I know one so far, Legend of Arthur and the Roundtable, but I want to learn about more and listen to more for inspiration and the story telling potential it holds.
Any suggestions would be great
I know one so far, Legend of Arthur and the Roundtable, but I want to learn about more and listen to more for inspiration and the story telling potential it holds.
Any suggestions would be great
Rush’s early albums were themed. The first was a plain rock album, but after that were theme based. Their fantasy themed albums were
2112 was more sci-fi, and then after that they were more mixed, with albums containing fantasy or sci-fi, or just political or contemporary topics. But there’s a lot of material to listen through.
Aside from their historical or political stuff, none of the fantasy is tied to any particular folklore; it’s just fantasy stories. You won’t find, like, songs about Merlin, or Achilles, or whatever
I’d absolutely put Hemispheres in there too. The first track of Hemispheres is a direct sequel to the last track of Farewell to Kings. Also Xanadu from Hemispheres is very much a fantasy song.
Yeah. The CD only has 4 tracks, though ;-)
As does Soft Machine’s Third.
It’s a double album. There’s only four sides.
It was all the rage in early acid rock. Pink Floyd’s Meddle had 6 tracks, with Echoes clocking in at 23½ minutes; Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida took up an entire side by itself, even though it was “only” 17m long, and was also the 6th of 6 songs on the album.
Man, I really miss those days. I mean, I don’t want to listen to a 20 minute version of Call Me, Maybe, but it seems as if the time when a popular band could release an album with one side just one long anthem are over.
I will say, Rush were the masters of this long form, though, largely because of their (well, Neil Peart’s) ability to compose a single song containing 4 different measures that still somehow feels like the same song.
The peak was Close To The Edge having three of Yes’s top ten songs, and nothing else.
The middle ground was “Blue Monday” popularizing the 12" single. That’s oodles of space for one song. It’s like how streaming let TV episodes be as long as they need.
The modernization is in songs that have a three-act structure but a radio-friendly run time. Like “Paranoid Android”… or “Raining Blood.”
Given how digital audio has no constraints, though… we really should see more comically-long music. Remixes, at least. Even when they’re just Donna Summer tracks jamming out on exactly one idea, or The Flaming Lips padding deliberate repetition to a full 24 hours.
Clocking in at 37 minutes. Don’t judge prog by the number of tracks… pretty typical album runtime for anything released in the vinyl era.
Also, it’s fantastic.
I thought the smiley face was sufficient to express that I was joking.
Oops ;-)
S’allright. Use of old-time smilies of fading away, and with it, our recognition of them when they pop up.