Going for the One, by YES

Year: 1977
Country: United Kingdom

On 22 July, 1977, an album so masterful came out that it will most certainly echo in eternity. Going for the One was the first album by Yes since the return of keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman, who had been absent from the group's lineup for nearly three years due to concentration on his solo career. During this time, the rest of the group released only one studio album with a replacement keyboardist, the 1974 success Relayer, then proceeded to also create solo albums.

On this occasion, Yes relocated to Switzerland to record their new album on the shores of Lake Geneva. The actual studio was located in Montreux, but Wakeman's church organ sequences were recorded in the nearby town of Vevey and transferred via phone lines to the studio. I wrote about this already last year, when the closing track of the album, Awaken, reached number one spot on the Top 20 Long Prog Masterpieces list. Please check that story out over here.

The incredible title track that opens the album sets the mood perfectly. I guess it should be called my number one favorite piece of music of all time, since I must have heard it approximately 500 times since its release and it still gives me goosebumps every time. This in spite of the peculiar way the song begins: without Wakeman's keyboards, and with Steve Howe playing a lap steel guitar which seems out of place on a prog album and the sound of which I don't even like.

Soon enough, Wakeman's organ also kicks in, and the soundscape begins to fill up. This is one of the charms of the song: it begins with a very simple rock instrumentation but ends with a massive wall of sound. The singer Jon Anderson wrote the song that is his absolute best. Lyrics don't make very much sense but after five minutes, you are so giddy with how great everything has been that ending the track with "Talk about sending love, love, love, love" makes perfect sense anyway and may move you to tears.

Having risen so far up in such a short time is great, but could exhaust the listener if the album were to continue on the same level. So, the next thing Yes does is calm things down considerably. We begin the immensely beautiful Turn of the Century quietly, with Howe's acoustic guitar and Anderson's high pitched vocals. Wakeman's keyboards start to enter the background sounding a bit like a string section, and we are on our way with this beautiful song.

The video above is obviously fan made. Turn of the Century represents greatness almost equal to the title track, but from the opposite end of the Yes spectrum. The rocking and noisy symphonic prog classic is followed by something eerily fragile and lovely. It seems a little strange that a completely uncommercial song like this could be taken from an album that, following its release, spent two weeks as number one on the UK album chart.

Personally, I have always felt that the third track on the A side, Parallels is the only even slightly weak link on the album. Don't get me wrong - it is a great, great track. But I don't feel it is quite as full of wonders as the other four songs on Going for the One. Originally composed for inclusion on bassist Chris Squire's debut solo album Fish Out of Water, it was left out from there because Squire felt that it didn't quite fit the collection of other songs he had written for that album.

Parallels opens mightily with Wakeman's church organ, recorded in Vevey, playing a sequence of chords at a loud volume. The rest of the group joins in, and it is soon apparent that we have once again returned to the rocking end of the group's output. It all works really well, but unlike on the other tracks, there isn't much of anything to truly marvel.

B side of the vinyl version opens with the first single taken from the album, Wonderous Stories. Yes keeps alternating between hard rocking and quieter, more acoustic songs: this one is Turn of the Century's soulmate. Again we open with acoustic guitar and vocals, and the song that starts to take its form impresses already early on with its strong, beautifully composed melody. The song is even more stunning than Turn of the Century - a relatively short track with a memorable tune. No wonder it was selected as a single.

The video above brings me fond memories. In 1977, you could already hear some contemporary rock music on the radio even in Finland, but to see it performed in television was still a rare thing. I had the immense pleasure of seeing and hearing this exact same video clip in Finnish television on 23 December, 1977. By that time, I was already familiar with both this song and the title track, having heard them several times on the radio. But to see the band actually perform it (well, actually this is only a playback) was a new pleasure, previously unheard of.

The rest of the B side is filled with the well over 15 minute long work of art that is the greatest Long Prog Masterpiece ever made. I have already written about it in the previous blog entry, see link above, so there is no point in repeating myself. Let's just add one thing to what has already been said.

I have heard a rumor that Jon Anderson thinks Awaken is the best thing that Yes ever recorded. This is difficult to verify, but seems to originate from several sources and could very well be true. After all, this is a truly exceptional masterwork even in the progressive rock genre. And it is the word masterwork that Anderson has used to describe the song.

1977: May to September

In May, 1977, the last noteworthy 10cc album was released. The original group had now split in two, with Godley & Creme now working separately as a duo. The remaining group recorded Deceptive Bends, which contained a few good songs. Both A and B side openers Good Morning Judge and Honeymoon With B Troop are perfectly fine in my book, but the real standout is the massive eleven and a half minute closing track Feel the Benefit that immediately secured its place among the unmissable tracks of the year the first time I heard it.

On 20 May, one day before my fourteenth birthday, Genesis gave me the nicest gift a prog fan could possibly get. Since there had been two new Genesis albums last year, there was no way a new album would be coming out this year but what did come out was a three track EP called Spot the Pigeon, containing outtakes from the Wind & Wuthering sessions. Two of them were only so-so, but the third one was absolutely brilliant. Inside and Out showcases Steve Hackett's talent with the twelve string guitar in much the same way as Anthony Phillips's solo album The Geese & the Ghost did his talent earlier this same year.

Next, let's discuss a couple of noteworthy prog albums whose exact release dates are unknown to me, but which came out during 1977: one in the US and the other in the UK. The Virginian group Happy the Man had already been active since 1973, but it wasn't until four years later that they were able to release a debut album for Arista. Overall, it was a very successful effort. Happy the Man embodied the symphonic prog of the time, yet also gave a very sentimental feel both in their music and lyrics. You cannot really imagine another group recording an instrumental track called Stumpy Meets the Firecracker in Stencil Forest - one of the weakest tracks on the album.

But the group had obvious talent both as songwriters and masters of their instruments, and there are several very good tracks on their debut. In addition to the song embedded below, be sure to check out at least Starborne, Upon the Rainbow (Befrost), Carousel and New York Dream's Suite. The track below perhaps best examplifies Happy the Man's sound. The vocals at the beginning are a perfect example of the type of overdone sentiment - the singer's voice even seems to break at one point - that I meant above. And yet On Time as a Helix of Precious Laughs has a brilliant, strong ending that you wouldn't be able to imagine after hearing the first minute.

