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dr wu23 
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 Posted: March 17 2014 at 20:57 |
 Dean wrote:
dr wu23 wrote:
I don't know about 'the padding and filler myth', but I own most of the double's mentioned as wel as some others and when I do play them (not as much as the single albums by the same bands btw), I usually play only one of the discs/vinyl sides because the other has weaker material. But maybe that's just me......... |
Which half of The Lamb Lies Down, Tales From Topographic Oceans, Quadrophenia, Tommy, The Wall, Electric Ladyland, Exile on Mainstreamstreet, 666, Tanz der Lemminge, Focus 3, Aerial is the weaker half. (Deliberately ignoring double live album of course because it's a well known fact that bands put all their weaker material in the second half of their live sets and save the really weak filler for the very end, and the weak padding songs for the encore). |
That's a solid question regarding those specific albums.....and I'll attempt to give you my thoughts on them.
Weaker (and padding and filler..) indeed might be the wrong word;....perhaps we should just say parts we all prefer over others.
There are several parts of Lamb I think are 'weaker' than the others but it's kind of spread out on the 2 LP's.
On Tales I think sides 2 and 3 are 'weaker'.
I prefer the first LP on Quadrophenia....doesn't make the second 'weaker' except to me.
Tommy is all about the same quality to me and excellent overall.
I like the second LP marginally better on The Wall probably due to Comfortably Numb.
On Exiles I prefer the first Lp though the second isn't bad or 'mediocre' per se.
I think most of Ladyland is pretty solid also...though Voodo Child on the second side is my favorite track so I think that side is 'better' for me.
I honestly haven't played 666 or Tanz enough in recent memory to have an opinion and I don't own Focus 3.
So for me it's more about which discs hit my favorite spot and sometimes the better tracks are scattered over the two Lp's so it's hard to say which LP is 'weaker' on some doubles. As I said I have a tendency to play one or the other LP's on doubles due to personal preference.....'weaker' becomes a subjective term as it always does here on PA regarding quality and what is 'this or that'.
Edited by dr wu23 - March 17 2014 at 20:59
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One does nothing yet nothing is left undone.
Haquin
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proggman
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Posted: March 17 2014 at 21:40 |
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Ayreon has a lot of double albums.
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When he rides, my fears subside.
For darkness turns once more to light.
Through the skies, his white horse flies.
To find a land beyond the night.
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Kati
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Posted: March 17 2014 at 21:47 |
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Dean
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Posted: March 18 2014 at 03:24 |
Lamb was a music first album, as were all Genesis albums. This one is infamously so as any Genesis fan knows since Gabriel was not present during much the writing and recording of the album due to difficulties wife Jill was having with the birth of their daughter.
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What?
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Dean
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Posted: March 18 2014 at 03:34 |
dr wu23 wrote:
Dean wrote:
dr wu23 wrote:
I don't know about 'the padding and filler myth', but I own most of the double's mentioned as wel as some others and when I do play them (not as much as the single albums by the same bands btw), I usually play only one of the discs/vinyl sides because the other has weaker material. But maybe that's just me......... |
Which half of The Lamb Lies Down, Tales From Topographic Oceans, Quadrophenia, Tommy, The Wall, Electric Ladyland, Exile on Mainstreamstreet, 666, Tanz der Lemminge, Focus 3, Aerial is the weaker half. (Deliberately ignoring double live album of course because it's a well known fact that bands put all their weaker material in the second half of their live sets and save the really weak filler for the very end, and the weak padding songs for the encore). |
That's a solid question regarding those specific albums.....and I'll attempt to give you my thoughts on them.
Weaker (and padding and filler..) indeed might be the wrong word;....perhaps we should just say parts we all prefer over others.
There are several parts of Lamb I think are 'weaker' than the others but it's kind of spread out on the 2 LP's.
On Tales I think sides 2 and 3 are 'weaker'.
I prefer the first LP on Quadrophenia....doesn't make the second 'weaker' except to me.
Tommy is all about the same quality to me and excellent overall.
I like the second LP marginally better on The Wall probably due to Comfortably Numb.
On Exiles I prefer the first Lp though the second isn't bad or 'mediocre' per se.
