Tales from Topo Oceans irony

Strawberry Bricks progressive rock timeline says in its summary of Tales from Topographic Oceans (Yes):

"Tales has the dubious distinction of being either the mother lode or motherf&cker of all Prog albums. The initial idea for Tales came to Anderson from a footnote regarding Shastric scriptures in Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi (bestseller, for sure). This was the grand concept he’d been searching for, allowing Anderson’s lyrics would blossom into full-blown biblical prose."

Wikipedia.com says of the book:

"In 1946, Yogananda published his life story, Autobiography of a Yogi (http://sources.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_a_Yogi), which was instrumental in introducing vedic philosophy to the West. It has since been translated into eighteen languages and remains a best seller. It includes Yogananda's and Sri Yukteswar's attempts to explain certain verses and events of the Bible such as the Garden of Eden story, and descriptions of Yogananda's encounters with leading spiritual figures such as Therese Neumann, the Hindu saint Sri Anandamoyi Ma, Mohandas Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, and Nobel Prize winning physicist Sir C. V. Raman."

So it IS a best seller. And the guys at Strawberry Bricks thought they were putting out a great joke, but the joke was really on them!

(and nobody post something saying "but they DID say it was a best seller". anybody can realize that Strawberry Bricks intended it as a joke)

sigod wrote: And in the middle of all that you have Rick Wakeman ordering a curry and eating it on stage during a live performance. I'm not sure if that's an insult or the ultimate tribute

 

Don't forget the lager! And the curry was most certainly non-veggie. I would suggested a lack of satifaction in the piece.

I like Tales from Topographic Oceans....

It was @ the Free trade Hall Manchester where the cloaked crusader had his Madras behind the Moog moment.....

Topographic is a remarkable album I remember playing it day after day and often wonder why prog fans and indeed Yes fans criticise this four sided prog gem.Those hypocrites at N.M.E started the prog downfall by slaughtering this album.Always perplexed me how Floyd were acceptable at the time and yet Yes who were riding high at the time came in for such vitriolic criticism.It wasn't Charles Sarr Murray but I can't remember the guy's name that wrote the  piece thereafter Yes became the target for the anti prog brigade that was about to be revealed in these glorious isles.

Tales is astounding, one of the msot "artistic" rock albums I've ever heard.

Only flaw I can find is Wakeman's synth arrangements are less than spectacular in lots of places.  Rest of the band is firing on all cylinders throughout though.

Its a great prog rock album.

'The revealing science of God' is a masterpiece.

 

Swinton MCR wrote: Mr Wakeman Christned the piece "Toby's Graphic go-cart", however was Mr Wakeman suffering from pique because keyboards seem to take a back seat to the guitar? After all - how can a musician who produced albums like "Journey" claim that TFTO is pretentious or self-indulgent ??? However - TFTO was used by the music critics as an example of how "Stagnant" the music industry had become.....  I know lets replace it with a bunch of grotch-spitting hooligans with no morals and no musical ability whatsoever and make money out of these "Anarchists".... "It's what the people want"........   YEAH WELL NOT ME BUDDY!

Whenever there is some music nostalgia program on, about the 70's the program makers always seem to use Yes and ELP as examples of how terrible things were in those days.

When you consider some of the sh!t that was actually going down in the 70's music scene, it makes you wonder what it actually is that people look for in music. I dont expect everyone to understand prog rock, but for Christs sake, is it too much to ask that people at least try to appreciate musicians who can play, and actually write songs??

Punk may have been a brilliant idea in its time. It's initial reasons for existance and the general aura of it was truly rebellious, but it didn't last long. Now whenever I see a punk, it's either some annoying jerk with a black t-shirt and earrings who does all the things you possibly can do wrong, or it's some "poser punk" who is a wannabe jerk with earrings who gets "F's". Nowadays punk is a stale, inoriginal, even conformist and expected (no longer rebellious at all -- if you're not a punk, you're not "cool").

Now that I said that, I think there's two directions music can go at this point. It can stay the same and effectively stagnate to the point of wallpaper sound, or it the current bands can get some guts and TRULY rebel and be different by playing progressive music. It's already starting to happen some. All these bands who play simple music are beginning to explore and become more complex. And since a lot of people have completely forgotten about prog, they're likely to simply stumble into the genre accidently and possibly without knowing it even exists.

The Rotten Channel ???? ..................Like 

I'm with you Swinton, Punk to me was an excoet into prog and all that followed through the the 80's and onwards. When oh when will people want to play and write music again? Is this too much to ask?Punk and all it entailed died swiftly and what followed is the produce of today.Don't get me started on punk I despise the whole idea so much.Yes prog became over indulgent but it did not deserve the treatment dished out by the hypocrites in the musical press, again I ask, how did the Floyd escape the slaughtering? Or were they not deemed prog?Yes and ELP were singled out . People in positions can influence so many so easily.Back to Tales it is a truly wonderfully crafted album ,there are melodies therein to die for and awesome Howe guitar work.I still have the Melody Maker Rock Polls from the time and Yes's conquest in most departments was almost complete.How quickly that all changed!