“When you listen to Yes, do you have Zonk looking over your shoulder?”
So Zonk was hell bent on trying to play like bruford and he’d be on close to the edge for like two months straight or something. He only had a few of the oldest albums, see. I was the one who ventured forth into a complete investigation of the band. I found relayer before him and was listening to the eighties stuff while he was still on Fragile.
But he was the plug in any case. When I heard that panned track of just squire and bruford I was like what the shit dude that goes hard af.
The actual words in Tribute say that it is the best song ever written, not I… of which the response to that was one of animosity and not that of debate. We can decide how we choose to reply to others, and the reply I got was unnecessary.
The best song in the world? why, whatever I happen to be repeat-listening to at the time. : D
If that is the case, then you have the argument.
For my part, the idea that there could ever be “the best song written” is absurd. I cannot even pick one for myself in that respect, nor should anyone be able to, since there are so many criteria from which to judge.
You might ask which has the most notes, which has the largest number of key changes, chord changes, the most dynamic in terms of volume or pitch - or you might decide that the best has all these qualities in LOW values rather than high.
That got me hooked at around 0:44. It started promising – and only remained promosing – until around 1:45. That change ruined the mood. Albeit, that change sounds much better when listening to a live performance.
Is it better than Owner of a Lonely Heart? Can’t tell. It seems the difference between the two is so small, I can’t see it without making extra effort. What I do know, however, is that I like it more than Starship Trooper. And I also like more than The Clap.
How about some songs that I think are significantly better than all four Yes songs?
How about 80’s synth-pop such as Level 42 - Lessons in Love? Super simple but it does too many things right to be on the same level as any of the Yes songs mentioned so far.
Even Boney M - Rasputin is better. The first 40 seconds are majestic. That small part alone I find much more engaging than all four Yes songs combined. The rest of the song is of lesser quality, with that initial change being too abrupt; though I like the male-female exchange that takes place throughout the song. The chorus is the weakest – the most disappointing – part.
Obviously, you don’t need to be much of an instrumentalist in order to make a good song. And I personally don’t find that surprising given the two disciplines (that of composition and that of playing an instrument) are separate.
I’d never listened to him until now.
And I shall never again listen to him.
The sentiment is cheesy and his voice is a bit crap. so not much to recommend.
Carefree Highway which has the last line as it’s intro is the opposite of cheesy.
He’s talking about “his old friend” ‘not giving a shit about anything’. Thus the name carefree highway. He also talks about one night stands that don’t mean anything and cause ‘the walk of shame’. When states that I feel the ‘morning after blues from my head down to my shoes’
Bob Dylan literally calls Gordon one of his mentors.
Bruh you’ve heard Tarkus? You just went up a level. knuckle bump
Ecman shut the heck up ELP is not a zappa rip-off. Not even kinda, or a little.
It was really difficult to be a prog-rock rip-off band back in the seventies because there were very few existing formulas to be copied and everything was just generally considered progressive. For instance genesis and, say, YES will at times do similar stuff, but you’d not say one or the other was copying anything because they were all doing that kind of stuff at the same time… and nobody had yet owned it or stamped it as their sound. You had a general prog structure to your music or u didn’t, and if it sounded like somebody else, that’s only because their music too has a prog structure.
What happened here is your brain just recognized and compartmentalized that generally progressive rock sound in both zappa and the prog bands you’ve heard.
Like there are prolly a hunerd other bands that ELP sounds more like than zappa.
It is debatable is Zappa is prog in any sense. In fact I think he is something else entirely.
Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Led Zep, ELP, Cream had barely heard of him and were not really influnced by him.
Heavy rock started as early as the Kinks “You really Got Me”.
Beatles Sgt Pepper and Stone His Satanic Majesty Albums set the world on the road to Prog Rock. Freak Out got out first but its a pretty confused bunch of stuff. Derivative and spoofy.
Zappa has his own genre.
It’s more like Political Standup comedy set to music, and MOCK ROCK.
I’d not doubt his skill. In fact some of his stuff is so complex that only Frank could listen to it. And many people bought albums for show but could not listen to them.