The UK release I was referring to above is of course the one and only album by the unexpected symphonic prog masters England. I already briefly discussed their album Garden Shed last year back when that album's closing track Poisoned Youth reached fourth place in the Top 20 Long Prog Masterpieces list. You can read that blog entry over here. Like I wrote already then, England was the ultimate fairy tale in the progressive rock genre. They came from nowhere! They made one single great album! They disappeared!

And yet, to be perfectly honest, all of Garden Shed is not really great. The group is competent all the time, very good most of the time, but truly great only when it comes to Poisoned Youth. That the song is over 16 minutes long and comprises about 40 per cent of the album's entire running time does help to up the average and makes the album a recommendable acquisition. Note that the year is wrong in the link below. This is a 1977 release, not 1976.

And then it is 22 July, 1977, and a masterpiece to end all masterpieces is released. It turned out that Rick Wakeman, who left Yes some three years earlier for his solo career, was willing to rejoin the group. When this happened, the prog giants headed to Montreux, Switzerland, to record their new album with the keyboard wizard back on board. The end result was and still is baffling. Going for the One is not only the best album of 1977 but also the best album of the seventies. In my mind, even the best album of all time.

For that reason, we will skip it for now and dedicate our next blog entry entirely to it, like we already did with the best album of the sixties: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn by Pink Floyd, that came out in 1967. What is it about the years ending in number seven? The same thing will continue in the eighties, when the best album of that decade will be released in 1987. Let's discuss it then.

In the early eighties, there was a comedy show in the Finnish television by the British disc jockey and comedian Kenny Everett. I watched it often. Everett had chosen the title track of the third album by French electronic music composer Cerrone as the theme song for his show. For this reason, Supernature was probably quite well known over here as well as wherever the show was aired. It had a disco beat and also some lyrics sung by a couple of women who sounded like soul singers.

If it were for Supernature only, we wouldn't even be discussing the album that came out some time in 1977, no exact date known. But there is another track on that album that is simply brilliant and has been embedded above. In the Smoke wasn't really anything but a significantly slowed down version of the title track without the disco beat and vocals. But oh boy, how well it worked! As is fitting for the year when the disco craze really hit the music scene, the instrumental has obviously been designed for use as a slow and mellow last dance of the evening. I didn't and still don't dance, but found the music immensely beautiful and was a huge fan already at the time.

September brings us a new release by John Cale, but it is not a full album. A short, three track EP called Animal Justice is very significant because of its closing track Hedda Gabler, embedded above. It is an exceptionally strong piece of music that I immediately felt was the best thing that Cale had achieved since Paris 1919 in 1973. Named after the character from Henrik Ibsen's play, the song runs over eight minutes but doesn't feel overlong at any point. One of the unmissable tracks of the year, obviously.

The time has come to say goodbye to Gentle Giant. Although they would go on to record two more studio albums after 1977, I'm not planning to discuss them due to their rapid drop in songwriting quality. The Missing Piece, out on 16 September, is a transitional recording. It follows the excellent Interview (1976) but precedes the mostly embarrassing Giant for a Day! (1978) that only has a couple of listenable tracks and no great ones.

A large part of The Missing Piece is also weak. It sees the group abandoning prog and playing more straight rock and roll which they are not very good at and which was never a part of their appeal anyway. However, there are three very good tracks even here, one of them an unmissable track of the year.

The first two tracks on the B side, As Old as You're Young and Memories of Old Days would have fit perfectly even their older albums. Paradoxically, the unmissable track is however one of the "new style" rock / pop songs where Gentle Giant succeeds admirably in their songwriting, creating an instant classic in I'm Turning Around which has been embedded above.

And then for something completely different! One week after The Missing Piece, on 23 September, the American group Steely Dan released their best album Aja. It was the antithesis of everything that I felt was important about music.

Normally, my favorite music required concentration and worked best with headphones and zero external distraction. Steely Dan worked perfectly fine in the background and could be used to set a certain mood to a situation. My normal favorites were not necessarily polished in execution, because interiors were more important than exteriors. Steely Dan's production values were possibly highest in the entire music industry, and in many cases it felt like there was no interior, so to speak. My favorites were shabby hippies, Steely Dan was an impeccably dressed businessman.

For these reasons, it is all the more inexplicable that I had already liked several songs on their earlier releases - I already mentioned Rikki Don't Lose That Number when discussing 1974 - and Aja was the pinnacle. An album where virtually every song was good. Not particularly soulful maybe, but great in other ways. My absolute favorites are the first two songs: Black Cow and the title track Aja. But there is nothing weak on the album. If you like, please check out the one hour documentary above that discusses the making of the album.

1977: January to April

When it comes to high quality music, 1977 was a definitive improvement over the previous couple of years. For the first time since 1974, we will need to divide the year into three blog entries, although they are admittedly a little shorter than they were in 1973 and 1974. But in only two parts they would have been way too long. Let's concentrate on the first four months of the year this time.

This year, even the usually slow January was a significant month. On the 14th, David Bowie released his experimental classic Low, which contained several truly interesting tracks that really captured by imagination. I have embedded Warszawa above, but I might have done the same for A New Career in a New Town, Subterraneans, Art Decade or Weeping Wall. The B side of the vinyl version in particular is something else.

I had come to think of Bowie as a singer, so when his album suddenly contained creative instrumentals, I was taken aback a little - and most likely, so were many others. But following the initial surprise, I came to like this new Bowie very, very much. Obviously his collaboration with Brian Eno had a lot to do with advancing into this direction. Eno himself would release some seriously unmissable tracks later this same year.

Only nine days later, on 23 January, it was time for Pink Floyd to release another album. This one was called Animals, and personally I liked it immediately better than Wish You Were Here, whose longest track Shine On You Crazy Diamond had been a small letdown for me. This time, the guys were once again on to something. In fact, I enjoyed everything else on the album except Pigs (Three Different Ones), so I cannot help but place it on the list of the albums of the year.

The 17-minute long Dogs felt like a small masterpiece, and of course so did the key song of the album, Sheep that has been embedded above. Pink Floyd was once again able to do weighty social commentary and create memorable music at the same time. The song climaxes with David Gilmour's stunning electric guitar sequence which I still think is second only to the climax of Echoes. Comfortably Numb comes third, following these two earlier masterworks.

