(May 2017) I have completed episode 126 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to a band’s full discography. This edition: STYX. I listen so you don’t have to. On the Guilty Pleasure Nostalgia Playlist, I would put Peak Styx a notch below Peak Foreigner and two notches below Peak Journey. (Although post-peak Styx is less insufferable than the other two post-peak.)
Favorite album: The Grand Illusion
Favorite song: Come Sail Away
Compared to expectations: ↑
(April 2017) I have completed episode 120 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to an artist’s full discography. This edition: VANGELIS. Best known for his lush, new age-y soundtracks, his career is much more, covering psychedelic rock, avant-garde jazz, ambient and experimental electronica. As a fan of 1970s electronic music, I especially like his pioneering work in that period. Also, his first band, Aphrodite’s Child, makes an excellent contribution to psychedelic rock and probably should have received its own treatment.
Favorite album: Heaven and Hell
Favorite soundtrack album: Opera Sauvage
Favorite song: The Dragon
Favorite period: 1975-79
If you want nine hours of uninterrupted meditation music: The Tegos Tapes
Compared to expectations: same
(March 2017) I have completed episode 116 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to a band’s full discography. This edition: ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA (along with two JEFF LYNNE solo albums). With its combination of Beatlesque melodies and prog-rock orchestration, you would think I would have been more into ELO than I was. Would the songs sound better with the layers stripped off ? Lynne’s later work suggests yes. ELO was the soundtrack of the portion of my youth spent in roller and ice rinks (and as a parent, the Astrophere.)
Favourite album: Eldorado
Favourite song: Fire on High
Worst album: Balance of Power
Compared to expectations: same
(January 2017) I have completed episode 105 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to a band’s full discography. This edition: SUPERTRAMP. Hodgson and Davies are talented songwriters, and some of their tunes still have legs, but too much of their stuff is mere Lite Fare.
Favorite album: Supertramp (1970, in the prog rock mold of early Yes and Genesis, unlike anything they did later)
Sentimental favorite : Breakfast in America (one of the first albums I owned)
Favorite song: Give a Little Bit
Compared to expectations: same
(November 2016) I have completed episode 101 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to an band’s full discography. This edition: JETHRO TULL. I still adore their first five albums (plus the 10th) with their unique roguish blues/folks/prog rock sound. But beyond that, it gets tedious and unremarkable (I listen so you don’t have to).
Favorite album: Aqualung
Favorite song: To Cry You A Song
Worst album: Under Wraps
Best album cover by any band EVER: Thick as a Brick
Compared to expectations: same
(September 2016) I have completed episode 95 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to an artist’s full discography. This edition: MIKE OLDFIELD. A pioneer of new age and world music, it would be a mistake to categorize his music through the banality and pretention that those genres are known for. In fact, his first three albums are true masterpieces — inventive, diverse rock symphonies. After a venture into forgettable pop music in the 1980s, he fully succumbs to new age drivel by the mid-1990s.
Favourite album: Ommadawn
Favourite song: Tubular Bells, part 1
Favourite Period: 1973-78
Worst Album: Earth Moving
Special sauce: Piltdown Man
Compared to expectations: ↓
(January 2015) I have completed phase 46 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to a band’s entire discography from start to finish. This episode: RUSH. Remember that sense of wonder and magic you got as a youth reading A Wrinkle in Time or Voyage of the Dawn Treader? And how, when you re-read those books as an adult, you not only fail to recapture that feeling, but it also erases it from your memory? It’s been like that with Rush. When I was younger, I marveled at the wizardry (both lyrical and musicianship) of this band. Pure headphone music. And while I still enjoy many of their “classic period” songs, the enjoyment is devoid of that original mystery. And it says something that my favorite song is an uncharacteristic power-chord metal piece. Lastly, there’s the unsurprising revelation that most everything that came after Moving Pictures is crap. I can say I’ve listened to those 11 later albums now, and I never need to again.
Favorite album: 2112
Favorite song: Working Man
Favorite instrumental: La Villa Strangiato
Lowest point (among many): Power Windows
Special sauce:
Compared to expectations: ⇓
(December 2014) I have completed phase 43 of my “opus project,” wherein I listen to an artist’s full discography from start to finish. This episode: KING CRIMSON, as well as several ROBERT FRIPP solo and collaboration albums. This was hard to compare, as King Crimson went through four distinct phases, which I categorize as early psych/orchestral/jazz (69-71), middle prog (73-74), late new wave/beat (81-84) and later whatever (95-03). And then there’s Frippertronics…. Some of the music I love — first album, Great Deceiver, Discipline, Fripp/Eno — and much that I think I should embrace, but after repeated listenings, I don’t.
Favorite KC album: Discipline
Favorite KC song: 21st Century Schitzoid Man
Low point: Lizard
Favorite Fripp solo/joint album: (no pussyfooting)
Special sauce: Adrian Belew
Compared to expectations: same
(September 2014) I have completed phase 37 of my “opus project” in which I listen to a band’s entire discography from start to finish. This episode: EMERSON LAKE AND PALMER. Most of this has not worn well over time, and the two 1990s reunion albums are thoroughly unlistenable. However, some earlier songs provide me nostalgic guilty pleasure.
Favourite album: Trilogy
Favourite song: Trilogy
Low points: Anything after Brain Salad Surgery (1973), but especially those 1990s albums
Compared to expectations: same
(September 2014) I have completed phase 36 of my “opus project” in which I listen to an artist’s full discography from beginning to end. This episode: GENESIS. I admit this one was tedious. The early stuff is mostly impenetrable until the last two albums with Peter Gabriel. The middle stuff is mostly banal, the later stuff crap-tacular, and the last bits unlistenable. But there are some decent songs in there.
Favourite song: In the Cage
Favourite album: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Worst album: Calling All Stations (this was after even Phil Collins left the group).
Compared to expectations: ↓
Opus Project 