Speaker 1There's more records we need to talk about Go on In the progressive rock scene Because as we kind of pointed out This was a pretty good year for progressive rock Yeah, yeah Jethro Tull's Songs from the Wood Is pretty much considered one of their landmark albums Isn't it? It's considered the first in a trilogy The so-called folk rock trilogy Which I've never quite understood Because folk music was always a part Of the sound of Jethro Tull But I think there's something about the lyrics That kind of become more bucolic With this trilogy of albums Songs from the Wood, Heavy Horses and Stormwatch Though Stormwatch Stormwatch is quite urban, I think It's very dark But people always talk about those three Particularly with Stormwatch I've never quite understood Where it's seen as part of this trilogy But anyway, Songs from the Wood Has got this very earthy, bucolic quality to it Lots of acoustic guitars Jack in the Green There's something very, very English about it Very much about the English countryside And I think that This is one of those albums where That really Beautifully gels with the whole
Speaker 2Musical approach Yeah, I mean, I think, you know The cover, the music And this is one of those Again, a bit like Going for the One And Airy Ferry Nonsense It's as detached from 1977 As you can get But it's very confident in itself I always saw this as kind of As their Gentle Giant album Because there's a lot of Very complex I think it was quite influenced by
Speaker 1Vocal Especially the vocal rhythms
Speaker 2And harmonies There's a lot of keyboards on this album as well I mean, that's what I think Differentiates this from the other folk The other albums of the folk rock trilogy That Heavy Horses is quite guitar-oriented Stormwatch has got a different sound again Whereas this is very heavy on the keyboards I think, the synths Yeah, it's a good album It's got a nice feel And there's one album I connect with this This year And it's that Ian Anderson was, I think In the early years of Jeff Duttle You think of Benefit You think of Aqualung His lyrics were Very dark Very real Very connected With a way of life That was early 1970s Britain You know, these were almost like Poetry Vignettes With almost that kitchen sink reality of Britain Whereas Songs from the Wood Couldn't be further from that And another artist who had it Was, I think, Roy Harper That Harper starts the decade Being this kind of kitchen sink poet With these amazing albums You know, Stormcot, Life Mask You name it And his album this year Bullying the Ming Vase Is the most textured, bucolic, airy I know there's Watford Gap Which kind of slightly contradicts it But it's got a very luxurious soundscape As if this guy, like Anderson Who was really connected to the kind of I don't know, you know Brutish reality of early 70s Britain Is suddenly living In a very detached reality In a manor house
Speaker 1Okay, but let me counter that By saying two years before this He'd made an album called Minstrel in the Gallery That's not very down to earth either, is it?
Speaker 2That is what was on the lips of everybody Who was at A Little Chef in 1975
Speaker 1But you're right, I mean Roy Harper, I mean obviously The side long piece on Bullying the Ming Vase One of these days in England is Well, the title itself alone Tells you kind of all you need to know really Something about getting back to the country Getting back to the English countryside Pining for that way of life Maybe after the grim Maybe because life in England During the mid-70s was a bit grim It was horrible The power cuts and all that stuff Cost of living So there is a sort of
Speaker 2It's like life in England in 2023
Speaker 1It's a bit Well, it is a bit, isn't it? But also Anthony Phillips The Geese and the Ghost I suppose has that too, doesn't it? Almost a pining for another time A very English In the case of the Geese and the Ghost It's almost a pining for It's got a medieval vibe to it, isn't it? Or sort of lutes and crum Am I making this up? Lutes and crumhorns on that record? It might be Maybe I'm thinking of Griffin You're thinking of Griffin? I'm thinking of Griffin
Speaker 2Yeah, there might be
Speaker 1There might as well be There might as well be That's what I'm saying
Speaker 2No, it's a lovely album I think that The reason why Geese and the Ghost Probably sounds the way it does Is that I think he'd been writing this stuff Since leaving Genesis In some ways It's a great album If you wanted to know Where Genesis might have gone to After Trespass In another life It's a really Lovely Rambling Lots of 12-string Lovely harmonies Lovely melodies And it's not pompous What's interesting is It's pure prog rock You know we're talking about Fand is pomp Kansas is pomp The Yes has got pomp This is pure progressive rock In the sense of Very complicated harmonies Lots of 12-string As we say Lots of bucolic imagery But what it isn't Is pompous Are you saying It's pomp-less I'm saying it's pomp-less Rather than pomp-us It's pomp-less As opposed to pomp-less It's pomp-less prog It's just a very sweet I mean it's closer to In a way Kind of the feel Of Fairport Convention Unhalf-bricking at times But I think this is probably Because he'd written this material Probably between 71 and 76 And he'd just got his record contract And recorded it And it's got Phil Collins' guest appearance Which is very, very sweet You know he sings a couple of tracks And it's him His kind of more full me Understated Best in a way And he sings it In a very unselfconscious Right Slightly reedy way And Collins' voice Is very pretty and reedy On this album And I think it's a really nice album I have it
Speaker 1I mean I can't say I've listened to it recently But I remember thinking It was very pretty Yeah It's got a sort of Mike Oldfield-y Yeah Vibe to it as well It's got that Post-Tubular Bell Reedy-ness as well
Speaker 2And I think
Speaker 1There's not much There's not much A sort of rock-drum If I'm remembering rightly There's not a lot of Sort of rock-drum Sort of aspect to it No It's mostly Rhythmless in that Not rhythm-less In the sense there are rhythms Obviously But there's no rhythm section On a lot of the tracks, right?