11 February marked the release of Songs from the Wood by Jethro Tull. Their golden era was also coming to a close. There would be only one more really good album following this. Last year's Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll, Too Young to Die had already been a huge disappointment. This new album was however anything but, and at the time gave me new hope. There are no true standout tracks but there are virtually no weak tracks either.

Perhaps my favorite song is the title track that also opens the album. An enjoyable collection of folk rock songs has a nice lightness to it. The emphasis is more on folk than rock. There are some rocking tunes as well, but a large part of the album is acoustic and mellow. If you get your hands on it, be sure to also check Jack-in-the-Green, Ring Out Solstice Bells and Fire at Midnight, to name but a few.

Exactly two weeks later we found out how Peter Gabriel was going to continue his career. On 25 February, he released his first self titled solo album. Overall, it turned out to be a fine recording and actually gave some hope to a Genesis fan: now that Gabriel and Genesis were both recording artists separately, perhaps we would be getting twice the number of enjoyable albums than we would have, had they stayed together.

Most of the songs on Gabriel'd debut are good or very good, but there is one masterful achievement that towers way above the rest. Humdrum is only a short song but it packs stunning power. Upon hearing it for the first time, I immediately assumed that I had found the best song of the year - this early in the year! This might also have been true for most years, but 1977 would become so great that even this song was not to remain on the number one spot.

And there was still more Genesis related music to come! In March, the group's original guitarist Anthony Phillips released his first solo album The Geese & the Ghost. It had been a really long time in the making. Recording had begun as long ago as August, 1973 and been completed in October, 1976. One possible reason for the long period may have been that the album was originally intended to be a joint work between Phillips and Genesis bassist Mike Rutherford. However, Rutherford's schedule turned out to be too busy for a side project, so Phillips ended up completing and releasing the album in his own name.

The fact that the new Genesis singer Phil Collins sang on a couple of tracks gave the album all the more a joint venture feel. Rutherford was, of course, also present. Phillips played his 12-string guitar in very much the same way that Steve Hackett does. All in all, it was like an extra Genesis album had been released - in a year when there would be no new actual Genesis album coming out.

Speaking of Phil Collins - he also appeared on another new non-Genesis album. In April, his jazz fusion side project Brand X released their second studio recording - their first had been previous year's Unorthodox Behaviour. I can't claim that I was that enthusiastic about the entire album that was called Moroccan Roll, but there was this one track that got me almost as excited as Chandra by Gong last year.

The track in question opens the vinyl album's B side, is called Disco Suicide and has been embedded above. I'm not sure what kind of temporary jazz fan I had become, but there is something about this instrumental that feels very energizing. I even considered including it on the list of unmissable tracks for this year, but ultimately decided that it isn't quite that deserving. Only very close, and most certainly worth a listen.

Next, we make a short visit to Finland. Some time, most likely in the spring, the Finnish musician Pekka Pohjola released his third solo album Keesojen lehto. I haven't found out the exact date, or even the month, but I know that recording was completed already in December, 1976. This was quite an exceptional album in that there were some really famous people performing on it: Mike Oldfield was actually the co-producer and also played guitar. Gong's Pierre Moerlen appeared as well, and Sally Oldfield sang.

The album is one of Pohjola's best, as you can hear from the track embedded above. Kädet suoristavat veden has been translated to Hands Calming the Water. It is easy to recognize both Oldfields performing on the track: Mike's guitar sounds like it does on his own albums, and Sally's voice is equally familiar. Another track worth checking out on this album is Matemaatikon lentonäytös (aka Mathematician's Air Display). In addition to Finland, the album was also released at least in Sweden, Italy, Germany, Japan, USA, the UK and Benelux countries.

And finally, let's close this blog entry with some additional Finnish masterworks. I have no idea when in 1977 Dark Album by Wigwam came out, so we might as well discuss it now, immediately following Pekka Pohjola. I have mentioned the group three times before; with this new album, they close their golden era and won't be mentioned again. Overall, the new album isn't anywhere as good as Nuclear Nightclub (1975) but oh boy, don't its standout tracks really stand out!

Track number two, Cheap Evening Return is one of the best Finnish mellow rock songs ever, and another great track The Big Farewell follows below. It looks like Wigwam is really hard to find in YouTube, so I had to resort to Spotify links once again. While Nuclear Nightclub remains the group's definitive masterpiece, their absolute best individual songs seem to have appeared elsewhere: in addition to these two, Häätö (1970) and Lost Without a Trace (1971) must also be remembered. If these four songs were added as additional tracks to Nuclear Nightclub, that compilation album would truly kick ass!

1976: Mid-April to December

On 23 April, Gentle Giant released Interview, the final album of their golden era. Overall, it was their best since Octopus (1972). While there were no truly unmissable tracks, three out of seven were nonetheless very close to that - much more than on their previous three efforts.

The title track that opens the album is a very, very fine prog rock song that embodies just about everything that was always good about Gentle Giant. The third track Design is probably the zaniest "vocal acrobatics" type song the group ever made. Very reminiscent of Knots from Octopus, it works almost as brilliantly. But perhaps the greatest track of the album is its closing I Lost My Head, embedded below. This is where the greatness of Gentle Giant ends. There were still three more album releases to come, but they were considerably weaker, for reasons we will discuss when the time comes.

Only one day later, a truly unique musical performance took place at New York City Hall. It was the premiere of Music for 18 Musicians, by American minimalist composer Steve Reich. It still remains his most astonishing piece of work. Although premiered this early, the over 70-minute long composition wouldn't be released as a recording until 1978. Let's place it here however, because this is the moment when it already existed, and was performed to general public for the first time.

On 17 May, if was time to get some fulfillment to my interest in heavy metal. Rainbow had released their debut album one year earlier, and on this date their sophomore effort Rising arrived in the stores. The album was otherwise nothing special, but its closing track was such an operatic powerhouse that it gave me goosebumps. Only four days shy of 13 years, I was impressed and confused at the same time. I didn't think much of heavy metal - why was Stargazer so great? There were even strings in the background!

