The Album Review Club - Week #145 - (page 1923) - Tellin' Stories - The Charlatans

With respect, that's a massive assumption on your part.
I'm not a Coldplay fanboy, but I can at least acknowledge they have written some great tunes over the years.
This isn't a deep dive but I'll start the bidding that they have written 4 originally likeable songs which since will have been played to death (not necessarily their fault).

And it doesn't help anyone that Chris Martin just happens to have Chris Martin's personality.............. ;-)
 
With respect, that's a massive assumption on your part.
I'm not a Coldplay fanboy, but I can at least acknowledge they have written some great tunes over the years.
Their early stuff was ok I thought. Some good songs. They put on a pretty amazing arena show as well.
To be fair, I think they are but even more so I think they purposely are.

They are grandstanding their education or smartness, as I tried to observe it's their University limerick-ing or whatever I wrote.............
I don't think they are at all. In that period, they wrote a huge variety of lyrics - from ethereal to out and out comedy and everything in between. Anyone that can write a killer rock song about Hogweed must have some kudos. History and mythology does feature quite a bit in the earlier stuff but to me its no more pretentious than writing a double album about a puerto rican hoodlum in NYC. If they had made music like the Ramones, i think they would have been similarly dismissed because of their background.
 
Their early stuff was ok I thought. Some good songs. They put on a pretty amazing arena show as well.

I don't think they are at all. In that period, they wrote a huge variety of lyrics - from ethereal to out and out comedy and everything in between. Anyone that can write a killer rock song about Hogweed must have some kudos. History and mythology does feature quite a bit in the earlier stuff but to me its no more pretentious than writing a double album about a puerto rican hoodlum in NYC. If they had made music like the Ramones, i think they would have been similarly dismissed because of their background.
To be fair I'm not well versed on their back catalogue but it's how it comes across to me from the album..........
 
I think Genesis Gabriel era is too English for you yanks, seriously, loads of references and Englishness, even the artwork, yes the lyrics are twee, but artfully so and references to nursey rhymes etc.
Now your comment on Wish You Were Here. I myself prefer Foxtrot a hundred times more due to the musical content, its harmonically brilliant, contains contrapuntal passages, varying time signatures, Jazz chord voicings. Its clever.
Pink Floyds music is flat, nearly all a slow 4/4, The long opening on Gminor is nicked....David relies too heavily on pentatonic scales, its easy listening music really with Prog pretensions, its not harmonically adventurous.
Im not saying everybody should prefer Foxtrot, Im speaking personally.
Roger Waters strength is his lyrics. His music is boring. Like Coldplay. LoL
I totally agree……
About Coldplay being boring.

The rest….
Not so much.
 
It is in most lists of the greatest prog rock albums. I think Rolling stone has it at 15 or something round that (and they are Yanks ffs) ;-). Thought it was just me that believe Floyd albums are overrated. Only time I felt myself nodding off was at their debut concert for wish you were here (maybe the alcohol and dry ice had something to do with it).
Nice review mate.
Music appreciation isn’t a competition though.
It’s totally subjective, barely objective.
You like what you like and can like both or neither.
I would rate Floyd’s, Wish You Were Here, Dark Side and Animals against anything else I have ever heard including putting them above most Genesis albums that I’ve heard.
And as I wrote earlier the pre Duke Genesis was staple of the music I listened to through the 70s.
I would still prefer Trick of the Tail over Foxtrot and LLDOB pisses on everything else they did in my opinion. It is one album I go back to time and time again.

They were a very English band in the early material, that’s true. But for me music either grabs you or it doesn’t. Sometimes you can’t explain why something hits you emotively but leaves others cold.

I mean I was fanatical about everything Yes did, but what the hell are any of their albums about?
They are soundscapes. The lyrics are purely part of building the right emotive feel and they were brilliant at it. People love/hate Topographic Oceans but certainly the first album is as good as any classical compositions I’ve tried to get into for the emotional heaving that it gave me as a teenager. It swept me along.
Whatever music you choose, good luck to you, I say. Go with it. It’s nobody else’s concern.

Regarding Coldplay though, the clue is in the name.
 
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I totally agree……
About Coldplay being boring.

The rest….
Not so much.
That's fine mate, I wouldn't expect you to agree with me.
I have always thought that Pink Floyd music was boring, they aren't technically efficient enough to play Prog. Half their music is slow and dirgelike. Bands like Yes, King Crimson, Gensis are in a different platuea musically and technically speaking....but I wouldn't expect any of the legions fans to agree.
It's my opinion
I forgot to add that they are massive hypocrites.
Us & Them and The Gunners Dream I like though. And Syd Barrett was a genius.
 
It is in most lists of the greatest prog rock albums. I think Rolling stone has it at 15 or something round that (and they are Yanks ffs) ;-). Thought it was just me that believe Floyd albums are overrated. Only time I felt myself nodding off was at their debut concert for wish you were here (maybe the alcohol and dry ice had something to do with it).
Nice review mate.
Ahh yes progressive rock lists, I was talking about greatest rock albums of all time lists.
 

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