Marillion

[moecurlythanu]

^ Yeah, talk about an outlier view.

[TCC]

I like all Fish ones and even some Fish solo.

I have several of Fish solo works and like it too.

[Scott Bails]

^ Yeah, talk about an outlier view.

I agree that Brave isn't a great entry point, but yeah.

[mozo-pg]

I might give up if Brave was my first album also. Damn thing puts me to sleep. That, about half of Afraid of Sunlight, and Less is More are the low points in a treasure trove of material for me.

Time to check my door to see if the people with torches and pitchforks have started to assemble.

For me, Brave is the most progressive album Marillion released. I love the atmosphere, the searing guitar, the melodies, and Hogarth's voice. It carries a lot of emotional energy and a story. Of course, your mileage varies.

[TCC]

For me, Brave is the most progressive album Marillion released. I love the atmosphere, the searing guitar, the melodies, and Hogarth's voice. It carries a lot of emotional energy and a story. Of course, your mileage varies.

+1
Agree!.

n.p.: Made Again.

[Facelift]

Just heard Marillion for the first time. Usually when I post a thread about a band I have just heard, it is positive, but I can't think of anything good to say about Script for a Jester's Tear. My very first thought was that the singer was doing a lame impression of Peter Gabriel. My next thought was that the whole band was doing a lame impression of early Genesis. I have never heard such a shameless ripoff. I understand it was their first album. I hope they got better after that.

Script for a Jester's Tear is so derivative it's laughable.

They became somewhat less of a Genesis clone after that, but everything with Fish is pretty strongly informed by Genesis.

The Hogarth version of the band is pretty different. Sounds mostly like adult-contemporary music to me - I don't care for any of it. But at least they aren't shamelessly copying anybody.

[Scott Bails]

The Hogarth version of the band is pretty different. Sounds mostly like adult-contemporary music to me - I don't care for any of it. But at least they aren't shamelessly copying anybody.

I love the Hogarth stuff, but they're not shy about their influences. They've just moved on from being influenced by the "symphonic prog" stuff.

[JKL2000]

Script for a Jester's Tear is so derivative it's laughable.

They became somewhat less of a Genesis clone after that, but everything with Fish is pretty strongly informed by Genesis.

I would love for someone with this view (I know it's not just you) to give some specific examples. I'm one of those who hears very little musical similarity to Genesis of any era, aside from Grendel and a few of Marillion's earliest, unreleased songs. I can't help thinking some people hear a similarity between Fish and Gabriel, and just sort of imagine a musical similarity.

[JKL2000]

I love the Hogarth stuff, but they're not shy about their influences.

Which influences do you mean?

[Rufus]

Get Fugazi (the best Fish era by a long chalk), then Misplaced Childhood & then gve Clutching at Straws a wide berth. Then jump back on board with Brave (the best Hogarth era by a country mile)

[at least 100 dead]

I would love for someone with this view (I know it's not just you) to give some specific examples. I'm one of those who hears very little musical similarity to Genesis of any era, aside from Grendel and a few of Marillion's earliest, unreleased songs. I can't help thinking some people hear a similarity between Fish and Gabriel, and just sort of imagine a musical similarity.

Rather than Genesis, Fish-era Marillion tended to incorporate derivatives of "Comfortably Numb" into quite a few songs, e.g. the closing sections of "Script" and "Forgotten Sons", the "last night you said I was cold" bit, the "racing the clouds home" bit . . . to name a few. Also, the intro to "She Chameleon" is slightly reminiscent of Floyd's "Pigs". So, I hear more of a PF influence, musically speaking.

BTW: One reviewer in a German music mag compared Fish's vocals for "Pseudo Silk Kimono" to Bryan Ferry at the time. Personally, I don't hear it, but I guess the timbre isn't too dissimilar.

[Facelift]

I would love for someone with this view (I know it's not just you) to give some specific examples.

Examples? Most of Script should suffice.
You mean a specific example where Marillion stole part of a Genesis song? That's really not what I (or anybody else, I would think) means when describing this era of Marillion as being heavily influenced by Genesis. In any event, stealing part of a song does not always lead to the songs sounding the same. Spirit's 'Taurus' does not sound anything like 'Stairway to Heaven,' for example.