At an unknown time in 1976, Tangerine Dream released already their seventh studio album. Following the stunning Rubycon, they had also managed to release one live album in December 1975, called Ricochet. Although that album had been recorded live, the compositions - Ricochet Part 1 and Part 2 - were new material. I wasn't particularly impressed with the end result, so I skipped the album earlier, although I do enjoy the first seven minutes of Part 1.

Ricochet had already been a clear departure from the, shall we say purer soundscape of Rubycon. Tangerine Dream's earlier albums had all been very electronics heavy, whereas Ricochet suddenly employed electric guitars and percussion. Stratosfear continued that same trend: as you can hear below, the title track actually opens with a guitar. In addition to that, compositions were once again becoming shorter. In addition to the title track, I would recommend checking out The Big Sleep in Search of Hades.

In June, Soft Machine released a new album called Softs. This extremely eccentric jazz prog group had enjoyed cult success since the late sixties. Even the frontman of Gong, Daevid Allen had been a member before forming Gong. The first, self titled album had been released in 1968 and there had been a new release every year since then. The early recordings were not very accessible and later ones became even less so. Suffice to say that the combination of jazz, psychedelia, prog and overall craziness was too much for most - myself included, of course.

Softs was already the ninth studio album by the group. The thing that made it historical was that it was the first one where there was no longer a single original member present in the lineup. All the hippies with their improvisational techniques were gone, and now there were more precisely playing musicians left... I'm not being serious, but yes, I enjoy this phase of Soft Machine more than I do the freewheeling early years.

At this point in time, it sounds like the keyboardist Karl Jenkins has become the leader of the group. His handiwork is certainly evident on the album's standout track The Tale of Taliesin, embedded above. Jenkins would of course proceed to form Adiemus in 1994 which makes my liking of his earlier work all the more embarrassing. But anyway, here we are. There are also other good tracks on Softs, but this one is the best.

On 11 August, the Canadian band Klaatu released their debut album 3:47 EST. This would hardly be groundbreaking news, if it weren't for two things. First, caused by the shroud of secrecy around the group and their familiar sounding output, for a while there were widespread conspiracy theories about them actually being The Beatles who had regrouped under a false name. Second, because the album contained the song Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft, which would become an undying classic when a more famous American group made a cover of it a little later.

11 September, and a new album by Electric Light Orchestra was released. Could it possibly outdo the masterpiece that was Face the Music? The answer is yes and no. A New World Record became the group's greatest hit and solidified their superstar status. Filled with memorable single tracks such as Telephone Line, Rockaria! and Livin' Thing it was easily accessible to just about everyone with even a passing interest towards classy pop/rock music.

Being well over 13 years old at this point, I was also blown away by the album and initially thought it to be a masterpiece. Which it is, in a way, but it didn't take me many years to realise that the best songs on Face the Music had a way more lasting quality. While I do enjoy all of the hits listed above, none of them have truly stood the test of time. I have only two lasting favorites: the infinitely beautiful Mission (A World Record) and the massive closing track Shangri-La, and only the first one of those is truly unmissable.

Autumn was already here, and there didn't seem to be too many significant albums on release. Compared to many of the previous years, 1976 was turning out to be much less plentiful when it came to high quality music. The end of the year provided me with only three additional new albums worth discussing. A particularly noticeable detail about them was that they were all released by a group that had already released one album during this same year. And, as it is, all of them were discussed in the previous blog entry.

In October, Van der Graaf Generator released World Record, which turned out to be one more small step backwards following Still Life, which had been a step backwards from Godbluff. There were a couple of decent songs on this album as well, but they could hardly be called twin masterworks. Still, the opening track When She Comes feels quite good to me. In my mind, the best song on World Record is however its last track Wondering.

I have no exact release date, but sometime at the end of 1976, Gong released the follow-up to their earth-shattering Shamal that had come out at the beginning of the year. The new album was released in some territories as Expresso, but is more widely known as Gazeuse! It was almost pure jazz fusion, and this time there was no genius worthy of Patrice Lemoine working as a composer. To me, the album wouldn't even be worth mentioning if it weren't for one lovely track it contains.

Gong was now Pierre Moerlen's band, and he liked to play marimba in addition to drums and percussion. A composition called Percolations begins with a lovely theme that I instantly liked and still respect. The whole thing has been embedded below; please check out the first 3 minutes and 53 seconds. Aren't they infinitely beautiful? You can also listen to the track all the way through: the rest of it is like the rest of the album, perhaps interesting to some but not to me. Next time we will be discussing a Gong album when we discuss the output of the year 2000...

Finally, it was time for Genesis to release another album during the same year. It was like A Trick of the Tail was really their 1975 recording that just didn't happen to come out until 2 February, 1976. This new album with the most beautiful cover image I can think of is then their actual 1976 album. Wind & Wuthering was also a step backwards. But that was inevitable: how could Genesis possibly have topped something like A Trick of the Tail?

Tony Banks was still in charge and the album had, in my opinion, the exact right approach even though the end result was not quite as interesting as one would have hoped. Most of the songs were OK. Two of them were unmissable, making the group's total number of unmissable tracks of the year an unheard of five. Remember, there were three on A Trick of the Tail. My favorites were the beautifully accomplished Blood on the Rooftops and the regretful, pathos filled closing track Afterglow.

Such a beautiful way to close a year! And such a strong reminder that, in spite of everything that had happened, Genesis was still very much alive.

