And don't expect a severance package.

All kidding aside, I don't like a few of the "popular" artists frequently discussed. Only one Pink Floyd album is tolerable to me at this point. I am usually a staunch defender of a lot of modern prog, but the stuff that gets ballyhooed around here like Porcupine Tree, Spocks Beard, Riverside, The Tangent for example, do absolutely nothing for me.  

As already said, we like what we like. No shame.

I've struggled to get much from GG as well. I certainly appreciate them, their adventurous spirit and their instrumental prowess. They are excellent musicians. But, these days, I don't play them much and Octopus is probably my "favorite."

Gentle Giant is a odd duck, dare I say a musician's band?

I can't stand VDGG sounds like a parody of what prog music is---but many love them.

Well the thing is that in the seventies they sold about 3 albums so there were plenty of people who didn't get them in the day when they were supposed to be liked. You could say the same about VDGG (apart from Italians who do everything differently anyway)

I started listening to them about 18 years ago and instantly almost stopped. It was a really slow process over about 4 years of drip feeding a few tracks here and there that I gradually got into them. Now I would put The Power and The Glory in my top twenty albums quite happily. I persevered with them only because of their fans who are so devoted and passionate about their music. So I would say that 2 or 3 listens just isn't going to do it unless you really just want to give up on them altogether because its too much effort. Oh and also ponder this .. Apparently Keith Emerson reckoned they invented a new form of music. That is some praise to get from one of your peers!

Their use of counterpoint, syncopation, and melody - often simultaneously - sounds like cacophony to most people. Perhaps I got lucky starting with Gorguts and Captain Beefheart; my ears were plenty in shape for the Giant then!

 

 

I have nothing but the most intense pity for you

 

But there's a long list of bands I don't like (pretty much go down the list of Neo Prog and Prog Metal artists...)

There's plenty out there to enjoy. It's all subjective.

It's a shame ... if anything within the first 5 or 6 GG albums, is a bunch of facts that you will never give attention to or some credit for their inventiveness.

1. Gary Green has been on record, specifying that in the early days, they never wrote anything down ... they just played. So the next time you listen, recognize that this is NOT ABOUT A SONG, but whatever comes out in the music ... similar to Gayle Ebbett specifying in his band that they might start with an A or a B, but will likely end up with a X, or Z ... which means, in case you don't know, that this is about the feel and the sound of the music ... not what you want ... you want hits ... GG is not for you, and many of us here will probably say bad things like ... good riddance! I would rather try to explain this for you, if you have the ears for it, but the music is throwing you off already ... and I doubt that any of our words will help!

2. The incredible musicianship of each member of the band, ought to at the very least, allow you an inch or two of ... yeah ... that's really good and tight ... and they were better in concert, even though most of the videos if it all have sync issues, and sound awful ... which doesn't help the band a whole lot. The show I got to see, their encore was 25 to 30 minutes long, and in that time all 6 band members played all instruments ... all 6 played drums, bass, guitar ... you name it ... so, when it comes to musicianship, I seriously doubt many bands can even stand up to the socks in these guys.

3. I have my doubts that you have actually listened to GG ... you played a few seconds, it didn't click and you tried another spot, same thing, and you decided it's not for you. You will NEVER, EVER, get an appreciation for a lot of the music in the 20th century, almost all of which was anti-melody and used a broken down orchestra (that too, but it means different combinations, not the usual!) to create different moods and ideas in music ... witness BERNARD HERRMAN and how his different use of an orchestra created some amazing sounds for so many fantasy films in the 50's and eventually many of the films for Hitchcock ... however, I am not sure that you can even consider a good listen to these things ... in some cases, the music is down right scary and weird ... and you already specified that's not your click. You want your metal, melodic, and not "anti-music".

4. Music listening, and appreciation, required one let go of ideas and tastes. If you study (take a music appreciation course in school!) some of this for the last 500 years, you will find nothing but the development of music from 2 or 3 instruments, to 150 and then the deconstruction of an orchestra to various weird combinations, that were most clear and represented with Stokowsky, who used to microphone special sections of the orchestra, in order to give that section a wider/larger role in its piece. It was perfect for a few films, and specially FANTASIA. 