Speaker 2But there's an I think what you hit on there as well That all of these albums They're pining for an England That possibly never was And that fits in with The Virginia Astley album We talked about From Gardens Where we feel secure Oh yeah Yeah And I think And it's a nostalgia For something that Possibly never existed And Sunset Wading
Speaker 1By John G. Perry Yeah Yeah
Speaker 2It's a nostalgia for something That possibly never existed It's like I always think of that To go back to The Avengers And the new Avengers The proper one That they were pining For an England And an Englishness That never actually existed
Speaker 1Right But in a way That's what That's what art is all about Isn't it? It's a fantasy in a way It's a reflection of reality That isn't reality But it can make you It's funny It makes you feel You know There's so many people That say If you can remember The 60s You'll remember How grim it was If you can remember The 70s You'll remember How grim it was If you can remember The 80s You'll remember How naff it was And yet We have incredible nostalgia For the 60s 70s And 80s Mainly because Of the music And the movies That came From the 60s And the 70s Well I remember
Speaker 2Because obviously I went to the cinema I was kind of My dad got me In underage To see James Bond films The criminal Yeah But what I remember Is the music First of all It's the Experience of the cinema Then it was The John Barry music That entranced me But then the thing That made me sick Was the cigarette smoke That basically People are going to forget The cinemas Were covered in clouds Which probably made The films look more Atmospheric as well In a bizarre way But you know Yes there was A kind of Horrible Stinky Grimy Reality Of things falling apart In the 60s And 70s In Britain
Speaker 1Yeah 70s Sort of Working men's club Beer and fags Beer and fags In the 80s In the English sense Of the word
Speaker 2Yeah that was my house
Speaker 1Yeah Really Beer and cigarette smoke Oh yeah And seedy clubs
Speaker 2My parents Were chain smokers And drank incessantly And it put me off It for life
Speaker 1That's probably why you don't Yeah it's exactly why you don't Yeah So Tim I can see Where we're headed With 1977 It's going to be A four parter I've revised My previous estimate Of it's going to be A three part Because we've Still got some More progressive rock That we want to talk about Well there's two other There's two other Sort of elements Of progressive rock That manifest this year That I want to talk about I love them both
Speaker 2Yeah One of them
Speaker 1Is the darker side Of progressive rock The most nihilistic strand Of progressive rock I can think of Certainly post Crimson Post Van de Graaff There is this band From Belgium That come out Called Universe Zero Mm-hmm With their first album This year This is the darkest Progressive rock We've heard Outside of the sort of Van de Graaff King Crimson Axis Isn't it Well perhaps Henry Cow Is also a reference point The kind of Rocking opposition thing But Yeah What a sound I mean I mentioned Medieval in relation To Anthony Phillips There's something Almost medieval And primeval About this sound Isn't it They're using Bassoons and oboes And these very Woody Earthy textures But playing this Dissonant The sort of music That only men Could possibly like Like, apologies for being chauvinistic. I think you've got the show cancelled.
Speaker 2God knows how it kind of got signed in a way. You know, I'm glad that these things were released. I mean, Art Zoid, I was kind of putting that sort of territory as well. And yeah, you're right. It was a kind of a bizarre. I mean, I suppose that cuneiform records in the States are one of the natural homes for this kind of music now, aren't they? But yeah, I agree. I mean, I think magma possibly had an aspect of it.
Speaker 1Yes, definitely. As well.
Speaker 2Definitely. And it's music that, how can I put this? It's a bit like goth for me, which we'll come on to in the 1987 episode we're going to do, that I kind of like it all when I hear it. Actually, with goth, an awful lot of goth and an awful lot of this I like, but I don't necessarily remember or take to heart in the way that I do other music.
Speaker 1It's oppressively, relentlessly dark. There are no moments where you can breathe and come up for air. So that would be the difference, for example, between a Van de Graaff or a King Crimson.
Speaker 2Yeah, and even possibly another European band who kind of operate in a very dark, nihilistic, progressive territory, but equally cinematic, of course, is Goblin, Suspiria. Oh, yes. Which is a great album. But I suppose there are moments of playfulness and beauty in that as well as the darkness.
Speaker 1So definitely an acquired taste, but again, completely unique in what they did. The other sort of aspect of progressive rock I want to talk about, which is an aspect I'm a big fan of. And I say that advisedly because a lot of progressive rock fans sneer at it, is what I see as something very much in the ascendancy in this year, which is progressive pop or progressive rock bands adopting lighter, more pop aspects to their sound. And we'll come on to talk about this when we talk about artists like Alan Parsons Project and Supertramp. But there's a band in the category we want to talk about now. And the reason they're in this category is because they were traditionally and historically very much a traditional progressive rock band. But Camel this year made their album Rain Dancers, which had elements of funk, pop, a nod to disco music in places too. I love it. And I actually think it's one of my favourite Camel records. It is lighter. It does have much more of a strong pop sensibility. There is one eye perhaps on perhaps having a crossover, you know, hit single. But I think Camel always had that slightly lighter side to them anyway, didn't they? It's not like Peter Hamill suddenly decided. Yeah. Although Peter did later on do Skin, which we're not particularly a fan of that record. There are good tracks on it.
