Author:Kevan Furbank, Peter Gallagher, Gary Steel
Thick as a Brick, Close To The Edge, Foxtrot, Trilogy – and that’s just scratching the surface of the glut of prog albums that appeared in 1972, surely one of the genre’s vintage years. The author has approached this by selecting 22 albums from the year, although of course this raises the question of what is and isn’t prog. For me, The Strawbs, Uriah Heep and Santana don’t really fall into that genre but each to their own I suppose. Each album is looked at in some detail, with added background on the bands themselves, although there is a trait of saying what key a piece is in and what chords are used, which I found quite irritating. It’s always interesting to read more about this era and its music, although being a big fan already of these albums I didn’t really learn much I didn’t already know. However, it would certainly make a useful guide to someone just investigating this music for the first time.
My SAHB period really went from Framed through Next and The Impossible Dream and the subsequent live set. I rather lost touch with them after that, although Anthem still remains one of my favourite songs. The first third of this book covers the pre SAHB years as Harvey had already had a long career by that point. Interesting though this is, it’s the band years that most will focus on, although the period when they were on the ascendancy was relatively brief – but when they were good, they were very good. Ill health dogged Alex and the later years are a bit of a sorry tale really, but although there have already been a number of books on the band, this is well worth a look if you want a potted history of the man and his storied career.
What to say of Talk Talk? The first two albums were ok but fairly run of the mill almost new romantic style material, not unlike Duran Duran at times. Then a sudden blossoming saw them come up with three classic albums in just five years, The Colour of Spring, Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, the latter two in particular being kindred spirits in many ways. Those albums are ones I still listen to today. Sadly things didn’t last long after that with Hollis becoming ever more reclusive and difficult to work with. Only one solo record followed, created from the planned Talk Talk album Mountains of the Moon. This is an interesting read although only about the first half of the book deals with the band’s albums – the remainder is devoted to solo projects, compilations, live recordings etc, and personally I would have preferred a longer first part and a shorter second. A fascinating band in their heyday though and this is a nice guide that’s aimed more at the newcomer to their work than the avid fan.
Length of Read:Short
Might appeal to people who enjoyed…
The music covered in the books – as ever, written by fans for fans.
One thing you’ve learned
Three very interesting and readable books – wish they’d been longer really.
My copy of the Talk Talk book arrived last week and I’m loosing forward to dipping into it even if I’m slightly disappointed their actual albums don’t seem to be discussed in that much depth
Phill Brown’s Are We Still Rolling? covers his time with TT and MH in depth, amongst many others. He thinks Spirit of Eden is probably the best record he made, certainly the most influential. Anyhow, a great read and cheap in paperback.
I’ve seen that book mentioned a lot in various places @fentonsteve but never got round to getting it. I thought I’d read that it was now out of print?
I bought my copy two years ago, after Twang kept reminding me, and it seems to have gone OOP since. Gah!
I reread bits of it only last week.
I’ll give it a search.
Edit.£19 at the tax dodgers…hmm
I have a feeling there are a few versions of it, one longer. Keep your eyes peeled for which one it is.
Seems you can buy it as a pdf from the man himself!
https://tapedemon.net/phill-brown-are-we-still-rolling
Thanks @twang
Added to the ever increasing “things to get round to do” pile:
I’m looking forward to reading the SAHB book – I believe it’s been delivered to my home – but it didn’t arrive in time for my trip to Aintree. Curses!
Am I the only person to have a massive soft spot for the first Talk Talk album? I prefer it to the sometimes unlistenable last two. I actually do.
I don’t dislike it – I bought the three singles, then the LP, but they really got going with the non-album My Foolish Friend single, and the second LP.
I really like Spirit of Eden, but I can take or leave Laughing Stock.
I have really tried with TT. My friend Feedback File is a huge fan and has provided compilations etc but it only ever sounds like dull, under written mid tempo material with lots of frilly bits added by too long in the studio and that dreary voice. I’m mystified why otherwise sensible people seem to like them.
MH’s voice was fairly divisive at the time, and got more slurry as TT went on.
You don’t like Lou Reed(‘s voice), either, so you’re on a hiding to nothing with TT. We can agree to disagree on this one.
I can do a bit of slurry but it’s usually accompanied by extra doses of posing (presumably to compensate for not being able to sing suppose) which puts me off. There are exceptions of course – Tom Petty could slur with the best of them but was a great singer.
Can I just mention John Martyn at this point?
He passed into too slurry for me late on, but earlier he was an exception of course.
Can you have too much slurry?
Not if the Tory conference is on the other end of it.
You’ve gone too far with the AI this time mate. I mean that just looks ridiculous
Well I did wonder to ask for ‘A Slurry with the Fringe on Top’ now I’m not too sure.
Would that it were AI.
‘a bit of slurry accompanied by extra doses of posing’, you say?
Oy vey. To be shown to, or perhaps at, anyone who questions the remorseless brownness of the English seventies.
I didn’t hear My foolish friend till much later when I chanced upon It’s my Mix in Cagliari (of course…) and hadn’t realised its place in their ahem, canon. Oeuvre?
I still prefer the first album to the second but I still maintain, in a rock snob way, that you can hear the way they were headed on Its my life
Three books (prog, SAHB and TT); twenty comments – of those twenty, only one is not directly or tangentially related to the TT book, or a subthread thereof.
A interesting sidelight on current Afterword tastes (read “State of The Union”), to set alongside the lists of favourite albums and tunes.