5. At the time, there was a lot of "anti-film" (French, started in the 50's probably with Godard), "anti-theater" (English and American, with actors controlling the highlights ... think Stellllllllllllllllaaaaa (Brando) or Olivier doing his words of Shakespeare, making a set of words more important than the whole play!), "anti-literature" as exemplified by a lot of writers doing significantly different things, and the Americans probably had a lot to say bout that, but the French scene was also important.

The "anti-music" was more centered on the classical de-construction of music and it sounding weird and off beat and specially off key. It created a lot of strange things, in England and France ... many of which are now considered historical, since the folks involved were not exactly street urchins, but really well educated musicians that DID KNOW WHAT THEY WERE DOING!

The thing that bothers me the most is how far behind the rock music scene was compared to many of these ... we're talking anywhere from 10 to 20 years ... and of course, now we could say that many listeners, some 50 or 60 years later, have made this even worse.

I, myself, am not the great GG fan ... but I have their first 7 albums ... because the musicianship of it all makes 5 or 6 of the bands in PA's top ten sound like high school bands! With the simplistic of music and sound possible being considered "important" ... which if 500 years of history is an example ... that's backwards!

have some heart ... do some serious listening ... it's not crap ... but really special stuff and the only one of its kind. many have tried to copy it and pay tribute to it ... but if you don't have it inside your heart and at the tip of your fingers, the copy just will not be as good. I don't dislike SB, but I would not put it in the same sentence as GG, either ... they did not grow up to be a special band on their own ... they grew up to love other bands ... how social and American this is ... you try to make sure that the fans love you and they think you are cool. Sorry SB ... I have GG in my collection, not SB (only 2 CD's!).

I believe he was addressing the OP not you personally.

siLLy puPPy wrote: If you can't stand GG have you tried sitting them?

There's a Joycean turn of phrase that went over peoples' heads ~

Octopus , The Power and The Glory and Freehand are the ones that I really like.

I would be happy to have a compilation of the best tracks from the first 3 albums but there are some real gems contained therein.

In A Glass House is the real problematic one for me. It's another Tales From Topographic Oceans from my perspective but thankfully not as long!!

Pretty much, though I love Glass House and Interview ain't half bad at all.   They definitely got better if more difficult and out-there.   Their nearly geometric musical expansion between 72 and 76 is incredible.   In fact I can't think of any band that grew at the rate GG did in the same amount of time.   Maybe Genesis.

Hey Moshkito guess what? I agree 100% with your assertion here. Great post.

 

Had a harder time for VdGG than GG...

 

But yeah, I discovered both bands in the mid-70's and didn't like what I heard... which generally meant that the albums I'd bought should've left my spade relatively soon... But something held me back, cos I knew there was something I didn't understand to either band, so I kept them...

 

and periodically returned to them (every couple of years or so) to see if I "got it" now

 

For GG, it happened just before I returned to the old world, but I'd tried for some 15 years... I guess I had acquired the luggage to "get it". Of all the big prog bands, GG is the more "savant" (not "avant") of them all. But they never became a fave group of mine either: fave albums, you ask?? Glass House and Interview, with the debut next.

 

But I still can help but thinking that GG needlessly over-complicated their music. Not surprised they never made it big.

 

 

 

 

VdGG was even more difficult for me, because I didn't understand what Jaxon was doing and  disliked Hammill's voice... So one night, I went to some small Flemish anarchist club in Brussels and caught him (along with 50 others) , and I suddenly understood what it meant to sing with his tripes. That and seeing the Godbluff live from the Belgian TV (about a year before) did it for me, because I "saw" the band.

Now, take a trip with me on this ....

50 years ago, there was no Internet, only LP's. And these did not make it into the USA (or elsewhere I'm sure), as fast ... many albums took months to get over here, as most of the "importers" were arms of larger record companies and they only brought in what they knew they could sell ... like the English version of Sgt Pepper because it was very different than the American release taken from a copy of a master found in a dump in Argentina!