Speaker 2Sorry, the ham. But anyway, well, Camel are one of those bands I kind of, I'm a bit ambivalent about. I mean, they were one of, you know, I saw them live when I was a teenager, partly because they were one of those bands that played the venues and were affordable in the genre. And they were always likeable and entertaining and so on. Likeable. That's a good word. Yeah. But they've never, for me, been up there with the King Crimson's, the Vandegraaff's, the Yes's and so on. They've never quite had the weight. But this album, you know, if I were to choose albums that I think are strong by them, I think this would certainly be one of them. Breathless, I always really quite liked as well. Yeah, that's the next one after this. Love it. And I even like the Rupert Hine, you know, I Can See Your House from Here. Oh, it's an amazing record. Amazing. And Moon Madness, of course, has a lovely feel. Snow Goose. It's a great record. It's quite funny. My dad used to do this where he'd say, he'd go, I bloody hate the Beatles. Then again, Long and Winding Road, beautiful song. Yesterday. And then he'd go through. The whole Beatles catalogue. And I'm saying, yeah, Camel, a bit second rate for me. But then again, yeah, don't be a bit like that.
Speaker 1Before you know it, you've listed the entire discography.
Speaker 2Before I know it, I've listed the entire, the single factor. What a brilliant album. I like that record too. So, yeah, I think it's one of the stronger albums. My favourite on it is the one with the Brian Eno guest appearance, Tell Me, which almost has that kind of.
Speaker 1I think you've made a schoolboy error there, Tim. I think the one with Eno on is called Elke.
Speaker 2Elke. Is it? Unless he's on. Unless he's on two.
Speaker 1Unless he's on two tracks. All right, Elke. Tell me. And Tell Me. Tell Me is beautiful though.
Speaker 2No, but Tell Me. I think maybe this is where I'm getting confused. Yeah. Let's hook it
Speaker 1up on the source of all things.
Speaker 2Wikipedia or the internet. Tell Me has a few moments that are very like the second side of Before and After Science by Brian Eno.
Speaker 1I can tell you now, pop listeners, Eno is not on Tell Me. So Tim has made a terrible. His influence. His influence is terrible. He's made a terrible error.
Speaker 2But yeah, those two tracks, Elke and Tell Me, that have that kind of Before and After Science ambience, they're probably amongst my favourite tracks on the album. But yeah, I think I quite like the playfulness of them using funk and disco elements. And of course, they've got Richard Sinclair on vocal voice. Yeah. He probably had the strongest voice of anybody who sang for Camel, really. So he gives this and Breathless a character that perhaps the other Camel albums lack,
Speaker 1really. But it's funny because, you know, one of my very good. One of my very good friends, Michael from Michael Akerfeldt from Opeth. He's a massive, massive Camel fan. I mean, a lot of his guitar style is based on Andy, is influenced by Andy Latimer's approach. And by the way, even if you concede that Camel were never a first division progressive rock band, which I would actually take issue with, I think they were. But you'd have to concede that Andy Latimer is one of the greatest. He's got an ice.
Speaker 2Again, I'm going to contradict myself. Ice. What a great track. Oh, my goodness. And the tour I saw them on first was nude. And actually, I thought. Another great album. I thought it was a really strong album, really strong performance. Camel, first rate progressive rock band.
Speaker 1You've completely undermined your own statement. I don't like them, but I really like them. But anyway, my point was this, that Michael was a Camel, big influence on him. And I'll say to him, oh, you know, what albums are you talking about? He said, yeah, Moon Madness and Snow Goose. I said, well, what do you think of the albums Rain Dance and Breathless? Never bothered to listen to those. And I think there's this. To me, that blows my mind because, A, because they're not that different. Definitely a sense of continuity. But, but B, there's something about Camel that has always sounded, you know, partly perhaps because of Andy Latimer's guitar sound, you know, and his guitar approach. It's always sounded quintessentially them, you know, whether they're making more pop orientated music or more progressive orientated. I find myself, you know, preferring the more poppy records they made.
Speaker 2I know I can see that Rain Dancers would definitely be in the top three.
Speaker 1Yeah, Breathless, New Single Factor.
Speaker 2This is the thing for me with Camel, why I guess I put them in that second rate category. That there's something very mild overall. That it's never intensely beautiful or absurd.
Speaker 1Oh, I think it is intensely beautiful.
Speaker 2Nor is it viciously atonal.
Speaker 1It's not viciously atonal. I mean, that's, like I said to you, there was something always that was on the lighter side of progressive rock for Camel. In fact, they always had more.
Speaker 2They remind me of Tortoise. They had, why Tortoise? Because Tortoise did the same thing. There was something for me that I kind of thought, it's post-rock, do something. Okay. You know, it's really pretty. I liked it. Grab me. So I liked Tortoise. There's not a Tortoise album I don't like, but I can't love it because it doesn't pull me into, and that's the same with Camel. There probably isn't a Camel album I don't like, but I don't love it because it doesn't rip me apart, either in terms of its vicious atonality or its absolute beauty. And when we were talking about, you know, Farewell to Kings. By God, that gets nasty at times.
Speaker 1Well, I feel differently. I mean, you know, I do get pretty blown away by the beauty and the lyrical quality of Camel. But they are, you know, they are much more on the pop side. Their use of harmony and chords was always, quote unquote, nicer. Yeah. They weren't going to launch into any sort of ham style dissonant glump thing. But that was their sound.
Speaker 2Isn't it strange that Camel never had the hits? Whereas obviously Supertramp. Yeah. Only had the hits. They had some of the biggest albums of all time. You know, Breakfast in America, I think it's the fourth biggest album in France of all time and was the biggest for a long time. And it was huge in America and Britain, of course. You know, it has a kind of popular appeal that rumours had.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. It's just one of those things. Who knows? Not the right song. Maybe not the wrong songs at the wrong time or the right song at the wrong time. Maybe they didn't have a, apart from Richard Sinclair, briefly as he was in the band, maybe they didn't have a convincing singer when they needed to have a convincing singer or a convincing front man. I don't know. I mean, you could say all of those things about other artists too, who for whatever reason did break through. But I mean, the records did well, did well enough that the band were able to still be, you know, headlining venues like Hammersmith Apollo or Hammersmith Odeon as it was then at the time and definitely sustained through, certainly into the mid 80s. This is a very successful, perhaps, as you say, second tier progressive rock act that never quite transcended or sort of jumped up to the sort of stadium arena level of some of the other bands.
