What are the best Gentle Giant albums IYO?

[ProgArtist]

My favorites:

The Power and the Glory (One of my favorite albums ever. Not a dud on it.)
Acquiring the Taste (I love the experimentation on this one. However, for me it ends with "Black Cat". "Plain Truth" sounds like a leftover from side 2 of the first album.)

Interview (Some crazy stuff. I love it!)
Octopus

Free Hand (An excellent album, but the mediocre "Time to Kill" and "Mobile" bring it down on my list).
In a Glass House (A great album, but I may never understand why many rate it higher than the aforementioned albums.)
Three Friends


Missing Piece (Side two is great)
Gentle Giant (Side one is great)



Civilian





Giant For a Day

[Prehensile Pencil]

Total fanboy of GG, to this day. But I'm usually astounded that IN A GLASS HOUSE get such high merit with fans.

And funny how people hear stuff differently. I would have never equated that piano part in "Think Of Me With Kindness" an old Western TV ditty, but now that you mention it......

STUDIO STUFF:

Interview and
Power & The Glory - to me these are perfect. Not a dud on either.

The Missing Piece - sans Betcha Thought and I'm Turning around. The rest, for me, is brilliant.
Octopus - sans R. Troubadour
Free Hand - sans Talybont
Three Friends - sans Peel The Paint
Acquiring The Taste - sans Wreck
Gentle Giant - sans Funny Ways and Nothing at all.
In A Glass House - sans Experience, Way Of Life and In a Glass House

Civilian and
Giant For A Day - not even strong Rock records for their time compared to Zeppelin, Montrose etc. But, for some reason, I like them just swell. The Rock tunes came across a lot better live than on record (check out, "The Last Steps" album).

LIVE STUFF:

King Biscuit, Bicentennial and Playing The Fool are all great, to my ears.

Lastly, both Scraping The Barrel and Under Construction are absolute gems, if you are a fan. Especially the isolated tracks, where you can clearly hear some composed parts that are rather unrecognisable elsewhere. And tons of Kerry M's demos: Hours of him improvising (meandering ?) at the piano, excerpts of which became the basis for much of the band's repertoire.

[Zeuhlmate]

In A Glass House - sans Experience, Way Of Life and In a Glass House

For me Experience is one of the best compositions Minnear ever made.

[Progatron]

Acquiring The Taste/Three Friends/Octopus is my favourite run of albums, when they had Phil Shulman. The live album Playing The Fool is another one that gets fairly regular spins around here (and the amazing Giant On The Box DVD.)

Aside from those, I really like In A Glass House, Free Hand and Interview as well... I've never liked The Power And The Glory as much as the other classics.

[Vic2012]

In all the years I've been following GG threads on PE I've always noticed how highly rated TP&TG is. For years I was only familiar with the first 4 albums. Then I bought the re-release of IAGH (the mini LP) and was blown away by it. Then when the remasters of Power & The Glory, Free Hand, and Interview were released I bought those. I wasn't blown away by TP&TG at all. It's good but It's not in the top 5 for me. Kinda like when I finally got Godbluff by VDGG, after reading nothing but gushing, drooling reviews about it. Hell yeah it's a good album but Pawn Hearts is still better (the first VDGG album I ever bought/heard).

[No Pride]

For me Experience is one of the best compositions Minnear ever made.

I agree, it's a great tune. So are a lot of the ones that people are saying they don't like on this thread. But I've noticed that opinions on what's good and what isn't varies wildly amongst GG fans, even moreso than with fans of other bands. Maybe it just goes to show how wide their scope of creativity was.

[notallwhowander]

The Power and the Glory was a real grower for me. It took while to wrap my head around it.

I love "Experience" My wife, on the other hand, can't abide it.

[Bob Drake]

I discovered GG on one of those late-night TV rock concert programs in 1975 or 76, went out and bought Free Hand the next day. I loved it, and started looking for the previous records, which were all interesting, but to my ears the songs were better and better on each successive album. Then Interview came out - loved that, and then Playing the Fool which was excellent and showed how much more rockin' and punchy they really were compared to the comparatively dry and somehow subdued sound of the studio records.

I did buy the next albums all the way until their last (Civilian) but didn't really give them much attention, as by those days I was already spending more time playing music rather than listening to records (and was probably too poor to have record player so I don't have an opinion about those.

I also saw them live several times from about 1977 - 80 (?) and they were always GREAT.

[Mekanik Zain]

Octopus is their best album IMO.

I agree. Octopus is much better than any other GG album, close to perfection.....
First three albums are raw and ambiguous..

By the way, did you notice majority of outstanding classic sympho albums were made in 1973?
ELP, Genesis, Crimso, GG, Yes....

[Guitarplyrjvb]

Giant for a Day is horrid. Free Hand, Octopus, and In a Glass House are my three favorites. Civilian might be better than the debut or The Missing Piece. I think you've got to have verything except GfaD.

[MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER]

I would have never equated that piano part in "Think Of Me With Kindness" an old Western TV ditty, but now that you mention it......

Octopus - sans R. Troubadour
Three Friends - sans Peel The Paint
Acquiring The Taste - sans Wreck
Gentle Giant - sans Funny Ways and Nothing at all.
In A Glass House - sans Experience, Way Of Life and In a Glass House

only quoted the ones I've heard within the past 25 years... but really find it fascinating that the tunes you *don't* like are some of my favorites!?!

[grego]

Troubadour is Walther von der Vogelwiede meets Stravinsky, - more over, this incredible track is perfectly performed.

