brilliant. However, the tracks all divided up properly, each a song by it's own, aren't viewed as warmly because they're only a few minutes long and they appear to be their own idea.   As an example, applying my DT fan-ness, I will use "In the Name of God", "A Change of Seasons", and "Octavarium". I feel that ITNOG suffers from too much padding, ideas take too long to transition from one to another. Riffs are repeated pretty often, and although it changes tempoes and musical 'flavors', they take too long in each section. I think there's some great music there, it just needs to be cut down a bit.   ACOS, on the other hand, has perfectly good length sections, and isn't repeated mindlessly so that fans will go "Hey, a song over 15 minutes, it must be great!" However, sometimes I feel that they change ideas too much. Some of the sections don't seem to transition from one to another well, and it seems hard at times to believe it's all one piece.   "Octavarium", on the other hand, seems to have a near perfect build, and ideas transition well into each other. I consider it a brilliant example of an epic, and there's no doubt in my mind that it's tied together into an outstanding composition.   I used these 3 because more people are familiar with DT, and some people might lose my credibility if I bash bands that I'm less familiar with. Anyways, these three songs have some great ideas and all have some incredible music, it's just that I feel two are not presented in the best way possible. In any event, they seem best loved because of their song length.

I don't dislike the concept of an epic per se but I do think it often becomes an easy way out to win over listeners, by stretching an idea beyond what is necessary so that it reaches close to 20 minutes. You have referred to padding in this post, well, that's the sort of thing I dislike.  Unless a band can fill the entire running length with purpose, they would be better off writing a 10-12 minuter.  You have asked a little later in the thread whether a 20 minute song would get praise for holding attention instead of a   7 minute fantastic song?  In general, that seems to be the case, but personally I would like the latter.  It takes more time to sort out an epic but after doing so, you still may not have  a masterpiece on your hands and why a not-so-great epic would be preferable to a brilliant longish song beats me, of course everybody has their preferences so I can only speak for myself.  Focus's Moving Waves is a good example.  Eruption is a set of  decent blues jams stretched far beyond their proper running length and I would always prefer listening to Hocus Pocus over it, because Eruption fails to capture the quirkiness that makes Hocus Pocus such a terrific song and at least in my opinion is an epic for the sake of being an epic.  I would also like to point out that especially in symph prog and also in the Rush epics, a multi-song suite structure is used so the only thing that distinguishes the epic from the longish songs is that this time the long/short songs are linked to one another.  Whereas something like Magma's Kohntarkohz's Part II is much more preferable for me because the track is not stretched to reach a long length but there is actually a flowing sequence of musical ideas connected seamlessly.

Hi,

I personally don't object to epics, but as many of you said, the music must be good, not just full with a lot of padding, filler moments and so on. I also enjoyed very short songs, like the small acustic songs that each Jethro Tull album used to have, as long as the music was good and could convey it's message.