Speaker 2I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? Because, you know, you're entirely right that when you're saying that other bands actually, some of them didn't have, you know, BGH to a certain extent, didn't have a vibrant front man or particularly strong identity. Yet they did pull out of the bag a few European hits that were very big and sustained them for long. longer-possibly even in camel so yes it is interesting and you're right you know when i saw them when i saw 16 17 um they were selling out the manchester apollo there was a dedicated audience they definitely had a following
Speaker 1i think bjh went a little bit further in the in the pop direction than camel did i mean yeah one of their big breakthrough songs in germany i think was that song hymn yeah which with all its christian overtones and sing-along quality very anthemic quality that concludes our look at what was happening in the world of of progressive rock in 1977 which is no small amount of things you know as you say all sorts of directions different directions people are going off at but there's a lot of integrity there there's a lot of people that are still very much creatively the top of their game aren't they so in a way this dovetails beautifully into our next category uh which i think we'll wind up this particular episode with which is kind of progressive art slash art pop so it's it's a it's it's a little bit more pop it's too pop to be in the progressive section i guess is what i'm saying and there are some interesting entries we've put them in this category and i think people might raise an eyebrow at why abba and carpenters would be in this category this particular year but so let's start with those i mean you kind of mentioned in the in the previous episode this is assuming we haven't cut this bit out folks which does happen you mentioned in the previous episode about how there was a strong element of of progressive rock in abba the album and i think you hear that most clearly on the opening track eagle don't you yeah it starts off very floydy very floydy doesn't it very atmospheric and strident with the lead guitar and the reverberating flute and they get it right
Speaker 2i mean it actually it sounds as good as any progressive rock band you know when i was saying that camel was second rate abba were a first rate progressive rock band when they wanted when they
Speaker 1wanted to be yeah absolutely and again you can look back you know with the benefit of hindsight you can look back and say oh yeah that kind of was always there yeah um if you go back to things like the title track of arrival which mike oldfield covered you know later on in the 70s there was a
Speaker 2great sophistication of the album and then there was a great sophistication of the album and then there was a great sophistication though in their writing and harmonies and melodies and arrival once more it wasn't only the music they'd also got their visual identity together from the logo to the photography every detail of it was as mapped out as a pink floyd album unless we forget
Speaker 1this album also has a three-piece suite on it the girl with the golden hair indeed what could be more progressive rock than that although of course they would probably say well that comes from the more what they were aiming for they were trying to they were beginning to dabble with the idea of we're going to write a musical uh which of course they would later go on to do with chess and and
Speaker 2then obviously the mamma mia they were highly musical and i think that there probably was a kind of a tangential genuine interest in progressive music because they were perfectionists decent musicians and they were probably aware of cutting edge productions all around so you know i'm sure that abba were very aware of pink floyd oh complete
Speaker 1i think they were always very curious i mean you have a disco music giorgio maroda
Speaker 2as well giorgio maroda
Speaker 1you know you can hear that clearly in dancing queen but everything they took this is the brilliance and this may be the swedish thing this is the brilliance of those guys everything they took was completely recast in their own image and it didn't sound derivative at all and it's the same with a song like eagle you would never immediately think our progressive rock pink floyd just sounds like abba but and that's the beauty of this record name of the game it's quite dark this famous swedish melancholia the fact the songs are very often about unrequited love breakups divorces this is the album i remember coming into my family's house so it's actually the first abba record i would have listened to and some people would argue it's not it's a bit of a step down from arrival but actually i love it just as much and partly because it is even more diverse than arrival i
Speaker 2think it's a bit of a step down from arrival i think it's a bit of a step down from arrival it's possibly i mean arrival was the album i remember being in our house and i loved it this i think i liked slightly less at the time but only slightly less and i think in retrospect i probably like it slightly more i don't think there's much between them actually no this is
Speaker 1pink this is these two albums are for me this is abba they're absolutely this is the imperial
Speaker 2though i would i agree with you though you're going to say yeah and i think the visitors does what you're saying that again with the visitors they're listening to some quite cutting-edge electronic pop music but they're making abba and it's a very stripped down production but it sounds like nothing other than abba even though the soundscape is so different from eagle so different from arrival
Speaker 1i i guess what i'm saying is that this is their imperial phase in the sense that it doesn't seem it doesn't seem to matter what they do it will be massive yeah and they're pulling it off yeah and they're pulling it off in a way that is quintessentially only them and yeah they are being magpies in the sense they're borrowing from disco they're borrowing from pop they're borrowing from schlag i mean thank you for the music is on this record which is like a classic scandinavian schlager song and yet it just sounds like abba you know and it's now one of the most popular songs of
Speaker 2all well that's i think we said before that in there are certain artists where they are magpies but everything they take becomes them prince is a great example yeah um and bowie is a great example of that and i think you know i've always said that i think to me a lot of great music comes from two sources and it's one it's the mark hollis gotta get him in this oh my god i
Speaker 1hope you had your drinks on
Speaker 2standby there guys it's the mark hollis van morrison purely feeding off their own emotion and world or it's the bowie prince taking from everything externally and abba come from that really don't
Speaker 1they in a way yes but in every every way you kind of examine abba they kind of defy analysis aren't they because on paper they do everything wrong and yet somehow everything seems to work and this is what i mean by this being their imperial phase it's just like everything they did went to number one and you know they were terribly terribly unfashionable i mean i remember speaking to andy partridge about this and he's saying well at the time abba was like you know just everything we hated about mainstream music and we did now i can listen to abba and i can hear the genius and i think you'll hear that from a lot of people that kind of i mean i was young enough to be able to naive enough to be able to appreciate it without any strings attached but i guess if you were into punk and you were a teenager at the time abba would have been the devil incarnate probably that and the bgs doing saturday night fever would have been the devil incarnate wouldn't it
