Proclivities wrote:

I agree with most of it, even though I've probably never listened to it start to finish. 

I don't necessarily agree with the article, but it's an interesting perspective:
The Most Important Album of 1968 Wasn’t The White Album. It Was Beggars Banquet.

 Steely_D wrote:
Maybe rock opera doesn't fit, but progressive rock doesn't really mean anything since progress never stops. My college roommate in the mid '70s was a DJ at the college radio station. He once pulled a few LP's off the shelves to show me that people had written "Progressive" in black marker across the face of 90% of them.

 rhahl wrote: 
Sorry, but Tales From Topographic Oceans is progressive rock, famous for extended multipart mind-expanding complex pieces - but it's not rock opera.

The best example of rock opera could be Tommy, but I prefer Quadrophenia. It takes a while, because it's a complex dissection of the loneliness and disenfranchisement of a teen in London. He tries many ways to feel good, fit in, and the band explores the different settings and emotions at length.

I went back to my mother. I said "I'm crazy, ma. Help me!"
She said, "I know how you feel son, 'cause it runs in the family."

 Steely_D wrote:
Rock operas are a genre that I am not partial to but it's obvious from a quick review that The Revealing Science of God is a good example of them. I will listen to it when I am in the mood, probably during a long drive.

The page 99 test is about perceiving the quality of the writing. That is independent of plot. For instance, if you read any page in John Berger's  "Into Their Labors," which is a collection of loosely related short stories,  the vivid details and intelligence in his writing will make an impression even if you are not interested in French peasant life as it existed just before disappearing in the 1980's..   https://www.goodreads.com/series/172398-into-their-labours

 rhahl wrote: 
I should've picked an old favorite The Revealing Science of God from Tales From Topographic Oceans. 

And, if you use the "99 test" you'll miss some fantastic experiences in the name of efficiency. First example in my head is Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon. Another example: Marathon Man by William Goldman. When the authors drop the bomb, it's only meaningful if you've participated in the buildup. (For goodness' sake, don't read the plot summary. Just enjoy the ride.) The punchline means little without the preceding exposition - and so avoiding the exposition might be efficient, but it's ultimately a joyless process. And I'm thinking that art is all about joy.

 miamizsun wrote: 
Back when they were released I had Tull's first 5 albums, I bailed after Thick As A Brick. I'm thinking I need to revisit Brick.
Each album was different, and I think under rated.
 

here on rp?

anything jethro tull (ian anderson)

 Steely_D wrote:
Good examples. Both songs were new to me. One useful way to judge books is the "page 99 test," which holds that the quality of writing on page 99 is representative of the whole. It really works and I often use the same approach with music

I am not looking for greatest hits, but great songs I don't know about yet, so that I can listen to them in a session of good music.. Laboriously listening to entire albums is not efficient (assuming that I can accurately evaluate what is there by hearing a few bars) and defeats my primary goal of listening to lots of good songs together.

So...I could easily hear the quality of musicianship and creativity in Star Chaser from the beginning, and clicked into a few spots, but Yes songs usually leave me cold and this one is not likely to change that opinion, so I won't follow up.  (Edit - listened to it from beginning to end, same impression but 6:40 to 7:38 is to my taste.)

Starless sounded interesting from the beginning. By clicking to various parts I got a quick impression of the whole, which didn't change after a more careful listen, that being the second half is much more interesting than the first half, but overall it is a good piece and I will listen again. Thanks for pointing it out.

 Steely_D wrote: 
I figured that was probably what you meant - the 'skimming through' is more like a snippet, but sometimes it works - in a pinch.  It's funny in the song comments here how there will occasionally be someone bitching about lack of dynamics in a song that sounds perfectly fine.  It's also odd how many people there are who brag about their sound systems in the song comments.  Jeez, it's 2017, not 1974.

 Proclivities wrote: 
Well, you've got me thinking of my childhood and AM radio, and "Band of Gold" and "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and it's true that there are songs that have their own value even if they're through a little transistor radio.

In my response, though, I was thinking how much good music gets missed if someone skims through it on YouTube, though.

 Steely_D wrote: 
"Real music" rarely needed full dynamics for me; the most over-produced, corporate rock crap like Toto, Styx, Journey, or Foreigner seemed about as far away from "real music" as one could get - despite how polished and well-produced it was. Of course, I prefer to hear well-produced music but it's not my criteria for the quality or emotion of the actual songs.  I won't even get into discussing Yes.

 rhahl wrote:

I don't see that as argumentative, but it sounds a lot like what "kids these days" would say. 

It misses a lot of ideas: youtube sound sucks. Real music needs full dynamics and, ideally, no compression to save bandwidth. So, although it's a bit much to expect vinyl - you should absolutely be using FLAC or something similar to actually hear what the artist intended. Through speakers with some distance between them. And they probably should be bigger than your hand and more expensive than your lunch.