So, yesterday (so to speak) ... you said "wtf am I listening to..?!" ... but your curiosity stayed up ... because the next thing you thought was ... wow ... what was that ... it's certainly different ... and you end up listening to it again, to find out what ticked in it ...

So, today (so to speak) ... you say "wtf am I listening to ..?!", but your curiosity will not always stick ... why? I like this and that which you have in your collection, and this is too weird to listen to and figure out and I'm not gonna bother, and you put on RUSH ... just to make sure you know where you stand!

I am not sure that GG, in their early days were that musically cultured ... I think that some of them came up with the idea that if you did something different with this, it would be fun, and even funny ... and then we can create some lyrics based on some literary references, so folks won't spend their time thinking that this is some sort of intellectual exercise.

GG, were all kids, just like us ... when they started out, they were learning their instruments just like everyone else ... thus, what came out, must have been figured out not only by accident but maybe by a sort of design. Per GG's statement, "nothing was written, we just played ... " to me this said it ... you came in today, and look what I came out with ... and the guy over there added a bass sequence that sounded like a broken string in it, and then ... someone added a counter vocal to it ... boom ... you got a combination that was strange, very weird really, although when you see it together cleaned up, it sounds like really polished music designed for ... an effect? I doubt it ... this band was not showy, even in concert ... they were very dedicated to the quality of what they did, even if the sync side of many videos are out of it.

It showed on their albums.

I often joke that GG is for folks that are not "riff" minded ... because if they are, this band will sound like the clocks in PF's album ... a total cacophony that will drive you nuts! My only question is ... is it intentional? ... now your perspective changes!

That's pretty much how I feel, though my album is Aquiring the Taste.

Every couple of years I have tried again and again to see if anything changed for me, but no.

Just not my cup of tea.Great musicians, but yes, too much cleverness.

Ha ha. I actually have heard stories of toddlers going around yelling "now, now, now, now, now" after hearing "the musical box." 

Thanks to this thread I am hearing this in my head:

Ty

Funny really as The Power and The Glory sounds like the most meticulously plotted album I've ever heard. I don't hear this natural flow. It sounds like they solved an equation and then shouted 'Eureka' for 40 minutes. It really clicks with me. IAGH on the other hand does sound to me like a band that recorded the first thing they played and then exited the studio.

Then you have Three Friends which is all over the place to my ears. They are a fascinating band for sure but like all prog bands they put out a variety of stuff and really there is no obligation to like any of it all like all of it or like a tiny bit of it. Music is something to delve into and enjoy and relax to and have any opinion about .. of course!

I was speaking rhetorically about the "WTF am I listening to?!", as in "I'm not ready for this sh*t yet", lmao. I've obviously since grown to love the track and all that GG has done. They (and VDGG) kind of "spoiled" my ears; I was never huge into PF or ELP and the former bands make the latter almost unlistenable anymore for me. 

I myself am a massive fan of riff oriented music, and GG actually has some fantastic riffs (the second half of In a Glass House is one of their best riffs EVER PUT TO TAPE IMHO), but GG was always more than the sum of its parts. That's one area I will agree with you; they transcended the limitations of those bands at the time in a completely orthogonal manner...I'd argue more orthogonal than any other band I can think of at the time. Relative to their peers, GG was a prog force unmatched, except by other top tier acts like VDGG and perhaps a few others I can't think of ATM.

Hmmm ... I'm thinking that the guy needs a steady diet of 200 Motels done with the orchestra and a full choir ... he has no idea of the potential and what that kind of "anti-music" did for so much music in the 20th century ... and, of course, if he doesn't have an ear for something that is not "organized" and "melodious" the way he wants ... can I say, politely and quietly amidst a puff of my favorite stash ... not a music listener!