Speaker 2to a degree it was but you know again luckily i kind of liked all sides of it so you know again we'll probably come to saturday night fever but um i liked the abba stuff i liked the bg stuff it's probably the last time i liked it i think you know as a as in a fan buying the records you know because i weirdly i think i discovered the visitors retrospectively me also whereas this stuff i was buying at the time arrival the album i bought and i think that was it that i really liked them but that was why i left off because my tastes and perhaps the tastes
Speaker 1of my friends but also i think the albums that every household had were arrival and the album whereas the later albums that obviously didn't sell quite to that magnitude um my parents had arrival and they had the album and they had abba's greatest tears as well so yes of course i knew the early songs here with that amazing cover of the two couples on the park bench let's talk about the other the other sort of anomaly here carpenter's passages now um i don't know if you know this it's not a great carpenter's record because this is where carpenters seem to be flailing around for what to do next and this record has some some absurd moments on it trying them trying to be funky sexy pop doesn't work guys it doesn't work when richard and karen carpenter try to do sassy sexy funky pop just doesn't work they try to do a bit of opera on an evita medley doesn't work karen carpenter doing don't cry for me argentina you'd think would be amazing but it's actually quite a flat rendering of it she doesn't seem like she's engaged in it but it's mad and it has my favorite carpenter song on it which in itself is a cover version of a song by another group that we we we might be able to talk about clartu because they released an album this year clartu calling occupants of interplanetary craft one of the great cover versions for me and an example of a cover version and again this is just my opinion a cover version that completely blows the original out of the water it's epic it goes through all these different sections but there's something about it at the heart of it there's still this great song great arrangement and this sublime vocal interpretation i love the musical palette i love the arrangement it's ludicrous in the best possible way so for me this album gets a free pass because of this of this song and there's a few other good tracks on it but it's basically an album of one track for me and again it's completely progressive art pop
Speaker 2i mean i only know this track it's funny because i know it's all you need to know yeah i know a few carpenters albums and i have a few carpenter's albums and her voice is is utterly gorgeous and you can hear it today what's interesting is when you listen to people like lana del rey and a few contemporary singers you can see that karen carpenter still has an impact in contemporary culture she's got this kind of beautiful deathless narcotic voice which i was very drawn to and tracks like superstar i can play endlessly you know and this was a great song and i remember it on the radio and i liked it and and yes carpenters were one of those artists that were in every family's home usually the greatest hits collection it must be said so yeah i liked it i like the clartu original as well it's good
Speaker 1it's good it's just not as good for me yeah well
Speaker 2partly i don't think it's quite i think with clartu there was that slightly psychedelic pastiche element whereas this takes it into a totally different dimension her voice and so on it's it feels much more luxurious well i think it's a bit more luxurious i think it's a bit more luxurious i think it's a bit more whereas one is a kind of a daffy pastiche to a degree and a very good daffy pastiche the carpenters track is quintessentially carpenters but quintessentially insane as well you know um i agree i mean it's the lushness
Speaker 1you're just wading through lushness it's
Speaker 2like a luxury carpet that you're actually into with your knees up to your knees but you're loving
Speaker 1every second of the experience
Speaker 2it's only bettered really by i think arriving ufo by yes on to mason so a year afterwards
Speaker 1i quite like arriving ufo it's but it's not it's not uh well it's very
Speaker 2similar isn't it i wonder if arriving ufo was partly influenced by this
Speaker 1well i think that kind of sci-fi was very much in vogue wasn't it with star wars close encounters yeah those kind of things right tim let's move on to the real meat here now there's some albums that here that i think you and i could probably evangelize about till kingdom come let's let's deal with the 10cc family albums go on 10cc's deceptive bends and lol cream and kevin godley's grand 3lp conceptual folly you love it or you hate it you adore it you don't or you don't get it at all consequences should we start with that one consequences
Speaker 2we can do well consequences for me is the ultimate album years album in a way it's the sort of album that we'd have talked about when we had the idea for it although what i am going to say here to almost contradict the the evangelization of it is that the albums i really love from 1977 that i still play and still love as much we still haven't even got on to okay we're
Speaker 1near the end of a
Speaker 2second episode no no we will come on to that we will
Speaker 1okay so i'm going to be the one to evangelize about because this is consequences this is a top three from the from the year album
Speaker 2for me consequences okay i couldn't afford it at the time and it was really expensive and i remember that they were on something like magpie with the the gizmo the gizmotron and um i couldn't afford it the first godling cream album i could afford was l a year later which i think is a masterpiece i adore it's not as good as l so consequences i didn't really get to hear until the early 80s when i had the money to buy it it's fascinating you know it's it's one of the most bizarre popular music albums if you can call it that of all time and for that reason it belongs in this it's also one of