It's not just that Fish sounds so much like Peter Gabriel, but it's the manner in which the vocals are used. I've yet to hear anybody say that Marillion's early music sounds just like Peter Gabriel II or III, for example. It's always Genesis. The keyboard arpeggios, as well, are very reminiscent of what Tony Banks does. There's 12-string guitars for textures. And so on. The music sounds like a consolidation many things Genesis, from between 1971 and 1980. Except maybe the drums - those big echoey drums didn't figure into Genesis' sound until 1981 at the earliest, and Mick Pointer (the Marillion drummer on Script) does not remind me much of Phil Collins (Ian Mosley's sound was closer).


Anyway - to the OP: I personally think that it might be tougher to get into Fish era of Marillion now, because being there while it was happening seems important to the appeal. Marillion was fairly popular (mostly in the UK, but popular enough for most major US record stores to stock their stuff in the mid and late '80s), at a time when that kind of music was treated like the plague and when nobody was playing it. I have to think that, for the people who liked Marillion then, hearing some Genesis similarities in the music wasn't seen as a negative at all. I didn't like Marillion when I first heard them (I think the first time was around 1987), but that's possibly because I was still in the process of discovering the original "big six" or whatever from the '70s, and I didn't require contemporary progeny to satisfy a prog fix, because I still hadn't heard all of the classics from the '70s. By the time I would have been more receptive to Marillion, it was already Hogarth time and I just never got into that era of the band much. I would say that those albums probably have aged better and might be more accessible for somebody encountering this music for the first time now, but that's just speculation.

[rdclark]

The other similarity with Genesis is that neither band emphasizes individual virtuosity. This was of course even more true of Genesis after Hackett left. One of the common guitar styles of post-Hackett Genesis -- playing rhythm guitar by muting the strings with the heel of the right hand while plucking individual notes of the chord in an arpeggio-like fashion, typified on "Follow You, Follow Me" -- was frequently also used by Steve Rothery on several early Marillion songs. Genesis used this sound a lot, IMO, partly because it could be made into a keyboard patch and easily sequenced.

But this, like the timbre of Fish's voice, is to me a superficial similarity, although it initially put me off as well. Closer listening reveals fewer real points of convergence; the proof, IMO, is that they were the same band with Hogarth, but no longer suggested Genesis to casual listeners.

[Scott Bails]

Which influences do you mean?

The Beatles, Radiohead, Jellyfish, Blur, etc.

[TCC]

Gang,
What do think about these words about Fish's voice:
"Between Roger Daltrey and Peter Gabriel"
??

A little story:

He came and gave us a really good concert here in Costa Rica!
It was at our Metropolitan Theater:
Very friendly, some voice problems...because of some Excesses ... Fish, as he told us, just has signed his divorce or
something!
😳

Special night!!.

Pura vida!.

[SteveSly]

Get Fugazi (the best Fish era by a long chalk), then Misplaced Childhood & then gve Clutching at Straws a wide berth. Then jump back on board with Brave (the best Hogarth era by a country mile)

It is always interesting hearing different tastes. For me "Fugazi" is my least favorite Fish era album. I like it ok, but I like the other 3 better. "Brave" I have mixed feelings about. I don't think it works as a whole as much as many Marillion fans do, but I do think it has moments of brilliance.

[JKL2000]

I can definitely see the Floyd similarities. In fact there's one Hogarth era song - I can never remember which - that has what I think is a direct musical reference to something from The Wall. Forget what.

I guess there are so many bands that do inarguably TRY to sound like Genesis at times by using a certain keyboard sound, or the vocalist sounds as much like Gabriel as Gabriel does, that I just never detected a similar attempt by Marillion, with the exception of Grendel.

I really think it's accurate that they have similarities to Floyd, but no one says they're aping Floyd, so I think it's even less apparent with Genesis.

Actually, Garden Party is the one song on Script where I can see some similarity, but IMO it's such a strong song with its own personality. IMO Mark Kelly often used his keyboards to get a much spacier (or at least "gauzy") sound than Genesis ever used. Except maybe on something like the connecting bit between Home By the Sea pts I and II Banks gets it.