To many of us that had been with GG right from the start, I think that we thought that both of these albums were made almost exclusively for radio play in the FM dial ... specially in places like LA and NY ... where the band could be appreciated, since in England, their radio and listening ability was limited to "friends" ... and this is the part that is really hard to digest, and I'm not sure that people can see ... in those days, this "visibility", specially in America was HUGE ... and created massive sales ... mind you how many folks are in NY, and their big pull on music? In one evening they can sell one hundred thousand albums ... and have at least another hundred thousand ready to go ... and that makes them a massive star and important artist sales-wise for the rest of the industry.

Sadly, it also showed that the band had started to dry up compared to the creativity and explosions of music from the early catalog.

How different for me ... I started in classical music ... parent's house had over 3K LP's of it, from the earliest and later I added Tomita to it!

After the Beatles and Procol Harum, Jimi, Janis and Doors and a few others, I came into what is called today "Progressive" by/with The Nice and ELP ... why? Their orientation from classical music, and the first ELP album I had was PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION that I immediately compared to a version conducted by Leonard Bernstein ... let me tell you ... LB had nothing on Mussorgsky!

When TARKUS came out, I remember telling some folks around me ... that it was a far out piano concert ... and the love and design and attention to detail in it, was extremely modern and very well composed and designed ... and seeing this done 45 years later by Rachel Flowers on plain piano ... was a VINDICATION of my words and how so much of this music is serious ... BUT WE REFUSE TO ACCEPT ANYTHING BEYOND A SONG AND ITS DEFINITION! Specially for what "progressive music" is or is supposed to be! We even disrespect the artists over it, btw ... like that Italian idiot trying to tell Gary Green what "progressive music is" and how GG didn't follow it! 

I've never left from the "classical" design and many things that are long cuts ... the beauty of these moments, are some of the shining lights of one's soul ... not just a 30 second snippet of a solo, or a megalomaniac guitarist doing "more notes" than anyone else so every one thinks he is a master at it ... no names mentioned, but we all know who they are!

In music, for me, everything is listenable ... what is weird is people wanting to "organize" the sounds and the instruments, so they can HEAR WHAT THEY WANT ... and trying hard to take that ability away from the musician himself. The 50's, 60's and 70's were a massive time for music experimentation of all time -- though classical music was almost 20 to 30 years ahead! AND, WE STILL DON'T GET IT ... and too many of these folks are looking at all this stuff as just another song ... if you stop that, your appreciation for music will double over night!

We may add that Derek Shulman has a beautiful voice but tends to sing in a rigid way, sometimes too screaming, not soft and tender, which exasperates even more the frantic musical pieces and with constant changes. Better the first 4 albums where Derek's voice alternated with that of Phil and the wonderful voice of Kerry, present mainly in the medieval melodic pieces. In the first 4 there are also winds. 

It is clear that to please their music must please these continuous changes studied at the table but I would advise you to listen to the their debut album and to Acquiring the Taste and to listen again Octopus, which are the three who, in my opinion, suffer less than the "prog excesses" that have forcibly enter into their music. 

I'm on the other side of the fence on this one. Gentle Giant is growing on me but I don't like VDGG, maybe because of the long droning sections in many of their songs. Oh well different strokes I guess. 

( I see that you re-posted ... here's a bit more ... )

You know ... ART is not there to satisfy your needs, and thinking that it is bad, or wrong, is not a wise way to listen to music ... you still fail to see how DIFFERENT than anyone else they were, specially at the time they did this ... and mentioning Neal Morse and his previous band, is almost an insult ... because they are not half the musicians that GG showed ... at a time, when EXPERIMENTATION and CREATIVE ENDEAVORS were ALLOWED, when nowadays, no one bothers, and some folks will continually recycle the same threads (hate GG/can't stand GG/etc etc) ... rather than listen to the music properly and find out ... what is it that helps folks create all these different and strange things.

Just so you know, it takes a LOT OF TALENT, musically, to play any of the stuff that GG did ... and it takes a high school level musicianship for anyone to play Neal Morse ... so all you are saying is that your tastes in music are quite elementary and not necessarily smart, or intelligent.