ALBUMS OF THE YEAR:
10cc: How Dare You!
Electric Light Orchestra: A New World Record
Genesis: A Trick of the Tail
The Tubes: Young and Rich

UNMISSABLE TRACKS OF THE YEAR:
10cc: Don't Hang Up
10cc: I'm Mandy Fly Me
Cluster: Zum Wohl
Electric Light Orchestra: Mission (A World Record)
Genesis: Afterglow
Genesis: Blood on the Rooftops
Genesis: Entangled
Genesis: Mad Man Moon
Genesis: A Trick of the Tail
Gong: Wingful of Eyes
Gong: Chandra
John Miles: Music
Matti Järvinen: Sameassa vedessä
Soft Machine: The Tale of Taliesin
The Tubes: Pimp
The Tubes: Young and Rich

Best albums of the year since 1967:

1967: Pink Floyd: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
1968: (not awarded due to lack of worthy candidates)
1969: Procol Harum: A Salty Dog
1970: Genesis: Trespass
1971: Genesis: Nursery Cryme
1972: Yes: Close to the Edge
1973: Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon
1974: Mike Oldfield: Hergest Ridge
1975: Electric Light Orchestra: Face the Music
1976: Genesis: A Trick of the Tail

Best short tracks (under 12 minutes):

1967: Pink Floyd: Bike
1968: Pink Floyd: Julia Dream
1969: Pink Floyd: Cirrus Minor
1970: The Beatles: The Long and Winding Road
1971: Genesis: The Fountain of Salmacis
1972: Gentle Giant: Schooldays
1973: John Cale: Paris 1919
1974: Mike Oldfield: Mike Oldfield's Single
1975: The Tubes: Up from the Deep
1976: Gong: Chandra

Best long tracks (12 minutes or over):

1970: King Crimson: Lizard
1971: Van der Graaf Generator: A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers
1972: Yes: Close to the Edge
1973: King Crimson: Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part 1
1974: King Crimson: Starless
1975: Mike Oldfield: Ommadawn, Part 1
1976: -

1976: January to mid-April

The time has come to unveil what is, in my opinion, the greatest twin masterwork of all time. When discussing the year 1974 we already mentioned Gong, the eccentric continental European prog rock group. Since that time, there have been significant lineup changes. The band frontman Daevid Allen has left, along with his partner Gilli Smyth and keyboardist Tim Blake. Flutist / saxophonist Didier Malherbe has however stayed, as well as guitarist Steve Hillage.

The new incarnation of the group that started working on a new album in 1975 had a noticeably different sound and playing style. Singer and bass guitarist Mike Howlett's role was now much bigger than before, due to Allen's exit, and the same could be said for percussionists Pierre Moerlen and Mireille Bauer. There was a new keyboardist called Patrice Lemoine. Together, this group really clicked and recorded Shamal, which could be argued is the best ever album by Gong on the strength of its first two tracks alone. Strangely enough, the Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason was acting as the producer when this gem was made.

The opening track Wingful of Eyes is a showcase for Howlett. He wrote the song, and took the vocal duties as well. The track introduces a new, jazzy sound for the band. Gone are the marihuana laced space rock antics that had been typical for Allen's time. The end result is mellow jazz prog at its absolute best.

But as good a start as that was for the new album, the new keyboardist Lemoine manages to outdo it. He has written track number two called Chandra, the first part of which is instrumental. Only at a relatively late stage, Howlett's vocals kick in. By that time it suddenly hits you. You are listening to a match made in heaven: a perfect combination of jazz and progressive rock. Peculiar time signatures and their perfect handling by the group left me dumbfounded when I first heard Chandra. That perfectly played instrumental ending with its fadeout is possibly the single best musical moment of the year, guaranteed to give goosebumps every time.

If only Lemoine had stayed with the group! The man who was able to compose something like Chandra could have worked wonders also later. But that was not to be: when the next Gong album came out at the end of this same year (to be discussed in the next blog entry), he had already left. Chandra remains the only song he ever composed for Gong. Sad. All the more so because Gong kept on developing towards pure jazz fusion. They ended up dropping the prog element and became Moerlen's band for the next few albums.

In any case, Patrice Lemoine's work resulted in the best individual song of 1976 award winner. Yes, it is here already: Chandra wasn't beaten by anything else released during this year, even though there are still many more absolutely brilliant songs and albums left to be discussed. 1976 was a year that peaked really early: we will also get to the best album of the year very, very soon.

The British art rock group 10cc also peaked in January. Their fourth album was called How Dare You! and it was the last one they made with their classic lineup. Following this, Godley and Creme left the group to form, er, Godley & Creme. Stewart and Gouldman continued using the name 10cc, hired new bandmates, but were never able to top the output of the original version of the group.

How Dare You! contains several outstanding songs. The best among them are I'm Mandy Fly Me, embedded above, and the moving closing track Don't Hang Up. Mandy is a sort of a sequel to Clockwork Creep that appeared on Sheet Music. That one was a song told from the point of view of a bomb set to detonate on board a passenger airliner. Mandy continues that story from the viewpoint of one of the passengers. And as you can hear above, the end result is simply stunning.

2 February already saw the release of the year's best album. Genesis had decided to continue without Peter Gabriel and also without hiring a replacement for him, by appointing Phil Collins as the new lead singer. So ended the Peter Gabriel era, and began the all too brief Tony Banks era. Later on, there would also be a Phil Collins era. But for now, the music was still melody driven art rock with some genuine prog also thrown in. The best album of 1976 was called A Trick of the Tail.

Overall, this was a very welcome release from Genesis. Some fans may have feared that the group would disband altogether. Instead, they made their strongest album since Nursery Cryme (1971). Songwriting is now on a very high quality level, with three out of eight songs unmissable tracks of the year: Mad Man Moon embedded above, the catchy title track, and the beautifully crafted Entangled. At the other end of the spectrum there is also Robbery, Assault and Battery; yet another failed attempt to be funny. I never liked Ripples much either, it has always felt too sweet and cloying to me.

Some time in 1976, more likely during the first half than the second, another interesting Finnish album was released. Matti Järvinen debuted with Matin levy (in English: Matti's Record). Filled with several lovely, nostalgic songs it contained one undying classic that has been embedded above (the video has been made by a fan less than a month ago). Sameassa vedessä (in English: In Murky Water) is a strong, melody driven pop/rock song that reminds me of symphonic prog mainly because of its instrumenation. This song was one of my favorites of this year.

Another new male singer-songwriter that debuted around this time was John Miles, whose first album Rebel was released in March. The slightly uneven recording had one outstanding track that clearly rose above the rest, exactly like there was one on Matti Järvinen's album. It was called Music, and was released as a hit single around the same time as the album. Please check it out below. Can you believe that a track like this could actually have become a hit at some point in time?

I already mentioned Camel's fourth studio album Moonmadness a little earlier. It came out on 26 March and was a clear return to more proggy soundscapes after last year's mellower The Snow Goose. A challenging but also rewarding album to listen to, it sounded to me like a companion piece to 1974's Mirage.

