Art For Art's Sake

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Fretless
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Art For Art's Sake

Unread post by Fretless »

It has struck me recently that many/most/all musical acts have a constant friction between the desire to create works of great artistic merit and the day-to-day needs of selling enough records to pay the rent. This means that sometimes an album comes along that looks like commercial suicide but is that artists need, at that moment, to put commercial desires aside and just go with what they wanted to do.

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A recent case in point would be Taylor Swift's gorgeous 'Folklore' where she dumps her chart-topping, arena-fiilling gloss pop sound for an intimate, acoustic collection of introspective songs from the heart.

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I've just had Fleetwood Mac's 'Tusk' on (well, the first half) and that is a sprawling, confused mass of utter brilliance that is so clearly a deliberate attempt NOT to make 'Rumours 2' which was what the world expected (and wanted) at the time.

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Another entry in this list is U2 'The Unforgettable Fire'. Sensing that after 'War' they were being lined up as the next hard-hitting Dinosaur-Rock formation to pick up where The Who left off, the men from Dublin hauled in ambient guru Brian Eno as producer and locked themselves away in a castle. The resulting album changed their punk-inspired sound into complex, weaving layers and improvised texts. A truly, staggeringly massive album emerged and the path to world domination with 'The Joshua Tree' lay wide open.

It is not a question of what is 'the best' album here - sometimes those 'experimental' efforts go totally the wrong way and leave the fans wondering what the hell the artist was thinking. But it is the point where a musician/group are getting into their stride and turn to the world to say "THIS is what we are capable of !"
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CN211276 (Sun Oct 24, 2021 12:44 pm)

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Re: Art For Art's Sake

Unread post by TheMadMick »

Probably a bit off topic but I had the Tusk LP and was not impressed. However, rebuilding my digital collection again, the CD is much better both in sound quality and in the ordering of the songs - the whole thing starts to make sense.
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Re: Art For Art's Sake

Unread post by Fretless »

TheMadMick wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 11:50 am Tusk - the whole thing starts to make sense.
I didn't realise it was meant to. :doh:

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Re: Art For Art's Sake

Unread post by CN211276 »

Good examples are Judas Priest with Nostredamus and Dream Theatre with the Astonishing. Both albums did not go down well with many of the fans and both bands returned to familiar territory with the following albums. I saw Priest on the Nostredamus tour and would have liked to have heard more of it. KK Downing is critical in his autobiography for the band not having the courage to play the album in its entirety, bringing in Don Airey on keyboards.

The most extreme example of art for art's sake is probably Deep Purple's Concerto for group and orchestra.
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Re: Art For Art's Sake

Unread post by Fretless »

CN211276 wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 12:44 pm The most extreme example of art for art's sake is probably Deep Purple's Concerto for group and orchestra.
Unlike many, I love that - and the follow-up 'Gemini Suite'. :dance:

Still don't like 'The Astonishing', though. :snooty:
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Grumpytim (Sun Oct 24, 2021 3:07 pm)

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Re: Art For Art's Sake

Unread post by Grumpytim »

Fretless wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 12:50 pm
CN211276 wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 12:44 pm The most extreme example of art for art's sake is probably Deep Purple's Concerto for group and orchestra.
Unlike many, I love that - and the follow-up 'Gemini Suite'. :dance:

Still don't like 'The Astonishing', though. :snooty:
qobuz have a very good 96/24 of the Gemini Suite that I've recently indulged in.
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CN211276 (Sun Oct 24, 2021 4:00 pm)

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Re: Art For Art's Sake

Unread post by Grumpytim »

More extreme examples would be Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music and Julian Cope's Woden, both marvelous in their own ways but not for the faint of heart.

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Re: Art For Art's Sake

Unread post by slinger »

How about "The Pentateuch Of The Cosmogony," a (1979) hardback book written and (superbly) illustrated by Patrick Woodroffe, containing a double 12" vinyl album with music by Dave Greenslade? It even had its own (working) language, built on pictograms.

Dave Greenslade - keyboards; vibraphone; tubular bells; vocals on 10, 11, 13, and 19; vocoder (used with all vocals on album)
Phil Collins - percussion on 5, 10, 12, 16-18
John Lingwood - percussion on 6, 8, 15, and 16
Kate Greenslade (age 2 years and 6 months) - vocal on 7

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More pics here - https://vinyllpvault.blogspot.com/2015/02/dave-greenslade-pentateuch-of-cosmogony.html

You might recognise some of Woodroffe's other album cover art...

Strawbs, Burning for You (1977)
Greenslade, Time and Tide (1975)
Greenslade, Greenslade 2 (1975) - preliminary artwork only, the album was never recorded.
Budgie, Bandolier (1975) - a take on Planet of the Apes with horse riders with budgie heads
Judas Priest, Sad Wings of Destiny (1976)
Pallas, The Sentinel (1983)
Mike Batt, The Hunting of the Snark (1984)
Stratovarius. Fright Night (1989)

All 1 hour 21 minutes and 1second of it...



And yes, of course, I bought it when it came out. :lol:
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Fretless (Sun Oct 24, 2021 4:09 pm)
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