Speaker 1the most intricately designed records you will ever hear i mean the first record so just so folks just to explain to folks who don't know this record it's a 3lp concept about how the elements are going to destroy the planet earth and how a pianist composes a symphony it sounds ridiculous as i'm saying how a pianist composes a piece of music which basically counteracts the elements and becalms the earth again and saves humanity the whole of the first record is about it's almost entirely instrumental it's basically how the elements are gradually building up and encroaching on the planet earth and impacting on the planet earth so you have pieces which are just based around how the wind is working it's destructive power how water is working it's destructive power and one of the most incredible pieces of and this is 1977 remember this is before sampling there's a piece called flood where the rhythm of the piece is created by tape loops of water dripping now you just have to go and hear this to hear it for yourself to hear how incredible it is they spent weeks just constructing these rhythms using tape loops and they just didn't know how to do it they just didn't know how to do it they just didn't know how to use tape loops of individual drops of water and a lot of the rest of the record is based on this instrument that they invented which you you mentioned the gizmo which was a guitar an attachment to the guitar that enabled the guitar to sound like other instruments like cellos violins even saxophones and there's virtually no keyboards i think the only keyboard instrument is the piano isn't it on the record yeah everything else all of these incredible instruments woodwinds brass instruments is created with the gizmo and the record was originally conceived to be a demonstration record for the gizmo that record itself the degree of sound design i mean how they created the sound of a of a of a bee by recording a whole piece of music and then speeding it up a hundred times so apparently if you slow that bee down you get an unreleased piece of godly and cream music oh really i mean just that stuff blows my mind that attention to detail and sound design it just blows my mind it's a beautiful record the melodies are stunning and then the second and third record are um like this extended comedy dramatic skit with peter cook voicing almost all the voices the famous british comedian voice and i think this is where the more controversial element of the record comes in isn't it a lot of people just can't yeah but then interspersed between classic i mean you're gonna agree with me yeah what is that song for three o'clock at five o'clock in the morning lost weekend lost weekend with sarah vaughn oh my god yeah um and then the final side is the blintz overture the overture that the pianist has created to kind of counteract the i mean i'm described even as i'm describing it it sounds like and it is the greatest progressive rock folly of the 70s but i love this record it is like nothing else you will ever hear on
Speaker 2a on earth i know i really like it it's not my favorite godly and cream of my favorites are l and freeze frame i just think they're
Speaker 1magnificent but they're to me they're more like standard
Speaker 2albums they don't have any folly they've still got folly and ambition though and and and incredible attention to detail yeah i mean i i think it's a it's a great album and it's a wonderful um ludicrous folly as you've said nice so i appreciate it for that reason um i probably like the songs and the instrumental aspect more than the audio play that's running through it with peter cook and you're right the flood is absolutely stunning five o'clock in the morning last weekend yeah it's there's some good music and the gizmo does recreate orchestral sounds but in the way of a melatron it doesn't get them right so it has such a distinctive sound this album which is one of the things i you know when you're listening to some of the riffs what's the most distinctive thing about this album what it's not got and and i like it for this is when you said it's a kind of a progressive rock album it's not got any of the ridiculously tricky technical no there's no there's
Speaker 1no showboating yeah
Speaker 2yeah it's got more of a sense of groove or momentum and if it has any relationship to any progressive artist if you can call him that there's a certain aspect to the album where you think they've probably heard tubular bells herges ridge armadon and love the israeli records there's an aspect of mike oldfield's sensibility to me on this i don't know why um i can hear that more than any other artist in a way and of course it was recorded in the manner wasn't it as well where um oldfield recorded his okay um some of it was yeah yeah um and the story i like about this is that they just were carried away you know they left 10cc at the peak of their popularity to pursue this dream got completely lost in it with no nobody necessarily directing them and then they woke up almost when the album was being launched and it was being launched in front of record executives who were expecting a hit album from the two quirky songwriters of 10cc and they got this instrumental tour de force an ambitious concept and an audio drama come comedy and people were falling asleep at the table while they were listening to it and again to bring that john peel john peel was a huge 10cc fan but he thought this was one of the most awful works in the history of recorded music it's
Speaker 1definitely a polarizing record i've never quite understood it to why people take such exception to it people something really really hate it i think it's awful
Speaker 2um i think the i think godling cream did themselves for a while partly because of the negative reaction um because if l is them reigning themselves in it still insane and insanely creative um and they remained that way yeah it's it's a real labor of love and as you say the sonic attention to detail is amazing and there are pieces that i would treasure i sort of prefer music from consequences because the album didn't do that well and the company released a compilation called music from consequences of the more accessible moments and in a way i kind of prefer that so let's talk about just
Speaker 1to recap godly and cream left 10cc in order to make this album consequences 10cc meanwhile the other two members of 10cc eric stewart and graham goldman now left on their own without godly and cream went on to make a record called deceptive bends now we were talking about this earlier off air tim this is an interesting development because after this we pretty much don't like anything else they ever did and in fact the record after this is such a massive fall off isn't it in terms of creativity that it's this album deceptive bends which we both love is almost like how how did this work and my theory was is perhaps that a lot of the music was still developed was developed while godly and cream was still around yeah to give them perhaps a little bit more rigor in terms of the songwriting and the creativity but because it's right up there with the very best of the piece of production yeah i mean what's
Speaker 2interesting about this is that it's a brilliant piece of production when you're listening to the single good morning judge as an example it sounds great there are so many clever ideas for what is essentially still a very catchy pop song so i do think that once more this is a band operating at the top of their game my theory is slightly different in that my theory is that they were trying to show godly and cream left 10cc because they were trying to show godly and cream left 10cc that they could be the band they were and they could do it all and they did it all and i don't quite know why after this it's not only the creative drop-off the productions which aren't poor they're not poor productions but they're not remotely ambitious in the same way they're not remotely innovative in the same way that the band had been and there are a few songs after this album that i think are good but generally speaking this is it for me with 10cc they do this album which is a great album and i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and i think great conclusion to their first five albums and then that's it but to me i kind of i suppose i sort of feel it's them saying we can do this we can be everything just ourselves and they were almost accessing the godly and cream in their brain it's