April saw the return of one of last year's most smashing acts. The Tubes released their second album within the space of less than a year, and I must admit that it was every bit as good as their debut. There are several brilliant, even more satirical songs contained on the album such as Don't Touch Me There and Brighter Day. But the two unmissable tracks that are in my opinion even better than those, are the title track that closes the album, and Pimp.

Apologies for that stupid, sexist image that appears in the background of the video link. I couldn't find any alternative version that would have played the original studio mix like this one does. Additional apologies for the song being in mono, but if you like it and want to hear it in stereo, please find the album. You will most likely want to hear the rest of it as well. And let's add some regrets too: I would have so much liked to embed also the title track Young and Rich that is every bit as great as Pimp, but there seems to be no decent version available either in YouTube or Spotify. So there you have one more reason to go buy the entire album.

Van der Graaf Generator followed up last year's brilliant Godbluff with a new album called Still Life on 15 April. This time, they were nowhere near as successful but took the twin masterworks route: the first two tracks on the album are absolutely great and the rest only so-so. Pilgrims opens the album with a bang, and a much quieter and sadder title track follows. Let's embed the whole album this time so you can check out them both, played in succession, like originally intended.

So now it is mid-April and, according to the headline of this blog entry, we should be taking a break. But before we do that, let's mention one more 1976 album. I have no idea when exactly during the year it was released, so we might as well discuss it now. The West German experimental duo Cluster recorded their new collection of instrumental compositions in only two days, and this took place some time in early 1976. So the end result may in truth have been released later than mid-April.

The new album was called Sowiesoso and it was their first that I genuinely liked. Their earlier ones had been a bit too minimalistic and artsy-fartsy for me but this one was perfect. I particularly enjoyed Zum Wohl - an instant classic and one of the most unmissable tracks of this year. It is a good, immensely peaceful way to close this particular blog entry. Next time, we will continue from the second half of April all the way to the year end. In 1976, the end of the year was less busy than its beginning, which was very different from several of the previous years.

1975: August to December

In August 1975, possibly the best ever Finnish album was released. I have already mentioned our very own progressive rock giant Wigwam a couple of times before. This was the time they completed and published the peak album of their career. Nuclear Nightclub may have a bit silly looking album cover, but the music contained on the disc is simply flawless. For once, the group found a perfect balance between artistic ambition and commercialism, and of all the unlikeliest places, they achieved it within the progressive rock genre. This wouldn't be possible today.

I might otherwise have been hard pressed to choose a sample track from this album, but YouTube makes it a lot easier: very few of the songs are available there to choose from. The easiest one to find, Freddie Are You Ready was indeed the best known and most played song already at the time, and believe me, it got LOTS of radio play in Finland. The other two brilliant songs in my personal top three are Bless Your Lucky Stars and Save My Money and Name. Weak tracks? No, I don't think there are any.

This is perhaps a slightly unnecessary side note, but a mainstream artist called Bruce Springsteen also released an album in August 1975. He had not reached megastar status yet and could therefore concentrate on making quality music. Born to Run, out on the 25th, contained two of his best songs that I listened to eagerly at the time: the memorable title track, and my number one favorite Thunder Road.

Then it was September, and it turned out to be quite a month. Jethro Tull continued with the shorter form re-introduced on previous year's War Child, but this time more successfully. The brilliant Minstrel in the Gallery, out on 5 September in the UK and 8 September in the US, placed noticeably more emphasis on hard rock then its predecessors. The softer elements were however also there, and this combination worked wonders, making this one of Tull's best albums.

The title track Minstrel in the Gallery is of course an undying classic and easily the best known song on the album. But, instead of it, I have embedded above track number two, Cold Wind to Valhalla that I have always liked even better. Please check out how perfectly it is arranged and played, from the gentler and more acoustic opening to the more hard rocking sequences later on: an utterly satisfying dramatic arc.

One week later, on 12 September it was time for Pink Floyd to uncover the follow-up to their 1973 gargantuan worldwide hit album The Dark Side of the Moon that was actually still charting. That must have been a daunting task. How can you follow up something universally acclaimed and not disappoint? In this case the group chose, perhaps surprisingly, a rather personal subject matter by recording an album that was quite obviously about their original leader Syd Barrett. Eventually, Wish You Were Here became almost equally appreciated as its predecessor.

But as good as these two September releases already were, another two would also come out that approached sheer greatness. Since January 1974's Here Come the Warm Jets, Brian Eno had released his second solo album Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy. I skipped it earlier because it was just more of the same but with considerably less impact. Now, he had completed his third one that turned out to be a real game changer.

Another Green World is a simply stunning achievement that saw Eno develop into a new direction as a musician. Just like that, all of his earlier albums' glam rock stylings were gone. Here was a new Eno who mostly composed creative instrumentals and whenever he sang, he did so in a peaceful, low voice. The album is simply filled with standout tracks, I cannot even begin to choose only one. So, I am embedding the full album as a playlist that you can browse.

For me, the most memorable tracks are Sky Saw, In Dark Trees, Becalmed, Zawinul / Lava and Spirits Drifting - all instrumental pieces. If I had to choose only one, it would be the last one, an icily beautiful composition that evokes a feeling of deep sorrow and loss. Everything else contained on this album is also either very good or great. This is Eno's peak recording, an endlessly inventive collection that he never topped later, even though he continues to make brilliant music to this day. His next album would come out only two months later: the November 1975 release Discreet Music was his first stab at creating ambient music, and he has done a lot more of that since.

Another stellar September release came from Electric Light Orchestra. Their fifth studio album Face the Music was their best so far. For some reason, they wanted once again to enter the US market earlier than their home turf. The September release took place there. UK didn't follow until 14 November. Songwriting quality was on an unheard of level, although even this collection of eights songs did contain one dud. I have always hated the hillbilly silliness of Down Home Town. But, being the seventh track, it was always followed by my number one favorite individual song of the whole year: the masterful One Summer Dream.

October was also a brilliant month in music, although there were only two new albums worth discussing. First up is the eagerly awaited return of British proggers Van der Graaf Generator. As mentioned before, following their excellent fourth album Pawn Hearts (1971) the group went their separate ways and it was thought that their story was over. Singer Peter Hammill embarked on a solo career and released his first five solo albums, from Fool's Mate (1971) to Nadir's Big Chance (1975).

