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Thread: Marillion

  1. #1
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    Marillion

    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.

  2. #2
    Try Clutching at Straws instead. Or Afraid of Sunlight. Or This Strange Engine.

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    This thread is going to be interesting as Marillion fans tend to be passionate…..

    All I can say is “Script” is an album that was released over 35 years ago, so listening to it now for the first time it is going to be rather dated. At the time, progressive rock was for all practical purposes dead in the water. “Script” came along at a time where there was nothing like it being released (at least where I lived). IMO it is far from the best Marillion album, but still holds a nostalgic appeal to me and I still love it, and they were an incredible live band. Marillion is still going strong today. The Hogarth years vary significantly from the Fish years. Personally I love both eras, but opinions will vary on that.

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by llanwydd View Post
    I understand it was their first album. I hope they got better after that.
    You have 17 other studio albums to choose from, and about a hundred other threads on PE to read. Knock yourself out.

    BTW, this should be on the main page.
    Last edited by JKL2000; 07-30-2017 at 08:48 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    You have 17 other studio albums to choose from, and about a hundred other threads on PE to read. Knock yourself out.

    BTW, this should be on the main page.
    Huh?

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    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.

    Like few others, IMO, Marillion is a band. They appear to operate collectively on every level, and that can be a hard thing to appreciate when you focus on the singer. Interestingly, I think, appreciating their later work may make it easier to go back to the early stuff.

  7. #7
    ^^^^^Well said.

  8. #8
    YOU DO NOT UNCONDITIONALLY LOVE ALL MARILLION YOU MUST BE DESTROYED WITH FIRE IMMEDIATELY

    Okay...got that out of my system

    You think Script is derivative of Genesis? Do yourself a solid and steer clear of their early epic 'Grendel' then

    Of the Fish albums, the last one (Clutching at Straws) is the best by a wide margin (the previous one, Misplaced Childhood has lots of fans, although I'm personally not one of them). Keep in mind...these guys pretty much kickstarted a large bit of the neoprog movement, so that was clearly part of their sound.

    Once Fish left they did another mostly neo album called Seasons End that actually is quite good (Hogarth is a far more accomplished singer, technically speaking), but from there started wandering elsewhere. They do this sort of alt/symph/progressive rock that doesn't really sound like anything 70's but is still kind of interesting. It's somewhat similar to the transition that Ange made from their 70's stuff to present.

    I personally absolutely love the albums Seasons End, Afraid of Sunlight, and Marbles. But there are great tracks all throughout.

    Obviously YMMV. Despite covering a pretty wide range of styles across their discography, they are still not going to be for everyone.
    If you're actually reading this then chances are you already have my last album but if NOT and you're curious:
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    Also, Ephemeral Sun: it's a thing and we like making things that might be your thing: https://ephemeralsun.bandcamp.com

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by rdclark View Post
    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.
    Interesting take, personally

    A friend bought me "Theiveing Magpie" when the CD came out to attempt to turn me on to them, but I didn't connect with it

    I didn't find them to be very much like Genesis, at all

    They are not flashy players, and for me it was more interesting to hear Rothery play with "Bad Dreams", as he delivers a pretty Hackett-esque solo on the title cut from their album Dega-vu, unlike any Marillion song I've heard

    They will be on the next Cruise, so I plan to check out more of the Hogarth discs and see if the connection is better

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    Moderator Poisoned Youth's Avatar
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    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.
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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Poisoned Youth View Post
    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.
    ^^ A good, overall assessment. I was a little put out by the OP (obviously) because it seemed facetious to me. What band that has been active for 38 years and released 18 studio albums hasn't changed since that first album?

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    Good band. I find Marbles to be their finest work but the early Fish stuff is cool (though very dated sounding...) FEAR is also quite good.
    The Prog Corner

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    Casanova TCC's Avatar
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    Marillion:
    Beginnings: love it! (Fish's era)
    Then, with Brave and 2 more I'm always looking
    for what they're doing!.

    Take you're time: this is good music, these are really good musicians IMO!