Just one last detail ... in those days, a lot of bands were around playing AGAINST MELODY, and it was very evident in the jazz at the time ... you probably thought of GG as a 2015 band, and how their music came about is not a part of your vocabulary ... in other words the melody has to slap you, so you can "know" ... this is the melody of this song!

One last thing, that SB/Neal Morse can not do ... there is an Italian interview with Gary Green, about their work in those days ... and the idiot interviewer spent his time telling Gary what "progressive music" supposedly is, and how GG failed to create it ... and finally GG says ... "... we never wrote anything, we just played" ... and for you this means that there was a lot of improvisation, and it had more similarities to what became known as "modern music" than it did some simpler rock song by someone that might appreciate GG, but really has no idea how it was created ... we are talking 5 or 6 folks improvising on top of each other, and in the end, create something totally far out and unusual ... which you are not capable of appreciating ... 

So, when reading PA these days, people think that "improvisation" means you start a riff and then the guitar player adds this, and the keyboard adds that ... and the lyricist will add a couple of this and that to it ... and so on ... and this is not exactly an "improvisation" at all ... it's a different exercise. For it to be an "improvisation" it almost has to be no one hearing anyone else, and every thing is glued together somehow ... make sure wrap your head on that concept and if you play in a band, fool around with it ... it's a far out exercise, and when you find moments that click, you stick to them like glue ... and usually they are some counter point by accident, not a riff or a melodious agreement of instruments.

AND, GG is also a part of the English bunch of bands that do all kinds of odd things, but I'm not sure that listing them or helping you listen to THE THIRD EAR BAND (as an example), or LOL COXHILL, or ART BEARS, or many others, will make you see some light at the end of the tunnel.

"Progressive Music" means, different and creative ... not just another song, and this is the difference in 2019 and 1968 and the difference in music and abilities is very clear ... but today, the media makes it look like its not possible, or wanted, and then we read things like your comments ... and I just feel sad about it all ... all many folks are doing is helping is to kill all the "progressive music", because the only thing many of them want is a simple melodic song! History of music seems to be mostly about melody ... 20th century is NOT about melody, except rock music in the top ten areas ... even here!!!!!

may I use this as a signature?

Damn dude that's a really self-limiting issue to have, especially with prog! It takes time, that's all I can say. Iv've been listening to both bands for years and I can't fathom how others can't hear the excellence, lol. Understandable.

Not for everyone ... after the very first listen, I was ready for something new, but I had started with lots of classical music (over 3K LP's in our house), and unlike most folks, I had already heard a LOT OF DIFFERENT MUSIC, to the point where a lot of rock music was basically, really cheap compositions and childish rock music with very little to show for its ability ... with ONE EXCEPTION ... the music had ATTITUDE, which classical music had been missing for some time, even if it came in lyrics, but when one heard Miles ... one knew what "attitude" meant in music!

In the case of GG, given the incredible array of directions that each player took that was so unusual for "rock music" or definitely "pop music", it showed an ability to put things together that was immediately far out and strange at the same time ... but yes, it was ear-challenging, although surprisingly enough with my well versed classical music experience, hearing GG the first time was ... far out ... finally ... a rock band that really means it!

The harsh fact is that music history also shows that the majority of listeners do not like their contemporaries and sometimes treat them badly and then some. And you and I can attribute this to our ears being LOUSY listening devices, that can only accept the things "they know", and think that the stuff they do not know ... is the devil ... which was the case in a few religions ...

It is a sad statement on a lot of the arts, that so many folks have gone through high school, and then, MAYBE, some college, and then University, and they still don't know anything about the arts, because 40 to 50 years ago, a couple of presidents removed as much financing for the arts as they could ... and still today ... you think he would keep an art this or that instead of a bigger bank account for himself?

We've lost ... "the father" ... as a well known man once said ... we no longer have that inner connection to the reality, other than what we are told is right and should be number one ... same thing here, and the reason why I want the top 100 to be BANDS ... NOT ALBUMS .... so folks get better used to listening to more things, instead of just 2 albums by YES and 2 albums by GENESIS and maybe one album by VdGG ... and then have to put up with the insanity of someone saying they hate this or that ... all they are saying is that they do not have the ears for music ... otherwise different things would ALWAYS sound fine, even if it is not something that you like as much as something else!

