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What double albums should be a single and why? |
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moshkito 
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Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17510 |
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 Posted: March 31 2021 at 11:20 |
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Hi, With one hard thought to remember ... almost always ... the "editing" is done by someone else, and it CHANGES the basic/magic pulse of the whole thing, and we end up believing that it was the original ... guess what ... it probably wasn't. Prog, like Jazz and any other music, does not need a "direction" ... which to me is like saying that Beethoven's Symphonies have a direction, or Tchaikovsky's music has a direction, and one of the main things in the history of music in the 20th Century is how Stravinsky gave the idea of "direction" such a huge flip that it left folks wondering for a long time. The main issue with "direction" in rock music, FOR ME, is that almost everyone of us THINKS that the lyrics tell a story, and thus, the story can be slightly condensed ... but that is like saying that each of Beethoven's Symphonies does NOT tell a story ... ALBEIT ONE THAT YOU AND I CAN NOT IMAGINE! One example, was Mahler, who wrote a Symphony for his wife ... and she still left! The perfect PA fan, it could be said ... and in the end, I wonder why all the criticism ... which some folks think it is good ... and for the most part, how can it be "good" when it is so far and away from the point and center of the work, as to distort the reality ... and here we are. Krautrock, showed really well, in rock music, how a "direction" was not exactly necessary ... never mind that these came out of the "drum/music orgies" and what not ... where a direction is not the point ... THE EXPERIENCE IS. And, really, to feel this, one should be punished with spending time in one of those drum/fun/music things in a few fairs that I have seen ... you learn quickly that it's OK if you can't dance, and it is also OK, if you just flow all over ... but us "progressive" folks are so damn stoic and boring, that we can't do something as "hippy" as that! We have to have lyrics tell us what it is all about, even if the music has absolutely nothing to do with it!
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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moshkito
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Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17510 |
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Posted: March 31 2021 at 11:33 |
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Hi, The listener DID NOT create the music, or the novel, or the painting. So, you're going to tell Picasso what to do? Some folks tried and he told them to take a hike. Or you can look like a total idiot, like the guy interviewing Gary Green and TELLING HIM what Progressive Music was that GG was not folloing. GG just said ... we never wrote anything ... we just played! And many folks still don't get it! It is about what the artist sees and feels ... and the listener, or the buyer, has no say on it ... specially when their time comes months and months after the fact that crated it all ... at which point any comment is even more ridiculous, wouldn't you say?
Hi, I am not sure what G&C felt about all this, and how they allowed it to fly so far ... but PC was known to be a good writer, and his ability to talk, was well known, and his solo albums show a sort of ... let go ... that both you and I would imagine could use a little trimming ... but the strength of a scholar (both him and DM), from one of the world's best, is that not many people can say a whole lot ... and PC would bury you in one small sentence. He did it all the time, and it is all over the comedy albums going back to Beyong the Fringe, when several members of that group became really valuable and important folks in the theater and opera areas in England. I do think that PC's material should have had an album on its own ... not be a part of G&C, but if you watch Godley's special talking about a lot of the music and the improvisations they did and how so many things came about, he even says that most times many things work, and sometimes they don't ... but I think that G&C could not make up their minds on how to give PC a haircut, and then have him tell them to take it all away!
Edited by moshkito - March 31 2021 at 21:08 |
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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Crane
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Joined: September 08 2011 Location: Rhode Island Status: Offline Points: 411 |
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Posted: March 31 2021 at 11:36 |
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I knew I’d see Sandanista! here and there it was in the very first post. That album for me is perfect the way it is. Part of what makes it so enjoyable is its sprawling adventurousness. Ah, the sheer indulgence of including a song immediately followed by the dub remix of that song. If you want a short Sandanista! you’ve got Combat Rock.
I could reluctantly allow for a few tracks cut from London Calling. Again I’d miss the adventure, but somewhere around the 3rd side it starts to get to be a bit much. Joe’s Garage is too long, but mainly because of the Central Scrutinizer. All the music is great. If you just removed the CS, what you’re left with would still be, what, 5 sides? I don’t think it’s worth losing any of the music.
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“Art is the recognition of the universal presence of God.” —Ernest Hello
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Crane
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Joined: September 08 2011 Location: Rhode Island Status: Offline Points: 411 |
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Posted: March 31 2021 at 11:39 |
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As a brief aside, how brilliant is IQ’s ability to write such long albums that don’t feel overlong? I don’t know any other band that works so well with long-format albums.
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“Art is the recognition of the universal presence of God.” —Ernest Hello
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Gentle and Giant
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Joined: October 24 2019 Location: Blackpool Status: Offline Points: 4369 |
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Posted: March 31 2021 at 12:52 |
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I see mention of a 3-sided album. I've wondered why Steven Wilson's Transience is only pressed on 3 sides, the 4th being etchings of some words. That may look cool on a black album, but on the clear version it looks a bit of a mess. As a compilation album I can't see why he couldn't have used all 4 sides.
