jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (06/27/85)
> If you listen to these albums, I'm sure you'll see the light. If you'd read all the postings, instead of hitting the 'n' key so fast, you'd have read my posting about 2 weeks before this Yes discussion started, which was on Tales from Topographic Oceans. And, in fact, it was SPECIFICALLY that album that I was referring to. And, more specifically, to the fight scene that preceeds the ending song you quoted from, besides! > Obviously you don't do your homework. There is in existance an album- an > album so incredible that it's amazeing that it hasn't been given proper > notice. It's called "Tales from Topographic Oceans". And just guess who > the drummer is. That's right, Alan White. This is the album that has > "Ritual" on it. Not as creative? Hardly. Recently in net.flame I called someone a name for a farm animal, then felt guilty and apologized. I feel like doing so again here. My original posting was exactly on this subject; you may recall that I asserted that "Tales from Topographic Oceans is the major contribution to music made by the Progressive Rock movement of the 1970s." Unfortunately, not one person felt inclined to support or refute that statement; hence my subsequent notorious "Huzzah for the undefeated triumph" posting which did generate many hostile comments. My complaint with Alan White has nothing to do with creativity; it has to do with dynamic control. Now, I am not a drummer, and hence I do not know many of the words for drum playing. However, when a musician is providing a rhythmic accompaniment for a piece of music which itself has uniform rhythm and dynamics (not that Yes's music often does! :-)), and yet successive drum beats at equivalent points in successive measures are noticeably louder or softer than others (sometimes totally clumsily so), I feel this reflects badly on the performer. To a certain extent, you could argue "it's supposed to be that way, it adds an element of discord," just as you can argue that Steve Howe's moaning "So the flow'ring creativity of life wove it's web face to face with the shallow; and their gods sought out and conquered Ah Kin" out of key adds an element of discord to this important transition from the bizarre steel guitar before to the very beautiful accoustic guitar piece that follows it. It's just a matter of aesthetics, like most music criticism, but I personally (who have listened to Tales From Topographic Oceans I would guess maybe 600 times over the past 4 years) feel that Bruford would have been much better on there. [Now, surely you can't deny that the part immediately preceeding the transition to "Nous Sommes du Soleil" in "Ritual" doesn't sound like someone washing pans with an SOS pad? It's only the smaller, higher-pitched drums he has this problem with; the big, bass kind he always does just fine on.] . . . "Do the leaves of green stay greener through the autumn? Does the color of the sun turn Crimson White? <- obvious reference BB@KC, Does a shadow come between us in the winter? "get it"? Is the movement really light? "Then I heard a million voices singing, Acting to the stories That they had heard about. Does one child know the secret, And can say it? Or does it all come out Along without you?" -- Shyy-Anzr: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 "Bu, jbj! Oyhr fxvrf! Oneguvr Ohetref! Tveyf*!!!" *Qba'g oynzr zr, Fbcuvr, vg'f whfg n dhbgr (ersrerapr gb na byq fbat, nyfb).