Anyway, for me Genesis, Floyd, and Marillion might as well be the (or a) holy trinity.

[3RDegree_Robert]

Some serious Floyd influence in "The Great Escape" suite on BRAVE.

[at least 100 dead]

One of the common guitar styles of post-Hackett Genesis -- playing rhythm guitar by muting the strings with the heel of the right hand while plucking individual notes of the chord in an arpeggio-like fashion, typified on "Follow You, Follow Me" -- was frequently also used by Steve Rothery on several early Marillion songs.

Not to harp on the PF influence, but those palm-muted and delayed guitar stylings can be traced back to Gilmour’s use of the Echoplex in “Echoes” (not to mention John Martyn, who was getting into that sort of thing around the same time as DG).

[rdclark]

Sure. So how come nobody accuses Genesis of sounding like Floyd? Of course, the answer is that most people only listen to the vocals, because it's the only part of the music they claim any expertise about, real or imagined. As I noted above, nobody suggested "Seasons End" sounded like Genesis, even though most of the music was written before Hogarth was hired.

[at least 100 dead]

Re. Fugazi: To me, it’s the most unique sounding album of the Fish-era, because they managed to expurgate the unctuousness that (IMO) plagues some of their early material. The more aggressive approach works in their favor and vestiges of their maudlin/romantic tendencies really only crop up in “Jigsaw”.

Is Fugazi flawless? Hardly, but if you replace the ghastly “Punch & Judy” with “Three Boats” and “Jigsaw” with “Cinderella Search”, you get the best neo-prog (a genre I’m generally not fond of) money can buy.

[Rufus]

Re. Fugazi: To me, it’s the most unique sounding album of the Fish-era, because they managed to expurgate the unctuousness that (IMO) plagues some of their early material. The more aggressive approach works in their favor and vestiges of their maudlin/romantic tendencies really only crop up in “Jigsaw”.

Is Fugazi flawless? Hardly, but if you replace the ghastly “Punch & Judy” with “Three Boats” and “Jigsaw” with “Cinderella Search”, you get the best neo-prog (a genre I’m generally not fond of) money can buy.

Some great moments on Fugazi, for example you'll find Rothery's best solo on 'Incubus'. Stunningly melodic that I've not heard him better, even on 'Sugar Mice'.
Agree that Cinderella Search (full version) should have been included, it's just too good to have been left off!

[Trane]

I reacted the same way to Script. But I was 29 then, in 1984, when I first heard it. I dismissed Marillion from consideration. About 17 years later I heard their Anoraknophobia, and became a fan. I really like Hogarth, as a singer, writer, and performer, and now have all of their albums, but never really warmed up to Fish and the first four Marillion albums... until 18 years later, about three days ago, when I listened to the new 5.1 mix of Misplaced Childhood.

The superficial resemblances to Genesis -- Fish's vocal timbre, an occasional Rothery guitar tone -- are still there, but this new presentation made them very easy to listen past, and the substance is a very mature, complex, and moving piece of sustained high-level composition. It's not -- as Marillion has never been -- a display of flashy virtuoso musicianship -- although the more I listen, the more I understand that serving the song perfectly is a form of virtuosity that more bands could study and learn.

yup, when Script appeared out of nowhere in 83 (I was just 20/21) and He Knows You Know got some airplay in Toronto's better FM stations, it certainly seemed/felt like a revenge on prog's disappearance from the rock skyline, so I didn't ask myself many questions. Sure it sounded like Genesis, and it was intentional, but if you listen to other neo-prog bands of those times, IQ's The Wake wasn't less derivative either. And if you listen well at Scrpit, it's not as clone-like as you'd imagined at first listen.
However, I disliked the following two albums: the almost metallic Fugazi and the all-too verbose Childhood (and its two ridiculous singles Lavender Blue and Kaleigh). By the time Straw came out, I wasn't interested anymore (I was into JR/F and jazz), and I probably didn't give it a good shot.

As for the Hogarth era, I did listen to the first two, but wasn't interested in his whiny vocals. I found it insufferable.