Speaker 1a great album isn't it for me it's the last great 10cc album and it's right up there with the ones that precede it i think consequences obviously is the more ambitious it's got the it's got the real kind of how can we make a record like no one else has made a record and i think that kind of sensibility was missing from 10cc once they left in the same way that the great songwriting sensibility was perhaps missing from godly and cream when they were no longer working with graham goldman and eric stewart which is a great you know that kind of gestalt thing where you have these people that just beautifully dovetail together in the set in the different sensibilities they have create something that transcends the sum of its parts so two two amazing records for the 10cc fan this year basically is what we're saying and i think what
Speaker 2you're saying becomes more true with sort of you know 78 79 80 where i love l you know and l i think is a fantastic creative record same with freeze frame but interestingly enough i do think both sides miss each other as much as i love godly and cream sometimes they're missing that firm hand and sensibility because graham goldman is a great songwriter x stewart's a great songwriter and a great singer and you kind of feel that they might have been a bit like the beatles as you know obviously one of the great stories in popular music that had godly and cream been tempered by goldman and stewart ellen freeze frame might be that bit better they might be more relatable more heart and certainly had godly and cream been in 10cc on bloody tourists and look here they would have been greater creative statements that you kind of suddenly feel that they're missing each other although i'm still very happy to follow that godly and cream journey because it was so inspired and so um you know even to the point of the hits you know under your thumb and so in the early 80s when they redefine themselves again so
Speaker 1tim two last albums we have to talk about firstly now common wisdom says that most double albums should have been cut down and would have been better as single lps right that's the that's the cliche isn't it it's not true of this double album out of the blue by the electric light orchestra you know in many ways they're the greatest album of all every track on this i think just is a little slice of genius i mean what i love about you know out of the blue and electric light orchestra is is i guess what jeff lynn's big influence we're also very good at the beatles are always very good at every song created its own little universe you know its own little world and there's a lot of that going on with elo even though there is that kind of elo sound going through everything with the strings and everything just the quality of the songwriting here and also the fact that every song seems to have its own little personality its own little identity tells seems to tell its own story musically and lyrically and of course side three here you've got the prog friendly concerto for a mr blue sky their most their most well-known song but also you know lots of what the americans would call deep cuts on this record i'm a big fan of like the instrumental the whale song like it's over a song like stepping out the big ballads power ballad that ends the first first disc wild west hero all these sort of little thematic songs it's just a just a a great songwriter and a great producer really peaking at the top of his game everything sort of leading up to me anyway it seems like everything is leading up to this record for them what's your
Speaker 2feeling about this yeah i think there's a tremendous confidence it's a great record i mean my favorite yellow records are probably the first album which i think is great the one with roy wood i think it's amazing and i really like el dorado i think that's
Speaker 1i love on the third day face the music i mean they're all great records but there's something you know again we were talking earlier about a band when they kind of hit their imperial i agree yeah
Speaker 2this is it isn't it and i think an extent has an aspect of it you know this was always seen as quite a weak album when it came out discovery but um i think i like this i like
Speaker 1discovery although um again i think you know the title as the title would suggest they were kind of exploring disco a little bit but this album it's like every track just completely hits the target and i think you know i think i read somewhere that jeff lynn pretty much wrote all the songs for in like in two weeks i mean that that's that's when you know someone is really on fire and the fact that they wrote he wrote enough songs to create a double album as well but as
Speaker 2you say it's kind of one of those albums on one level it's kind of definitively creamily late 70s with the harmonies the production but you've also got in his music a tremendous sense of being loyal to his influences so the beatles figure strongly possibly even the beach boys in a certain tangential way and i've always kind of found the there's a sort of roy orbison and even dell shannon influence you could hear he loves that in what he was doing yeah but in some ways it was you know i think that the beatles album that had the most influence in the 70s is in some ways abbey road and especially that sweet on abbey road and you can hear that through the music of 10cc obviously wings but also elo and this was in some ways the last unselfconscious great album that came out of that beatles explosion of the
Speaker 160s it's it's just a divine piece of pop you know very very sophisticated not cool isn't it jefflin's never going to be cool is he but you know a bit like the bgs you just have to stand back and wonder at the at the the the sort of talent yeah for molding time after time after time i mean this is the this is the thing about bands like bgs and elo it didn't just do it once i'm not sure it didn't just do it once on one album they did it time after time and jefflin's a bit like that too just being able to somehow knock out these incredibly classy pop songs that sound like no one else but themselves i mean i understand the beatles lineage but elo completely by this point had their own sound and you can hear them leading up to it through those preceding albums and particularly the previous album new world record is kind of like a dry run in a way for although again it has some of the you know most famous you know most famous songs on it but it feels it feels like a dry run for this their magnum opus and having the confidence to do a you know a side long suite i'm guessing the record label took a bit of persuading maybe they didn't maybe they didn't but it's a you know it's always it's always a sort of slightly controversial move when a when a band that are kind of seen that seem to be at the peak of their powers decide suddenly they're going to make their grand double lp state at least it was in the 70s wasn't it you know but i think
