The title for the whole of Act 2 of Aragon's "Mouse," which is "The Faceless Face Of The Faceless Majority."
I love "Mouse" though! Sheer neo-prog bombast.
The title for the whole of Act 2 of Aragon's "Mouse," which is "The Faceless Face Of The Faceless Majority."
I love "Mouse" though! Sheer neo-prog bombast.
Wow! another Aragon fan, that's two of us, right?
Soundcloud page: Richard Hermans, musical meanderings https://soundcloud.com/precipice YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/@richardhermans4457
I think Les Dougan's voice could clear a room the same way that Magma can, but yeah, I enjoy it! I think there are a few other fans around here, and that there used to be more here. I just listened to the 12.5 minute "Making of Mouse" audio interview. A fun listen! Now listening to The Meeting EP (Mouse Chapter 5) on Bandcamp.
Wow, 7 pages & no one mentioned Roger Waters' "Several species, etc., etc., etc."
Pretension is defined by the audience.
I've got a bike you can ride it if you like
DocProgger already mentioned that song, although it somehow defies the definition of "pretentious". That title was a more-or-less hallucinogenic spur-of-the-moment whim from - apparently - Peter Watts (yup, Naomi's dad) - who associated an inner imagery from listening to Waters' finished collage. And who would it be "offensively stupid"? In the same sense that "Too Drunk To Fuck" is? Have People in here really not experienced being too entoxicated to perform coitus? Or to act on an oncoming invitation to a fistfight? Or to refrain from falling down a flight of stairs?
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
No title is too pretentious if the music is bombastic enough.
<sig out of order>
I never found "Several species" stupid or offensive but rather an imaginative title that creates an image like "The Massed Gadgets of Auximenes" which always invokes epic images of ancient machinery and lost knowledge in my mind.
I left out a key word, sorry. "Chronologically provincial."
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
Lmao. I threw out the Several Species title because it had a lot of words (as many suggestions in this thread have) and it was basically a throwaway track of sound effects with no profound meaning. Of course it's not "offensive"--I was being facetious and making light of the whole premise of this thread. I even telegraphed thaf by the use of the "wink emoji" after throwing that title into the ring. The idea of being "offended" at a string of words of a song is ludicrous on its face to me, especially in the context of the progressive rock arena in the the 60s/70s. I thought I made that clear in my other posts. Hence my very initial question--what's "offensive" about it?
It also served to highlight my point about the real motivation behind this thread--a denigration of the concept of a belief in spirituality/a higher power, in whatever form, which has been made utterly clear. As admitted, if the song were called The Revealing Knowledge of the Universe, my guess it is never even mentioned. It was the trip-wire words "science" and "God" which set off the OP on spewing his not-too-hidden agenda in this manner, and has been admitted done to "push some buttons" and get a rise etc. It is also clear that the use of those particular words and the reasons for them weren't really fully understood in the context of the song/album etc by the "offended" party. I understood why the "several species.." tune was so named, and no, it really wasn't offensive to me. It's a silly throwaway sound collage on a great album.
Last edited by DocProgger; 12-07-2018 at 03:31 PM.
Yes indeed, it all served to highlight your point. You got me! Unlike you, I was spewing. You're right, I'm wrong, I'm bad you're good, I'm superficial, you're deep, I misinterpreted what you were saying about a song title, but you nailed down my personal views about the divine, the numinous, the transcendental, ultimate reality and the meaning of life. I stand in awe of your rhetorical flourishes, precision arguments, insight, erudition and profundity. There. Can you let it go now? Jezuz F. Christ you are bristling with buttons!
Haven't scrolled through all the pages yet to see if it's been mentioned, but Maximum Indifference's The Transmutations of Supposed Angels: Or Beings That Were Once Girls
You say Mega Ultra Deluxe Special Limited Edition Extended Autographed 5-LP, 3-CD, 4-DVD, 2-BlueRay, 4-Cassette, five 8-Track, MP4 Download plus Demos, Outtakes, Booklet, T-Shirt and Guitar Pick Gold-Leafed Box Set Version like it's a bad thing...
You say Mega Ultra Deluxe Special Limited Edition Extended Autographed 5-LP, 3-CD, 4-DVD, 2-BlueRay, 4-Cassette, five 8-Track, MP4 Download plus Demos, Outtakes, Booklet, T-Shirt and Guitar Pick Gold-Leafed Box Set Version like it's a bad thing...
Thought of another couple of them, the first from the Finnish band Haikara: “Kun menet tarpeeksi kauas tulevaisuuteen, huomaat olevasi menneisyydessä” (If you travel far enough into the future, you’ll find yourself in the past).
And one that absolutely takes the cake and completely devours it, from Italian revivalists Divæ: “Gargantua bestemmia Dio e viene transformato nei gigante di pietra posto a guardia della tana del drago di Altomonte... da dove il suo sguardo scruta l'orizzonte per l'eternità sino al dorato mare di Sibari” (Gargantua blasphemes God and is transformed into the stone giant guarding the lair of the dragon of Altomonte... from where his gaze scans the horizon for eternity beyond the golden sea of Sybaris).
Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...
But that's the most important one of those three. I only understood Trout Mask Replica after my fifth drunken stairfall.
Isn't there a spectral-cosmolunatic sympho-lympho band by the name of Stairfall already?
I couldn't agree about "Several Species" being anything near a 'throwaway' track, though. It serves a purpose and function on the album to a far greater extent than Mason's contribution, as I hear it. I mean, these kinds of ideas made for the very essence of a musical language they were attempting to formulate at the time, and the concept of 'sound collage' back then was a rather fresh vision in rock music to begin with - as were free improvisation, found sounds, sonic effects and the lot. All the goods which sympholx nowadays seem to think would desecrate the sacred dimension of alleged 'complexity' in their beloved music, although that term most often remains as deluded as the one on 'prog' itself.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
I actually agree. Not so much with 'offensively stupid' but although I love the track I find it clunky as well, and always have. They did make a rod for their own backs for charges of 'pretension' with titles like that! Even 'The Revealing' might have been better.
Always found the 'Impressions' within 'Karn Evil 9' somewhat unwieldy too, but 'offensively stupid', not really.
Mahavishnu Orchestra/McLaughlin are repeat offenders in the mystic mumbo-jumbo stakes. Between Nothingness And Eternity springs to mind.
Last edited by JJ88; 12-15-2018 at 10:18 AM.
Well at least not everyone was offended by what I considered offensive, so thanks JJ88. People do get angry when they cannot intellectually or factually defend their beliefs, and they take great offense indeed at the absolute impertinence of merely challenging those beliefs. The more irrational and intellectually childish those beliefs are, the greater is the outrage, as you may have seen before this thread was judiciously edited by the moderators: the proof was the proud denial of basic foundational fact and knowledge that informs of our very being (Evolution). A bit shocking here in the 21st century.
On another note, I’d really like to be educated about the spectral-cosmolunatic sympho-lympho genre, Mr. Scrotum Scissors!
Back in the eighties when I was getting into music as a teenager and there was no Internet and no progressive music on the radio in the UK, I generally had to take a leap of faith in buying a new album. I had read that MO was suppposed to be some Messianic thing in jazz rock, but I nevertheless avoided getting any of their records for years because the titles convinced me it must all be some hippy-dippy New Age bullshit. If only somebody had told me they were ALL ABOUT KICKING ARSE.
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