With my Ripple brethren The Pope's new found love of Robin Trower and other beautiful music that had slipped passed his radar, I thought it might be fun to toss out a couple of other oldies that we may not be thinking about any more, but certainly deserve the Ripple eye of attention.
G
enesis – Selling England by the Pound
It’s impossible to listen to Peter Gabriel-era Genesis without feeling like you’ve been thrust back in time and space to some whimsical Elizabethan British manor, where the mad Duke of Genesis, Gabriel flutters about in a tizzy, singing folk songs like a twisted Renaissance bard. This is prog-rock at its most theatrical, most sophisticated and aristocratic, and undeniably, Selling England by the Pound, is Genesis’s finest moment of pastoral prog.
Littered with literary allusions and fragile passages of ephemeral beauty, don’t go looking here for metallic riffs or extended periods of solo noodling. Rather, the songs on Selling England are delicate and eccentric. Led by the keyboards of Tony Banks and the impassioned singing of Peter Gabriel, Genesis plays like a band of Elizabethan intellectuals, gathered in the court before the pleasing smiles of the women in waiting. Guitars are understated, fitted into the compositions, rather than dominating them. Strains of harpsichord and flute flutter across the ballroom.
The ethereal “Dancing with the Moonlight Knight,” could have been a chamber piece composed by a lost British composer, with dramatic beauty riding across the keyboards. The extended “Firth of Fifth,” rocks about as hard as the boys can on this album and features the album’s most sublime guitar work. “The Battle of Epping Forest,” is a grand tale of myth and lore, just waiting to be passed on to future generations. “More Fool Me,” is as soft as a soap bubble and features one of Phil Collins’s earliest vocal leads. While The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, may be Genesis’s most ambitious moment, Selling England by the Pound is probably their most complete album - the finest distillation of their particular brand of intelligent, eccentric prog at it’s most literate.
buy here: Selling England by the Pound
Jethro Tull – Benefit
If Genesis was music for art school aristocrats, Yes for classical music purists and ELP for fans of pomp in all its bombastic glory, then Jethro Tull was prog rock for the everyman.
With Ian Anderson’s eccentric minstrel persona and the band’s history as a hard living British blues band, Jethro Tull’s ambiance is that of a band of revelers singing bawdy tales of legend around a burning firepit in a 14th century straw-roofed, public tavern. While any self-respecting Tull fan will also have Aqualung and Thick as a Brick in their collection, Benefit was the album that found Tull finally shedding their purist blues past for a full on integration of folk, jazz, rock and medieval imagery into one digestible whole; a venture in the deep and darkened forests of Sherwood in search of mirth and merriment.
Besides featuring the undeniable classic, “Teacher,” with it’s famous rolling bassline, Benefit is full of minor Tull classics. With “With You There to Help me,” we get the first true integration of flute, acoustics and searing electric guitars to appear in the Tull catalog, a format they’d use to great effect on "Aqualung." “Nothing to Say,” is a song of uncommon beauty that never loses its rock pulse. “Sossity; You’re a Woman,” became a key part of Tull’s stage show for years. And lest you think the boys lost themselves entirely in folk and flute, songs like “Son,” and “To Cry You a Song,” rock as hard as anything in the early Tull lexicon.
Flute solos, a bearded vocalist leaping from one foot to the other like a drunken madman, fiery blues guitar breaks and riffs that stick in your head like bubblegum on the brain, what else do you want in your prog?
--Racer
buy here: Benefit
G
enesis – Selling England by the PoundIt’s impossible to listen to Peter Gabriel-era Genesis without feeling like you’ve been thrust back in time and space to some whimsical Elizabethan British manor, where the mad Duke of Genesis, Gabriel flutters about in a tizzy, singing folk songs like a twisted Renaissance bard. This is prog-rock at its most theatrical, most sophisticated and aristocratic, and undeniably, Selling England by the Pound, is Genesis’s finest moment of pastoral prog.
Littered with literary allusions and fragile passages of ephemeral beauty, don’t go looking here for metallic riffs or extended periods of solo noodling. Rather, the songs on Selling England are delicate and eccentric. Led by the keyboards of Tony Banks and the impassioned singing of Peter Gabriel, Genesis plays like a band of Elizabethan intellectuals, gathered in the court before the pleasing smiles of the women in waiting. Guitars are understated, fitted into the compositions, rather than dominating them. Strains of harpsichord and flute flutter across the ballroom.
The ethereal “Dancing with the Moonlight Knight,” could have been a chamber piece composed by a lost British composer, with dramatic beauty riding across the keyboards. The extended “Firth of Fifth,” rocks about as hard as the boys can on this album and features the album’s most sublime guitar work. “The Battle of Epping Forest,” is a grand tale of myth and lore, just waiting to be passed on to future generations. “More Fool Me,” is as soft as a soap bubble and features one of Phil Collins’s earliest vocal leads. While The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, may be Genesis’s most ambitious moment, Selling England by the Pound is probably their most complete album - the finest distillation of their particular brand of intelligent, eccentric prog at it’s most literate.
buy here: Selling England by the Pound
Jethro Tull – BenefitIf Genesis was music for art school aristocrats, Yes for classical music purists and ELP for fans of pomp in all its bombastic glory, then Jethro Tull was prog rock for the everyman.
With Ian Anderson’s eccentric minstrel persona and the band’s history as a hard living British blues band, Jethro Tull’s ambiance is that of a band of revelers singing bawdy tales of legend around a burning firepit in a 14th century straw-roofed, public tavern. While any self-respecting Tull fan will also have Aqualung and Thick as a Brick in their collection, Benefit was the album that found Tull finally shedding their purist blues past for a full on integration of folk, jazz, rock and medieval imagery into one digestible whole; a venture in the deep and darkened forests of Sherwood in search of mirth and merriment.
Besides featuring the undeniable classic, “Teacher,” with it’s famous rolling bassline, Benefit is full of minor Tull classics. With “With You There to Help me,” we get the first true integration of flute, acoustics and searing electric guitars to appear in the Tull catalog, a format they’d use to great effect on "Aqualung." “Nothing to Say,” is a song of uncommon beauty that never loses its rock pulse. “Sossity; You’re a Woman,” became a key part of Tull’s stage show for years. And lest you think the boys lost themselves entirely in folk and flute, songs like “Son,” and “To Cry You a Song,” rock as hard as anything in the early Tull lexicon.
Flute solos, a bearded vocalist leaping from one foot to the other like a drunken madman, fiery blues guitar breaks and riffs that stick in your head like bubblegum on the brain, what else do you want in your prog?
--Racer
buy here: Benefit
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