I think most of Ladyland is pretty solid also...though Voodo Child on the second side is my favorite track so I think that side is 'better' for me.
I honestly haven't played 666 or Tanz enough in recent memory to have an opinion and I don't own Focus 3.
So for me it's more about which discs hit my favorite spot and sometimes the better tracks are scattered over the two Lp's so it's hard to say which LP is 'weaker' on some doubles. As I said I have a tendency to play one or the other LP's on doubles due to personal preference.....'weaker' becomes a subjective term as it always does here on PA regarding quality and what is 'this or that'.
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Thank you sir.
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What?
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Atavachron
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Posted: March 18 2014 at 04:11 |
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Filler is one thing and does occur in different ways to varying degrees of skill or lack thereof, but when something like Physical Graffiti or The Wall is criticized for filler, something is being missed. I can't listen to all of The Wall anymore because at least one third of it no longer does a thing for me; it
didn't hold up past my thirties as a consistent source of interest the
way some other doubles have. But filler? I doubt it, because as
Dean has pointed out, that suggests the "filler" was intentionally
produced and perpetrated to satisfy whatever time minimums there may've
been, or worse, to rip people off.
But that is, I must point out, the perspective of a former and fairly
serious musician. I used to think Phys Graf was artificially
stretched-out too, but when I listen to it now and I come upon those
parts everyone loves to criticize as diluted pap, I smile, shame
myself, and I thank goodness that such an extraordinary album, band,
and time existed, and that I lived to experience it.
It can't all be gold all of the time. Is every single moment of
Topographic Oceans brilliant? Hell no, and we all know that. But
again, that misses the point. It's a journey we have along with a
band we have faith in and I'm willing to share the bad moments if they
have the guts to show them to me.
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chopper
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Posted: March 18 2014 at 04:18 |
Atavachron wrote:
I used to think Phys Graf was artificially
stretched-out too, but when I listen to it now and I come upon those
parts everyone loves to criticize as diluted pap, |
Which parts are those? I've always thought PG is one of the most consistently excellent double albums around, the only track I'm not that keen on is the last one "Sick Again" and I've seen more than one person say that's their favourite track on the album.
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Atavachron
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Posted: March 18 2014 at 04:19 |
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^ Well there you go-- for me it's Boogie with Stu.
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chopper
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Posted: March 18 2014 at 09:23 |
Atavachron wrote:
^ Well there you go-- for me it's Boogie with Stu.
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I love that song. I suppose it's a bit of a muck about but I still like it.
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The Dark Elf
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Posted: March 18 2014 at 09:38 |
chopper wrote:
Atavachron wrote:
^ Well there you go-- for me it's Boogie with Stu.
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I love that song. I suppose it's a bit of a muck about but I still like it. |
Me too. Love the trash-can cymbals Bonham is banging on and the Rolling Stones' Ian Stewart on piano. You can tell the band is having a lot of fun. After all, the working title of the song was "Sloppy Drunk".
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...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined
to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology...
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Prog 74
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Posted: March 18 2014 at 10:39 |
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Physical Graffiti has several pleasant throw aways on it, including some songs that didn't make the cut on prior albums. That said, it's still my favorite Zeppelin album. The throw aways on Physical Graffiti are still better than half the songs on Presence or In Through the Out Door. I also feel like the White Album from the Beatles has lots of throw aways and/or filler. Some of it good, some of it rubbish. A fascinating listen nonetheless.
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Moogtron III
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Posted: March 18 2014 at 10:46 |
Supporting the Dutch! I'm Dutch! So you're supportering me! 
Okay, so far for this pseudo-Socratic syllogism  but you do have a good taste, Kati 
As well as for supporting Dean, whom I'm happy to see on this site. We all have our grumpy days, and that's the truth
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chopper
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Posted: March 18 2014 at 11:55 |
Prog 74 wrote:
Physical Graffiti has several pleasant throw aways on it |
Come on, everyone is saying this, but what are they?
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dr wu23
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Posted: March 18 2014 at 12:30 |
chopper wrote:
Prog 74 wrote:
Physical Graffiti has several pleasant throw aways on it |
Come on, everyone is saying this, but what are they? |
:
Down By The Seaside
Boogie with Stu
Sick Again
Custard pie
The Rover
Now I'm not saying these are bad songs just that they don't do much for me.