Now they had reformed, and the outcome was Godbluff which I would argue is their best album overall. Granted, there is nothing as great as A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers but on the other hand there is nothing quite as average as Man-Erg either. A consistently good album on which there are really no weak songs, Arrow perhaps being the least interesting of them. My number one favorite has always been the opening track The Undercover Man.

On 21 October, it was time for my 1974 favorite artist Mike Oldfield to release his third studio album Ommadawn. Once again, there were two parts: one filled the entire A side but the other didn't quite fill the B side. This time around, Oldfield had been persuaded (or had perhaps wanted) to record a short song for radio play and that had been added to the end, giving the actual Part 2 therefore a little less space. On Horseback is a song, not an instrumental, and a great one too.

After having listened to Ommadawn Part 1 in its entirety one could have been fooled into thinking that the new recording was on par with Hergest Ridge, perhaps even better. But Part 2 is a slight disappointment. To use bagpipes as a lead instrument was a strange idea to begin with, and on top of that there doesn't seem to be true inspiration left when it comes to melody - strange considering how impeccable the first part is. Due to the slight weakness of Part 2, Ommadawn is, in my opinion, only the second best album in Oldfield's entire discography. Hergest Ridge remains his best work.

At this point, there were so many great new albums for me to listen to that I wasn't particularly disappointed when the following months were a little quieter. That allowed me more time to concentrate on Eno, ELO, VdGG and Oldfield. In November, there was a new album out from John Cale, of Paris 1919 fame, called Helen of Troy. Since Paris, the productive songwriter had already released two additional albums called Fear and Slow Dazzle which were both OK but didn't really impress me.

Helen of Troy contained two late autumn favorites of mine. I Keep a Close Watch would get an even better treatment in 1982, but this original version with its string arrangements is also very good. Perhaps my number one favorite was in any case the haunting Leaving it Up to You. Both of these songs had for some reason been hidden to the album's B side. Please note that the video embedded below is monaural, but so is the original recording, so there has been no mistake.

Out on 21 November, A Night at the Opera by the British rock band Queen saw them take huge steps towards genuine art rock. This didn't of course prevent the album from becoming a massive hit. Bohemian Rhapsody is nowadays considered on of the greatest songs in rock history. An even bigger favorite of mine was, however, is the B side opener The Prophet's Song, whose complicated vocal work halfway through strangely reminds me of the works of Gentle Giant...

Finally, in December Vangelis published his masterwork Heaven and Hell. He was now a major star in his own genre. A large composition consisting of several parts, the album was nothing short of great in some places and interesting in all of them. Please pay particular attention to the lovely sequence starting at 12:50 - it was later used as the theme to Carl Sagan's space documentary series Cosmos. And even more importantly check out Aries / A Way, from 37:35 to the end. It is in my mind the best piece of music that Vangelis ever composed and recorded.

ALBUMS OF THE YEAR:
Brian Eno: Another Green World
Electric Light Orchestra: Face the Music
Mike Oldfield: Ommadawn
Tangerine Dream: Rubycon
The Tubes: The Tubes
Van der Graaf Generator: Godbluff
Wigwam: Nuclear Nightclub

UNMISSABLE TRACKS OF THE YEAR:
Brian Eno: Spirits Drifting
Caravan: The Show of Our Lives
Electric Light Orchestra: Fire on High
Electric Light Orchestra: Poker

Electric Light Orchestra: One Summer Dream

Greenslade: Catalan
Jet: Brian Damage
Jet: Tittle-Tattle
Mike Oldfield: Ommadawn, Part 1
Mike Oldfield: On Horseback
Pink Floyd: Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Part 1
Popol Vuh: Aguirre I
Tangerine Dream: Rubycon, Part 1
The Tubes: Up from the Deep
The Tubes: What Do You Want from Life?
Van der Graaf Generator: The Undercover Man
Vangelis: Aries / A Way

The honorary awards for best individual song and album this year go to a non-progressive rock group. Electric Light Orchestra's Face the Music was such an achievement that it cannot be beaten. And likewise, as I already mentioned, One Summer Dream wins best song. Best albums of the year since 1967:

1967: Pink Floyd: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
1968: (not awarded due to lack of worthy candidates)
1969: Procol Harum: A Salty Dog
1970: Genesis: Trespass
1971: Genesis: Nursery Cryme
1972: Yes: Close to the Edge
1973: Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon
1974: Mike Oldfield: Hergest Ridge
1975: Electric Light Orchestra: Face the Music

Best short tracks (under 12 minutes) during that same period:

1967: Pink Floyd: Bike
1968: Pink Floyd: Julia Dream
1969: Pink Floyd: Cirrus Minor
1970: The Beatles: The Long and Winding Road
1971: Genesis: The Fountain of Salmacis
1972: Gentle Giant: Schooldays
1973: John Cale: Paris 1919
1974: Mike Oldfield: Mike Oldfield's Single
1975: The Tubes: Up from the Deep

Best long tracks (12 minutes or over):

1970: King Crimson: Lizard
1971: Van der Graaf Generator: A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers
1972: Yes: Close to the Edge
1973: King Crimson: Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part 1
1974: King Crimson: Starless
1975: Mike Oldfield: Ommadawn, Part 1

1975: January to July

1975 found several progressive rock giants of the decade's first half in challenging situations. Robert Fripp had disbanded King Crimson following seven studio albums between 1969 and 1974. Peter Gabriel would leave Genesis this year in the wake of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour. Even Yes, although fully active, seemed to be suffering from repeated, crucial lineup changes. Following Bill Bruford and Rick Wakeman, who would be the next one to leave? Needless to say, none of these groups released new studio albums during 1975. But there were new talents emerging that did.

The headline reads January to July, but I couldn't find a single interesting album or single release to actually come out in January. Even February had only one. Alice Cooper was now no longer a band but a solo artist, and following last year's disappointing Muscle of Love the new album Welcome to My Nightmare was a major improvement. Exactly like the title implies, this collection of new songs had a horror related theme, and even used the iconic genre actor Vincent Price as a narrator at one point. I enjoyed several of the songs in the dark and cold nights of winter.