[grego]

Funny Way is one of the best rock madrigals I've ever heard.

[jkelman]

Barring the occasional track, I'd say Three Friends through Playing the Fool are all essential. AtT is also, but far more eclectic and not to everyone's tastes. Missing Piece has three great songs (first three on side two), but beyond that is fairly lame....GfaD is the worst, Civilian a little better. And, while the first album has its moments, it's too inconsistent overall for me to say is amongst their best.

All IMHO, 'natch.

[strawberrybrick]

The one I go back to the most is Three Friends. Best? I dunno, but my favorite, for many years now. And although I love all their catalog, I also prefer to listen to the first two as well, but for me, that period of progressive rock late 60s, very early 70s I still find the most interesting because the mold wasn't set for most bands; they were still experimenting, finding their respective styles.

That said, Civilian is a vastly underrated record.

[No Pride]

That said, Civilian is a vastly underrated record.

It's not bad at all, it just doesn't sound like the GG we all knew and loved. They were clearly trying to simplify (or "dumb down," if you will) their music, like most of the prog bands started doing towards the end of the '70s when the media had deemed progressive rock to be "uncool."

[grego]

^Why they all followed the media, I wonder...Some were quite wealthy, at that moment. Could act independently - opposite to the mainstream, make more and more complex music. Instead, seems like they wanted to please young generation - for whom all in all they appeared as just old crap, whatever they'd do.

[ProgArtist]

...And funny how people hear stuff differently...

STUDIO STUFF:

Interview and
Power & The Glory - to me these are perfect. Not a dud on either.

Agreed!!!!!

...sans R. Troubadour...sans Talybont...sans Peel The Paint...sans Wreck...sans Funny Ways...sans In a Glass House

Woah- I love all of those tracks! Of course, I have my own "skippers" that other people love:

I skip:
Debut: Most of side 2, although I love the soft bridge of "Why Not?"
Acquiring the Taste: Plain Truth (from the same cloth as side 2 of the debut)
Three Friends: I don't skip anything, though I think the tracks about all 3 friends are better than the individual ones.
Octopus: "A Cry For Everyone"
In a Glass House: I don't skip anything, but "Way of Life" is moderately good and Experience is part AMAZING (the first half) and part okay (the Derek-sung bits).
The Power and the Glory: Nothing to skip. Perfect (although I had a hard time with the first two tracks on the first several listens. Then they clicked!)
Free Hand: I often skip "Time to Kill", but not always. "Mobile" I don't skip, but it's not one of the better tunes on the album.
Interview: Every song is excellent
Missing Piece: I actually like "I'm Turning Around" for what it is. I skip "Betcha'", "Mountain Time" and whatever the boring song between them is.
I generally skip ALL of the next two albums, although I like "Friends" and a few tracks from Civilian from time to time.

More than you wanted to know, but there you go.

[Facelift]

L:

I think their strongest album, by far, is the live "Playing the Fool."

Really? I've always thought that the King Biscuit live album was better by far over Playing the Fool.

[Mekanik Zain]

I skip:
Debut: Most of side 2, although I love the soft bridge of "Why Not?"
Acquiring the Taste: Plain Truth (from the same cloth as side 2 of the debut)
Octopus: "A Cry For Everyone"

To my mind these three songs are examples when GG try to be...Deep Purple - noisy,harsh sound with annoying guitar solos...I also skip them. Most attractive part of GG music is chamber, medieval rock with delicate vocals..
Hard rock? No way! IMHO....

[Mekanik Zain]

BTW I've never considered GG to be a 'symph' band.

I've heard criticism about the Power and the Glory. Somebody believe it is most "symph" album, sounds a bit banal. It has lack of medieval feeling and acoustic arrangments...

[ProgArtist]

I've heard criticism about the Power and the Glory. Somebody believe it is most "symph" album, sounds a bit banal. It has lack of medieval feeling and acoustic arrangments...

Hmmm- I've never heard anyone call it "banal". I'd say criticisms I have heard have had an opposite description. It does lack any overtly medieval passages, which they then returned to on "Free Hand", but still has plenty of contrapuntal lines. As for "symph", I don't see TP&tG as being any more so than other GG albums. In fact, I think "Three Friends", especially the title track, is more symphonic to my ears, as well as the latter half of "Way of Life".

[strawberrybrick]

I've heard criticism about the Power and the Glory.

Never...

[Facelift]

In all the years I've been following GG threads on PE I've always noticed how highly rated TP&TG is. For years I was only familiar with the first 4 albums. Then I bought the re-release of IAGH (the mini LP) and was blown away by it. Then when the remasters of Power & The Glory, Free Hand, and Interview were released I bought those. I wasn't blown away by TP&TG at all. It's good but It's not in the top 5 for me. Kinda like when I finally got Godbluff by VDGG, after reading nothing but gushing, drooling reviews about it. Hell yeah it's a good album but Pawn Hearts is still better (the first VDGG album I ever bought/heard).

I feel the same way. I wouldn't call it an outright dud or anything, but I only really like half of it at most, and the tracks on it that I like are on most of the live albums by GG that I have, and in better versions. So, I don't often play it.

When I do, it's for the sound quality - I really like the old Capitol CD of this one. Some of the older CD issues of GG albums don't sound great to my ears, but I do like this one in particular.

[Zeuhlmate]

I love The Power & The Glory.
There is not much John Dowland, (but is there on Three Friends or Aquiring the Taste?), but it has maybe their most avant tune 'So sincere' followed by one of their most beautiful tunes "Aspirations"... well... etc., etc.