Gentle Giant is my favourite western rock band ever (while I am from the former Soviet Union), and I can only say from all Yes' works I love only Fragile, from all King Crimson I love only Lizard and the debut a bit. In general, I hate Yes' music, it hurts my nerves. But GG and VdGG are a balm to my ears. 

It's all about one's brain, nerves, physiology, tastes, childhood memories, et al. 

For example, GG fans used to put the album In A Glass House on the top of their tops. I do not like it. The tunes in it are too repetitive, to my body. My favourite GG tune is probably "As Old As You're Young" which is also not usual among GG's fans. 

 

As Old As You're Young is one of my faves too. GG were very good. Up there with Tull and Le Orme :)

How was the USSR??? 

There are hundreds of singers and bands in Prog that I DO like, so I wonder if it's really worth the time and  effort to try and acquire a taste for the difficult and complex music of Gentle Giant and Van der Graaf Generator when I could be listening to music I CAN really appreciate instead.

I done a lot to get into different kind of music. 

In one sentence it may be: Not as bad as was and still is shown in the mainstream western media, while not as good as shown by some very-left non-mainstream western media. 

Like any other extremely huge country that existed for almost 70 years, the USSR was different, various, multi-faceted. It very much depends on the era of its existence, on your place of living, on pure luck. I was born in 1983, naturally I can't tell you what it was like in the 1960s, under Stalin, etc. I can tell but not from my experience, of course. 

The problem with the western understanding of the Soviet reality is the obvious momentum of perception, momentum of thinking. After Solzhenitsyn's books, after all horrors of labour camps' system were revealed, the western audience took it as the fact for good. Meanwhile, after death of Stalin in 1953 absolute most of those horrors passed away, for good (like, for example, GULAG system as such). But that momentum of perception... plus the Cold War state did not let the western audience get the new actual situation in the USSR. Actually, every era of its existence had some positive sides. And, no doubt about it, those people that were repressed being innocent, hardly loved their country and the regime very much. 

Unfortunately, the western narrative was also filled with propaganda, and as always truth is somewhere in between. Take Solzhenitsyn, for example. He obviously never had access to data about numbers of imprisoned, etc. He was a man of art, had a sensitive soul. He guessed, he retold many rumours in his books. As far as I can remind, once he told somewhere that 110 million Soviet people became victims of repressions. Well, it seems, if we sum up every potentially lethal traumatizing event during Lenin-Stalin era (until spring 1953, that is), it may give 20 million people, at maximum (including the people who were forcefully re-settled, deported, imprisoned but not died, killed during the Russian Civil War long before Stalin's reign). So, Mr. Solzhenitsyn exaggerated a bit... I understand him, he suffered and it was his estimation for he probably believed that if he had suffered severely then everybody else suffered no less, as well. After all, like many other writers, he was not the most pleasant man on earth. His egotism played its role in the manner of his speeches, I think. 

What my parents both born in 1952 and many other still alive and sane former Soviet Union's citizens recall is the post-Khrushchev's era. Which was way different from what Solzhenitsyn wrote about. In case you did not criticize the Communist Party elite, did not criticize Lenin and his teachings, knew the borderlines that could not be crossed in your public activity, your chances to ever meet the KGB, be imprisoned et al, were tiny. It means, when in the western media or movies or books they mention KGB and/or link Putin to KGB, they suppose it may mean something scary to us. No, it's a scarecrow for the western citizens, mostly. I can tell you about my attitude to the KGB - it is neutral with shades of joking maybe even slightly positive attitude. My parents and their parents were not afraid of the police or KGB, at least after the death of Stalin. There was not fear of KGB among the Soviet people, in general. People knew the rules, followed them and it didn't really look and feel that catastrophic as it was/is implied to be in the western culture. 