In March, the activity was slowly picking up as there were two interesting new releases, one of them even "Album of the year" material. It wasn't the third album by 10cc called The Original Soundtrack, even though that one was a perfectly fine piece of work as well. It contained the group's best known song I'm Not in Love, but most of the more interesting songs were located on B side. If you like, please check out songs like The Second Sitting for the Last Supper, Brand New Day or Flying Junk. All of them are high quality rock/pop songs that are occasionally also thought provoking.

However, everything mentioned before in this particular blog entry pales in comparison with the West German electronic music group Tangerine Dream's new album Rubycon. An instant classic, it was released on 21 March on the same Virgin label as Mike Oldfield's output so far; proving once and for all that Richard Branson really had talent when it came to signing promising newcomers.

Tangerine Dream had begun their recording career already in 1970, but until their fourth album Atem (1973) they had remained strictly an underground favorite. Following that album's favorable reviews in the UK, they were picked up by Virgin and released their fifth studio album Phaedra for that label in 1974. This was already considered a major breakthrough by many, but I was never too excited about the album. The sixth one however blew me away.

As you can hear above, Rubycon is one of the most important album releases in the electronic music genre ever, and in 1975, way ahead of its time. At this point, Tangerine Dream's classic lineup was in place. It would unfortunately break up only a couple of years later. The group leader Edgar Froese had his best ever collaborators in Christopher Franke and Peter Baumann. Sadly, it was Baumann who left for a solo career following 1977's excellent soundtrack album Sorcerer, and things were never really the same after that for Tangerine Dream.

My absolute hard rock favorite of the spring was Bad Company. They released their second album Straight Shooter on 2 April. Its standout track Feel Like Makin' Love got a considerable amount of radio play also in Finland. It was also released as a single, but that didn't take place until several months later, in August.

I had mixed feelings about The Snow Goose, the third studio album by Camel, also out in April. It wasn't anywhere near as challenging as Mirage had been. The music was inspired by a melancholic short book, which I even read because of the album, and there were no lyrics at all. The music wasn't particularly progressive in nature but it was beautiful and, most importantly, it was easily accessible.

For me, the last point became the album's shortcoming. The Snow Goose was easy to like at first, but also to grow tired of relatively soon. Even now, I would happily pick up Mirage or Moonmadness (out next year) to listen to, but would be less likely to do so with The Snow Goose. For those listeners seeking an effortless entry to Camel's music, this could be a good place to start. It is by no means a weak album; it just isn't very challenging either.

In May, a new amazing debut album came out that would also remain as the group's last. The UK based Jet - not to be confused with the Australian group active in 2000's - achieved art rock perfection with the A side of their self titled release. The opening track Start Here is embedded above; also please check out Brian Damage that can also be found in YouTube. Looks like the album's real standout track Tittle-Tattle however isn't, which is a pity.

Jet were hardly beginners: there were two ex-Sparks members in the lineup, as well as one member who had played in Roxy Music and The Nice. At the time they were labelled as a glam rock band, and I suppose that is partially true, but their compositions and arrangements were way more ambitious than those of the more regular glam rock acts. Magnificent art rock with some prog influences and a glam rock wardrobe would be a pretty accurate description of Jet.

Around these times, Greenslade released their fourth and final seventies album Time and Tide, which was also clearly their best. I don't have the exact release date, but since recording was completed already in February, the album would have been out around May or June. The brilliant instrumental track Catalan was even released as a single, and it was also my favorite piece on the album. In the video embedded above, you can also listen to the next track on the album following Catalan.

I had now turned twelve years old, summer holiday was almost there, and with Jet and Greenslade there was plenty of brilliant music to listen to. In this respect, life was good, and when it came to finding still more new and interesting music, a lot more was going to happen...

June saw another incredible debut album release. The satirical, punk oriented group The Tubes were originally from Phoenix, Arizona, but at the beginning of their recording career they had already relocated to San Francisco. Their self titled first album was one of the most stunning releases of the year. Its opening track Up from the Deep remains one of the decade's best and can obviously be labeled as progressive rock, although the majority of the group's output cannot. It even got radio play in Finland soon after its release.

Unfortunately, Up from the Deep cannot be found in YouTube in a proper, original version. Instead, let's embed and listen to another classic track from the same album, What Do You Want from Life? - a deliciously satirical look at American consumerism. There is a small fault at the beginning: about two or three seconds are missing from the beginning of the track. Otherwise, it sounds fine, and as fitting as ever as a description of first world lifestyle.

For some time, I had been paying attention also to another German group besides Tangerine Dream. Popol Vuh made lots of music to the films of director Werner Herzog. Of these soundtracks, Aguirre is undeniably the greatest. The film itself had already come out in 1972 but I hadn't seen it and became aware of it only through this excellent soundtrack release.

For some reason, Aguirre the album came out three full years after the film. I don't even know the month, let alone exact date, but since Popol Vuh had already released one studio album called Das Hohelied Salomos in February 1975, this one would more likely have been published later in the year. So, let's place it here and then move onward to July and its two releases worth discussing.

Another year, another Gentle Giant album. Free Hand was already their seventh. This time, the group did the twin masterworks routine: they opened the album with two great songs in succession, then seemed to lose most of their creativity with only OK tracks played thereafter. Since there were only four additional songs, this wasn't too bad: one third of the album was great, two thirds passable. So far, the group seemed to be holding on to their progressive rock roots, so even their weaker songs were not failures in terms of artistic ambition.

The opening track Just the Same is embedded above; an energetic and exhilarating prog rock song. The second one, On Reflection is embedded below. It follows the tradition of songs based on the group's vocal acrobatics, previously explored in album tracks like Edge of Twilight and Knots.

We have now only one final album left to discuss before we take a break. On 25 July, Caravan released their last album worth mentioning, jokingly called Cunning Stunts. That's right, Metallica was not the first one to use that title after all. Not only did the album close the group's golden era; it actually fares quite well against For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night which, I opined earlier, is Caravan's best album.

This one could then well be their second best. Songwriting is overall on a very strong level, although the real culmination point comes already at the beginning. If Cunning Stunts is Caravan's second best album, then surely its opening track The Show of Our Lives must be their best individual song. My summer holiday was for the most part behind me, and another school year would commence in a few weeks. But listening to high quality music like this made all those worries tolerable. It almost made them disappear.