It's that subjective thingy all over again.
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One does nothing yet nothing is left undone.
Haquin
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Prog 74
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Posted: March 18 2014 at 12:41 |
dr wu23 wrote:
chopper wrote:
Prog 74 wrote:
Physical Graffiti has several pleasant throw aways on it |
Come on, everyone is saying this, but what are they? |
:
Down By The Seaside
Boogie with Stu
Sick Again
Custard pie
The Rover
Now I'm not saying these are bad songs just that they don't do much for me.
It's that subjective thingy all over again.
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I would also include Night Flight and Black Country Woman. All of the songs on Physical Graffiti are good, some are just a little weaker than others. The band themselves admitted that they didn't quite have enough material to make it a double album so they went to the vaults and filled the album with some unreleased tracks. Tracks that weren't good enough to be on previous albums.
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Dean
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Posted: March 18 2014 at 14:00 |
Atavachron wrote:
It can't all be gold all of the time. Is every single moment of Topographic Oceans brilliant? Hell no, and we all know that. But again, that misses the point. It's a journey we have along with a band we have faith in and I'm willing to share the bad moments if they have the guts to show them to me. |
Agree with every thing you've said David, just picking up on Tales.
Tales is indeed flawed and is an exception here because it does contain padding, (but it also contains pruning - Revealing was trimmed to make it shorter by some six minutes). However this padding is within the tracks because originally the four tracks contained enough music for three sides vinyl, so they padded the music out so that each track was around the 20 minute mark (the optimum length for sound quality on a vinyl disc) - none of the tracks are filler-tracks. That is one of Wakeman's criticisms of the album and perhaps his main contribution to it - linking the disparate parts within each track with typical Wakeman-y aplomb, (he did this on Fragile and Close to the Edge too), such as the short pastoral (almost Greenslade-like) Moog segues in The Remembering.
I suspect what some people may be experiencing on double albums is simply sensory overload, the old "Listener-fatigue" (which I've never really understood myself, this is Prog after all, but hey-ho). If Yes had released any of these tracks on a single album in the same format as Close to the Edge and Relayer, with a selection of shorter songs the flip-side, I think maybe we would see them differently; sure "The Remembering album" would perhaps not be liked as much as "The Ritual album" or "The Revealing album" would, but I suspect many would rate it highly as a Symphonic Prog Folk album. Perhaps if Yes had just released The Revealing and The Ritual as two sides of a single album people may find it less of a chore, that they can squeeze in during a 40 minute lull in their TV viewing schedule, then perhaps some of us may just find it to be just a little less interesting.
[disclaimer: I'm not a Yes fan by any stretch, I like Tales and Relayer - the rest I can take or leave, especially Close t'Fridge]
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What?
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verslibre
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Posted: March 18 2014 at 14:08 |
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chopper
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Posted: March 18 2014 at 14:35 |
dr wu23 wrote:
chopper wrote:
Prog 74 wrote:
Physical Graffiti has several pleasant throw aways on it |
Come on, everyone is saying this, but what are they? |
Custard pie
The Rover
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Nooooooooooooooooo! 
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Padraic
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Posted: March 18 2014 at 14:38 |
chopper wrote:
dr wu23 wrote:
chopper wrote:
Prog 74 wrote:
Physical Graffiti has several pleasant throw aways on it |
Come on, everyone is saying this, but what are they? |
Custard pie
The Rover
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Nooooooooooooooooo! |
Yeah, what? Those songs are great
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chopper
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Posted: March 18 2014 at 14:38 |
Dean wrote:
sure "The Remembering album" would perhaps not be liked as much as "The Ritual album" or "The Revealing album" would
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Yes it would. I actually prefer The Remembering to the other two.
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Why do so many bands do just one double album?!
I love the Gabe and I love Genesis, but I'm afraid I just don't like The Lamb. It's a prime example of a lyrics-first approach in my mind - music should always come first. 
leave Dean alone, yes he might be uber grumpy at times but I love his input and knowledge on our forum topics. Heck I get it wrong at times and Dean is the first person to point that out 