You may read this article from 1988 that tells it all in more competent English than mine:  http://donellameadows.org/archives/what-americans-dont-understand-about-the-soviet-union/" rel="nofollow - http://donellameadows.org/archives/what-americans-dont-understand-about-the-soviet-union/  

I always wonder why in the world haven't the Soviet government ordered to translate tens of Soviet movies, some TV programs, tens of books, hundreds of songs into English, German, French, Italian, Spanish then to distribute them in the west, maybe even for free? The west had no idea of many decent if not great pieces of Soviet art. 

You may watch this Soviet comedy for good example. It is finally translated, with English subtitles. It will hardly become your most favourite movie of all time, but you may at least look at what the Soviet reality (in its polished version, of course) looked like. The policemen for the most part were friendly, that is true. The people were optimistic.

 

This Soviet comedy also shows the whole spectre of Soviet life. English subtitles are available: 

The ordinary life for ordinary people (especially, for the younger ones) was boring, though. Not unbearably boring, but, let us be frank, boring. The USSR dissolved not because of people's fear of KGB (nobody cared about KGB in the last years of USSR's existence, at all), not because they hated Stalin that much (who cared about him in 1991?) - the Soviet people wanted plenty of goods, supermarkets, Hollywood style life, Disney cartoons galore, Barbie, LEGO, and so on and the like. 

Not that I want the USSR back. No. But there was a very specific atmosphere, very unpredictable yet weird and expected to be better life. The USSR was The Weird Empire rather than The Evil Empire - again, at least after the death of Stalin. But who among the sane living remember Stalin's time? People remember Brezhnev, the man who loved American cars, hunting (animals, of course), good company and was actually not a bad guy, at all. Not very educated, not very broadminded - yet not that bad. There was an atmosphere that many miss today. Warmth of people's relations that many miss today. 

On the other hand, yes, there were lines for most of goods most of the time. There was a one-Party ideology, declared state atheism. In particular, dentists used anesthesia exclusively for extracting teeth, which was one of the major cons of the USSR... There was no hazing at the Universities, at all - but there was hazing in the military, mostly a terrible hazing. Again, to the unpredictability factor, hazing in the Soviet army was practically absent up until the 1960s - so many elder people called talks of hazing a nonsense. In the 1940s-1950s service in the military was a great time for young boys, in most cases. Closer to the end of the USSR, hazing took the most brutal forms, including raping in some rare cases. 

The country with such a huge territory of such an old age (1922-1991) was various. For every million of its former people that hate it, you can easily find another million of its admirers. That's a very difficult question. I think it was a necessary experience for us all, weird and useful. However, for those innocent people that were tortured or murdered in the 1920s-1930s it was neither useful nor weird. What can I say? Should we find all bullies that somehow insulted us when we were 8 years old and bully them in return? The USSR history had dark and light pages. We should conceal neither, I think. 

For funny parallels, look at the Soviet Bob Dylan in the studio of American TV. The Soviet counterpart was tougher : 

Notice, though, that he had never been in prison or labour camp or whatever. Speaking of propaganda or fake news...

Wow! Thanks for sharing mate. 

You are welcome! 

Several months ago I have invented a sentence that pretty much shows my attitude to the Soviet Union as it is seen now in retrospective: 

HITLER turned HILTER turned HEaRTLI 

What started as the primal definition of political and social disaster, eventually became a strange twisted edition of Russian Empire with exceptions from every rule here and there. Like, heartli is not a regular word and there's an irregular additional a in it - but still it's no hitler or even hilter anymore, it's heartli. Not quite heartly, but everybody gets that it's close. 

I have no doubt about regimes in North Korea, Pol Pot's Cambodia and such - they are plain evil and wrong. With perhaps a few per cents of something good and perhaps one per cent of something great (even feces contain vitamins, after all) North Korea is plain bad, unfair, wrong. I also have no doubt that Nazi Germany after they started eliminating their enemies and Jews, was also plain evil. But when it comes to the USSR... I have never heard of Americans or Britons defecting to North Korea, for example. Yet there actually were Americans who moved/defected to the USSR or USSR-allied Socialist countries - take the singer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Reed" rel="nofollow - Dean Reed , for example. So, there were not only intelligent officers. 