And speaking of Steven Wilson, I wonder too why To the Bone is a 45 rpm album. I didn't know when I first played it - sounded good actually lol. Edited by Gentle and Giant - March 31 2021 at 12:54 |
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Oh, for the wings of any bird, other than a battery hen
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Awesoreno
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Joined: October 07 2019 Location: Culver City, CA Status: Offline Points: 3036 |
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Posted: March 31 2021 at 13:24 |
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But the Central Scrutinizer is like the narrator. He's essential to the concept of the album, whispered megaphone and all.
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Crane
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Posted: March 31 2021 at 20:08 |
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The plot is so thin, the album wouldn’t lose anything by dispensing with any pretense of being a concept album or rock opera.
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“Art is the recognition of the universal presence of God.” —Ernest Hello
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Awesoreno
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Posted: March 31 2021 at 21:36 |
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Maybe in the music department. But I think the way he scrounged out a plot is hilarious.
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Sean Trane
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Prog Folk Joined: April 29 2004 Location: Heart of Europe Status: Offline Points: 20240 |
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Posted: April 01 2021 at 04:08 |
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Yessssss,  I like VDGG going instrumental (and I like Alt as well). Present's second disc provides me with something The Long Hello albums failed to do: instrumental VDGG, though TLH was without Hammill, while that second disc is with him.
Absolutely, totally, irretrievably INCORRECT. As pointed on page 2 or 3 of this thread, Johnny Winter's Second Winter is a three sides album. Thetre were also plenty of 78 RPM albums with the unused faces finely decorated Bye  |
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let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
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Sean Trane
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Prog Folk Joined: April 29 2004 Location: Heart of Europe Status: Offline Points: 20240 |
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Posted: April 01 2021 at 04:21 |
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Obviously double albums that feature studio and live discs (like Ummagumma, Present or Wheels Of Fire) should not be brougth up in this conversation, because the OP meant (I think) purely studio or previously unreleased music.
TBH, you could reduce All Things Must Pass, Sandinista and Consequences to a single album (that's hak$ lf a double  ) and you still wouldn't get a very good album >> there is simply too much stuff that seems un-necessary. Still waiting on Friede and Jean to let us discover their music, whether as BA or MG. I can't even find traces of them in Rate Your Music or Discogs. |
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let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
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Psychedelic Paul
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Joined: September 16 2019 Location: Nottingham, U.K Status: Offline Points: 40087 |
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Posted: April 01 2021 at 04:40 |
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I'm a big fan of Rick Wakeman, but his Rhapsodies double album rhapsodized on a bit too long for my liking. Rick describes the album as "probably the most confusing I have ever made."
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omphaloskepsis
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Posted: April 01 2021 at 07:07 |
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Phideaux- Infernal
Yes- Keys to Ascension 2
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moshkito
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Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17510 |
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Posted: April 01 2021 at 10:37 |
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Hi, Didn't see that and am not familiar with that album ... but I think the MP's album is the only "true" three sided album, on 2 sides ... not anything else!
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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A Crimson Mellotron
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Joined: September 10 2020 Location: Bulgaria Status: Offline Points: 4122 |
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Posted: April 01 2021 at 10:47 |
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I thought for a long time that 'The Lamb' should have been a single album because of a strong dislike for many tracks, but I am not sure about this now. I always want to re-listen to it, but I never actually do it!
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AlanB
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Posted: April 01 2021 at 12:51 |
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I've not read the whole thread so I don't know if it's been mentioned, but for me The White Album should have been a single album, get rid of the weaker tracks (especially Revolution 9) and any decent songs they didn't have room for could have replaced the filler tracks on Let It Be.
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iluvmarillion
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Posted: April 06 2021 at 23:06 |
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The truth is the vast majority of double albums should be reduced to a single album. The most obvious to me are Snow and Paradox Hotel. All Spock's Beard and The Flower Kings do is repeat themselves on the second CD. At least Genesis don't repeat themselves on Lamb. They just run out of ideas. I'm one who likes The White Album being a double album. I must be one of the few who likes the experimentations of John Lennon on the second disc. And while I'm likely to change my mind on a weekly basis I'm yet to lose interest in The Astonishing. Fans of Dream Theater would have disliked the album as a single album anyway. It's different.
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cstack3
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Posted: April 07 2021 at 00:02 |
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Well said! I'm also one of the folks who believes that Tales could have been two, rather than four, sides. Back in my college days, I used to play all of TFTO sides one and two consecutively, and then move on to another band like ELP or Genesis. I never really warmed to "The Ancient," and didn't discover "Ritual" until quite a bit later.
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Jaketejas wrote:
Agreed! Editing is a painful process. I realize that one characteristic of Prog, and especially early Prog, can be lengthy songs. Oftentimes, it is justified, especially when there are changing themes or when time is needed to build up to something. But, other times I feel that lengthy songs are due to a lack of good editing. In jazz, extensive pieces are often due to improvisation. However, in Prog, I prefer that there be a real direction.