Marillion is an interesting case study. They are tagged as being one of (if not THE) most important bands of the neo-prog movement of the 80s, but later completely abandoned that sound during a time where imitators of that 80s sound were flourishing (relatively speaking).

It's not often where a band changes direction and lead singers after a decade and become (arguably) a better band. This is what happened from my perspective when the Hogarth era began. It's now over 25 years running and they are still releasing music. Their last album, FEAR, was one of the better in the last 15 years imo.

I don't get much mileage out of the Fish era recordings. There are moments I relate to because I used to play them a lot, but the band became exponentially better between Misplaced and Straws. But all these years later, Straws is the only Fish era album I might spin. The rest are too dated and cheesy for me.

I get the feeling that the OP would not care for any incarnation/direction of the band, based on my observations of his posts over the years.

mmmhhh!!!... I still think of Marillion as neo-prog nowadays (though I haven't heard their stud since the viewing machine on a blue sky cover album), but their Hogarth stuff in the 90's and early 00's certainly fit the neo genre as it kind of evolved naturally.

I only own Script anymore (and the script recital DVD), and TBH, it's all I need from them, and probably that's even too much, since I never get the urge to listen to it anymore... I must say that I over-played it back then, and feel like I know it by heart as well as NC, CTTE, TAAB or others. but once in a while when I do hear Chelsea Monday, The Web, HMYK or Forgotten Sons, I listen to it carefully, still enjoying it

Oddly enough, Marillion's Fish era music would spark a fair bit of clone bands, like Arkana, Arena or Aragon and the early Hogarth era stuff almost singlehandedly directed 90's neo-prog in a different direction. Hogarth inspired a throng of whiny prog singers in the next 20 years.
I only like Brave and some parts of Strange Engine, but will probably never feel the need to re-listen to them again.

I would love for someone with this view (I know it's not just you) to give some specific examples. I'm one of those who hears very little musical similarity to Genesis of any era, aside from Grendel and a few of Marillion's earliest, unreleased songs. I can't help thinking some people hear a similarity between Fish and Gabriel, and just sort of imagine a musical similarity.

.

Yeah, it's more or less my PoV: the similarities are mostly on the surface (and intentional).
Even Fish's vocals don't sound that much like Gabe's, as their respective vocal timbre is not the same, and Fish's delivery was way more aggressive than Gabe's ever was
It's obvious Genesis was an influence (especially Grendel), but does anyone hold Beggar's Opera sounding like Purple's Mk-I line-up on their debut.
Marillion did break out of that soon enough (with Fugazi), but this has been hovering the band ever since.

[JKL2000]

He Knows You Know doesn't sound like Genesis to me, but it does sound a bit like solo Gabriel.

Trane, when you call Hogarth's vocals whiny, do you mean the sound of his vocals or the lyrical content, or both?

[GuitarGeek]

Rather than Genesis, Fish-era Marillion tended to incorporate derivatives of "Comfortably Numb" into quite a few songs, e.g. the closing sections of "Script" and "Forgotten Sons", the "last night you said I was cold" bit, the "racing the clouds home" bit . . . to name a few. Also, the intro to "She Chameleon" is slightly reminiscent of Floyd's "Pigs". So, I hear more of a PF influence, musically speaking.

It's worth noting that on the back cover of the Script For A Jester's Tear (you'll need the LP edition to see it, really), on the floor, is several records. One of them is A Saucerful Of Secrets. And the back cover of Fugazi, there's a copy of Peter Hammill's first solo album, Fool's Mate.

Another fun fact: one of the people "thanked" in the credits of Fugazi is Nigel Planer, one of the stars of the BBC's anarchic sitcom The Young Ones. Those of you who remember the show may recall in one episode, Nigel's character, Neil, namechecks both Hawkwind and Marillion in the space of a single sentence (and in another episode, there's also a Steve Hillage allusion).

And for what it's worth, Rothery's guitar playing always struck me as being like a mix of Gilmour and maybe Andy Summers, or perhaps The Edge. That was one of the things I think set them apart from the previous generation of prog rock, is that they brought a sort of a new wave musicality to the proceedings, with that sort of shimmering clean toned, chorused rhythm guitar type sound, along with an emphasis on actual songs, versus a bunch of "difficult to play" bits strung together.