    Pura vida!.
    Last edited by TCC; 07-31-2017 at 08:37 PM.

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    cunning linguist 3LockBox's Avatar
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    I too came into Marillion late (around 2001) with the Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other. Liked the Hogarth stuff, have little use for the Fish era. The song Lavender still makes me chuckle... dilly dilly...

    I don't love all Hogarth-Marillion albums unconditionally though. For every great song in their canon there's 2-3 real duff tunes. They're like sluggers in baseball; a .200 batting average is considered very good as long as your going yard often enough.

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    Member since March 2004 mozo-pg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by 3LockBox View Post
    I too came into Marillion late (around 2001) with the Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other. Liked the Hogarth stuff, have little use for the Fish era. The song Lavender still makes me chuckle... dilly dilly...

    I don't love all Hogarth-Marillion albums unconditionally though. For every great song in their canon there's 2-3 real duff tunes. They're like sluggers in baseball; a .200 batting average is considered very good as long as your going yard often enough.
    I don't agree -take these four albums - Season's End, Brave, Afraid of Sunlight, and Marbles. There are no duff tracks to my ears.

  17. #17
    It seems most people like the post fish better. I'm more a fan of Fish than Marillion. I like all Fish ones and even some Fish solo. I've tried and tried the post fish albums but they just leave me cold.

  18. #18
    Parrots Ripped My Flesh Dave (in MA)'s Avatar
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    I really don't enjoy Script or Fugazi all that much, except for maybe Assassing. I liked Childhood and Straws quite a bit, but Brave never really clicked with me, so I gave up.


    I got my wife one of those Amazon echo things a while back and she has the damndest time getting it to play Kayliegh when asked. She can only get it to play the album, and then she tells it to stop after that song plays.

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mozo-pg View Post
    I don't agree -take these four albums - Season's End, Brave, Afraid of Sunlight, and Marbles. There are no duff tracks to my ears.
    For the record I love both eras of the band. There are only a handful of Marillion songs I don't like, and some of them are ones many other people like a lot, so just preference. A few of their rockers I could do without, including a couple on Brave. For some reason Out of this World never did much for me, not even Rothery's solo! That's about it from the above albums.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave (in MA) View Post
    I got my wife one of those Amazon echo things a while back and she has the damndest time getting it to play Kayliegh when asked. She can only get it to play the album, and then she tells it to stop after that song plays.
    While the song is playing, ask "Alexa, what is this?" You will hear how the computer things the title is pronounced. (In this case, KAYlee.)

  21. #21
    I like the Fish era, particularly Clutching at Straws.... but definitely prefer the Hogarth era, and enjoy the majority of that period's discography. One of my favorite bands.
    Last edited by Score2112; 08-01-2017 at 07:24 PM.

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    Member since March 2004 mozo-pg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    For the record I love both eras of the band. There are only a handful of Marillion songs I don't like, and some of them are ones many other people like a lot, so just preference. A few of their rockers I could do without, including a couple on Brave. For some reason Out of this World never did much for me, not even Rothery's solo! That's about it from the above albums.
    That's a pretty solid record to only mention less than a handful of Marillion tunes. Brave, for me, is my favourite Marillion album, including Steve's guitar solos.

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    Member moecurlythanu's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    For some reason Out of this World never did much for me,
    Possibly my fave Marillo song ever.

  24. #24
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    The only Fish era albums I play regularly are Clutching at Straws and the subsequent Live from Loreley. But the run they had with H up through Marbles is incredible. After that they got stuck in that mid-tempo quagmire and though there's some great songs I don't play those albums nearly as much.
    I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart

  25. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Dave (in MA) View Post
    I really don't enjoy Script or Fugazi all that much, except for maybe Assassing. I liked Childhood and Straws quite a bit, but Brave never really clicked with me, so I gave up.


    I got my wife one of those Amazon echo things a while back and she has the damndest time getting it to play Kayliegh when asked. She can only get it to play the album, and then she tells it to stop after that song plays.
    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.

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