Speaker 2that the success is New World Records probably meant they could do whatever the hell they loved it and they pulled it off whereas obviously tusk i think is a fantastic album it clearly hit the brand fairly badly this actually took the brand yeah several steps up i mean again they're one of those bands i remember when i was at school that you know regardless of fashion taste or fashion status lots of people like them and lots of people bought the seven inches in particular more than the album in some ways and partly it was the marketing i don't even remember there's a huge thing of course it's huge now but it was the kind of colored vinyl seven inch the last album i think we
Speaker 1should definitely just spend a little bit of time before we wrap up part two of 1977 is i mean i don't i personally don't think it's a great album i think it's a great artist that went on to make great albums but why this is significant and i think you're probably pointing this out is that this was the album that was the most popular album of all time artist separating himself from the band he came from in quite a successful way even if it is a stepping stone or a kind of watershed record which is the first peter gabriel album i think it's the weakest of of certainly the first few peter gabriel albums i'm a big fan of four four is where it really peaks for me i quite like bits of of it but i think it's quite a confused album i don't think bob ezrin was perhaps a particularly i ideal choice of producer too bombastic for for peter gabriel i would think the version of here comes the flood on the record is is not as good as the version uh on robert fripp's exposure record so it's kind of for me it's always been slightly disappointing as a record but i think you have a slightly different perspective on
Speaker 2it tim right well i think yeah i think number one it was a definitive means of disassociating himself from from genesis you know this is not a progressive rock album what it is i think you're right it is quite confused it has a few sort of hard-hitting rock pieces i think while they've got a kind of certain new wave edge i think the bombast comes from them being influenced by springsteen i think there's always more springsteen and gabriel than people seem to think i think that you know springsteen was as important as punk in terms of sort of redefining people's perception of mid-70s late 70s rock music and i think gabriel wasn't immune to the springsteen charms and maybe that is why he ventured towards america towards esrin and i've always quite liked esrin's productions he's got quite a distinctive me too approach and i really like his work with alex cooper and obviously his work with lou reed on berlin um so i think it kind of hangs together because of esrin's sense of arrangement but it's very much a producer's album i think what's interesting is it's almost as if gabriel has given his songs and his voice to this top american producer and perhaps this top american producer has i think produced quite a consistent album but one that doesn't necessarily bring out certain strengths of gabriel see i don't i don't
Speaker 1necessarily agree with that i think it's quite inconsistent i think the inconsistency for me comes from the fact he's almost like he doesn't quite know i'm talking what kind of artist he wants to be so you have got the rockers you've got the big stadium power ballads you've got the the barbershop song whatever it is i forgot what it's called now excuse me excuse me you've got the sort of pure chart pop of salisbury hill you've got all these different styles and for me they don't quite hang together and i think there was a sense that he spent the first couple of records experimenting trying to figure out what is the way forward what what do i want to do as a solo artist and of course everything coheres on on three well i mean
Speaker 2yeah i think this is obviously another drinking game favorite but for me three and four remain remarkable albums and this is where not only does he find his voice he discovers the future as well you know a lot of the 1980s is defined by the production innovations on three and four i think they're astonishing albums so yeah i think that he's clearly trying out personas um and i guess in his position you know there was a possibility of him going down the bowie route or the ferry route um or the springsteen route there were all sorts of possibilities
Speaker 1well he can't i mean he kind of did go down the bowie route and in fact for me there's a very clear passing of the baton from gabriel from bowie at the end of the 70s or the beginning of the 80s to gabriel because gabriel came of age as an artist in the 80s and produced amazing work in the 80s so to me it's almost like gabriel is the bowie of the 80s in someone who's relentlessly curious relentlessly pursuing new technology collaborators exploring the possibilities of what pop music can can be and bowie in the meantime is making never let me down and tonight yeah but bowie i mean
Speaker 2scary monsters i think is a brilliant way well that's 1980s yeah and i think let's dance you know i've always really liked let's dance and again partly it's a good record that reminds me i'm
Speaker 1simplifying yeah of
Speaker 2the ezra and gabriel thing and you know nile rogers with bowie it's the fusion of those two talents which produces something quite unique and obviously it's a big mainstream album but i think bowie makes his own of course it doesn't mean as much to me as as low black star heroes scary monsters but i think it's it's a really strong album and strong statement um yeah this the debut gabriel i mean you know humdrum i think it's a really gorgeous piece of work but i think before that he was trying out various bands as well you know he i don't think he necessarily knew what he wanted to do and they're about you know there are all sorts of bootlegs out there if you look of him in 74 to 77 so when was the last
Speaker 1genesis album he's on was that 1974 74 74 so actually he spent three years in r and d before he actually yeah i mean at least i've got a
Speaker 2lot of the bootlegs from this period and some of them are beautiful but yeah i you know i don't think he found his voice properly until three but i think this has got some glorious pieces now and i sort of i do quite like the whole bombast of the ezra in production so tim we should wrap
Speaker 1things up there because we spent a whole episode just talking really about progressive and progressive art pop is in fact there's even some records we haven't touched on steve hillage motivation radio renaissance novella john greaves peter blagvad that's wrong yeah that's a
Speaker 2great album q ron it's a good
Speaker 1record yeah philip glass north star super tramp even in the quietest moments alan parsons project i robot so many i mean so many records we could talk about but i think we should probably wrap this up now um we've still got oh my god we've still got probably another two episodes worth of stuff to talk about 1977 what a year um yeah it should be a series a whole series just on 1977 yeah but let's wrap this one up and we will be back on uh 1977 part three to talk well i think we're going to start talking about some disco some disco music which of course is the other big genre that sort of broke through in 1977 so we'll be back to talk to you uh in in part three about disco and some other musical styles as well but for now thank you very much for listening to part two of 1977 goodbye from me and goodbye from tim bye-bye you you
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