Also, most of the records that are really, truly great aren't necessarily little instant earworms. They're delicate, developing ideas that come to a culmination of emotion that takes some work. A great story isn't "And then he died." It's the rigorous development of the story so that, when he does die, you actually care what's going on. Some songs require your attention. Can you love "Sound Chaser" by choosing "songs by Yes" and skipping through until you find something that catches your ear? No. Can you skip through "Starless" and understand its emotion. No. It takes more than twelve minutes, longer if you're lucky.

Really loving music - loving it - makes it more than a commodity or even more than a greatest hits package. It's a time commitment, which seems to be an impediment to some people.

 kurtster wrote:
The economics for the user is more about time and effort than money. Playing vinyl requires much more effort than CDs or ripped files—clean the disc, clean the needle, find out where the goddamned 60 Hz hum is coming from this time...

I generally listened to my vinyl albums once—when I taped them. The fragility of vinyl, the lack of portability, and the effort required drove me to buy chrome cassettes by the case. I generally rip every cd I buy too, to the point where I have some I've never listened to straight from the disc, but the process is much easier and generally only needs to happen once. The needle never jumps when somebody slams a door and I never run out of space in the middle of a song. And that 60 Hz hum is gone for good.

Editing was also a pain. When I rip a CD getting rid of a bad song means hitting the delete key. Making a mix tape took at least as long as the resulting mix—usually much, much longer. Selecting songs for my last mix disc took maybe 5 minutes, at least for the first cut. Ordering and editing down to one disc's worth...maybe six hours over two weeks. It's still work, I just spend it more on getting the final result I want and less of the mechanics of doing it. Decide you need an uptempo number between songs three and four on a tape? Start over. Digital? Drag & drop.

There was always the temptation to inflate the music to fill the space, but artists released EPs on vinyl and they still do on CD and download. The first double LP was Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde in 1966, so that wasn't exactly a response to CDs.

So I don't miss much about vinyl...except cover art. There was some serious creativity applied to that, often far beyond what went into the music.

 ScottN wrote: 
I don't understand what you mean. Side one of Blood on the Tracks minus "Idiot Wind" would be a good side for you?
I couldn't imagine it with out that song. 

 Lazy8 wrote: 
I think it is more due to a change in media than economics.  In the 80's we went from a vinyl media format that worked with 40 to 45 minutes to CD's which held 80 minutes.  There was a feeling that all of the space needed to be filled, even if it meant that some material that would not have made the album cut because of space, would now be used to fill up a CD.  The there were the hidden cuts at the very end of a CD.  We have now readjusted and the process of what goes into an album is more thought out now from beginning to end in order to deal with the space.

The extra space also accelerated the decline in vinyl because now you had to choose between getting some songs vs all of the songs.  Were the extra songs gonna be missed ?  The collector part in most people didn't want to miss out on getting everything, even if the extra was sub par.  

The industry readjusted a bit too late when it started to release double LP's in the 90's to compensate, but it was too late.  That's why some of the most expensive collector vinyl was made in the 90's.  Now with the rebirth of vinyl, double album reissues are now the rule rather than the exception.  

Its kinda funny in a way, we have gone full circle and vinyl is back, CD's are dying.  And that also brings us back to album sides.  There were many albums that once we got to know them, we ended up playing one side almost exclusively on vinyl.  Just because of the mix.  The other stuff was forgotten or ignored because there was that one song you couldn't endure with the rest, so rather than suffer through that song, the whole side was ignored.  The digital age allows us to deal with that one song and enjoy more of the whole.  Or not.

2¢

 rhahl wrote:
Yeah, there are albums like that. I try not to buy those.

When I score a new CD I always give it a listen straight thru. I want to hear the songs in the context the musicians intended.

Side 2 of The Cars first album is one seamless piece of music. The songs melt into each other and isolated they feel...incomplete. Same is true (for me at least) for Bowie's Station to Station. Then there's the last side of the Beatles' white album. Some things just belong in context.

Repeated listening to songs that didn't grab me the first time often brings an appreciation I would have missed in a quick scan. Of my last half dozen album purchases I can think of fewer than one song per disc that I'd hit the skip button for.

 maryte wrote: 
That's not how it is, I like lots of music. The trick is to have the time to listen to good ones many times. For instance, the Eric Clapton album below has three good songs, I've Got a Rock N'roll Heart (justly famous, the best one here), Ain't Gong Down, and The Shape Your In (both new to me). The rest of them are ok, just standard Clapton. 

Albums are full of filler, like the congealed corn syrup in a Quaker Granola Bar. That is due to economics, not nutrition.