The USSR (=Soviet Union) had that Pythonesque aura, you know. Not as funny, sometimes even tragic, but there often was so much comedy even in those tragedies. So, tragicomic. 

For example, the first man in space from other country than the USA or the USSR was from Czechoslovakia. Yes, a weak excuse for Prague' 1968 - but still. The second one was from Poland. There was a state program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interkosmos" rel="nofollow - Interkosmos , they also have sent to space, among others, a Bulgarian, a Syrian (!), and even a person from Capitalist France! Yes, the first French citizen to ever fly to outer space traveled there on the Soviet rocket. His name was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF_Od6BiQV4" rel="nofollow - Jean-Loup Chretien, back then only the USSR sent foreign citizens to space, as far as I can understand. He was the military officer of the Capitalist country and in 1982, before Perestroika, before Gorbachev, he was allowed to travel somewhere on the Soviet rocket. I mean, he got access to some Soviet space program secrets, to some details of the capsule, of the systems working in the rocket. There was no problem about it. 

When in countries of true dictatorship like North Korea or Nazi Germany they say that everybody should serve in the military, it means every living person. I have told you that in the USSR there was a terrible hazing in the military since the 1960s (when the government allowed/let the former prisoners to serve in the army, and the former prisoners brought the prison traditions to the army), but... bingo! - engineer was the most popular Soviet profession, engineers effectively constituted the Soviet middle class, people mainly studied for engineers at the Polytechnic Institutes, all male students of which had one 40-days training course in the military (where they hardly suffered from real hazing) and they all graduated from the Institutes as lieutenants to never serve in the military anymore... Yes, it means, that lots of Soviet men, the core of the Soviet middle class, actually never really served in the army (and so never experienced army hazing), at all. Meanwhile, by the law, the army service was obligatory for all Soviet males. If we count one 40 days' training for service - it was really obligatory for all males... And this is one example of the Pythonesqueness of the USSR. 

Add to this the excellent Soviet TV series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Z53uN6y10" rel="nofollow - about Sherlock Holmes , the Soviet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xxm5O3cuZk" rel="nofollow - adaptation of Three Musketeers , the Soviet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g07OHHFM0hQ" rel="nofollow - version of Three Men In A Boat (which included many scenes not depicted in the book, many decent tunes, three traveling women to accompany three men, and even one light foot fetish scene in the protagonist's dream), the Soviet children's movie about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buratino" rel="nofollow - Buratino (Pinocchio re...make?) with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn4ws9AZA8g" rel="nofollow - its excellent songs . 

I do not think in Cuba or North Korea they did Sherlock Holmes TV series...  I've never watched one. 

Plus to that, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY-_zVMnIGE" rel="nofollow - Elton John performed there , Samantha Smith https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0DDQ3TEZeE" rel="nofollow - visited it . 

Soviet folk-rock band Pesniary even made a song definitely influenced by Gentle Giant: 

So, the last paragraph matched the topic well. And I can stand Gentle Giant. 

It may be something visual that bothers you. Maybe it's because Kerry was too thin and polite and delicate, he was no Keith Emerson in terms of machoism. Maybe it's because Shulman brothers were of a wrestlemen physique, consider Ray Shulman's arms/hands/fingers. Maybe it was cover art, or song tiltes. The AtT album cover may look unsuitable if not offensive to some listeners aka watchers. There were bands with more fantasy-wise or more aggressive or more mysterious album covers. 

You may not notice such things, but they may notice you... And your brain may notice them automatically. I don't know whether that's to be titled subconscious, subliminal, whatever influences. I'm not sure it's as deep as sub-something. You simply may omit such minutiae consciously and they may ruin your perception. I mean, you can say, you are the listener and not the watcher, first and foremost. Yet you look at the album covers, you read the titles of the songs, you use YouTube for your listening needs and every GG video is on YouTube...