Talk:Tales from Topographic Oceans/Archive 1

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Track names

There are no any brackets at all on CDs artwork, so I suppose track titles should be looking like these:

1. The Revealing Science of God/Dance of the Dawn
2. The Remembering/High the Memory
3. The Ancient/Giants under the Sun
4. Ritual/Nous sommes du soleil

Ledpoison1 (talk) 20:37, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Cover

The article needs an albumbox and bigger cover scan Lee M 04:07, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Is this right?

"Shortly before this he had famously eaten a take-away curry on stage whilst the band were performing the work in order to show his disdain for it. He did, however, rejoin Yes in 1977 for their album Going For The One." I heard this was a planned part of the show, like Jon reading a newspaper during some long solos? --Thomas 12:07, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Rick was on Countdown on Channel 4 last week (I think) and he told the tale of the curry incident - he said that he mentioned to a roadie (or somesuch) that he was getting hungry and had a desire to go for a curry after the show, which was misinterpreted as a request and the guy dutifully ordered one and brought it to him. He thought it was shame to let it go to waste, and he was hungry, so he ate it. --195.219.38.177 15:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

That's right - it's mentioned in his autobiography (see this excerpt). I've removed the part of the "Discord" section that claimed he did it on purpose (and "ate it under his cape while playing one-handed"). — Hex (❝?!❞) 12:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

This is wiki, not a Yes fan site

It is the role of this encyclopedia to examine this album within the context of its time, not to praise it from a fan's POV. I was around when the album was released and it was indeed crucial in terms of the backlash it recieved that helped to fuel the punk movement. Personally I really like TFTO and play it often, but also understand the critisisms (sprawling, self indulgent, etc). Therefore it is not appropriate to remove the links to critical websites, particularly the Punk77 website which fairly accurately, and in a humourously healthy POV way represents the punk viewpoint on this album.

Cheers quercus robur 08:18, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

==Just reverted a huge chunk of POV text from this article- I stated reading it, but got bored, so if anybody can find anything worthwhile in what was added and re-add it in a more restrained and NPOV way please feel free... quercus robur 09:52, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm somewhat taken aback, Quercusrobur, that you would deign to edit someone's text "because you got bored." With respect, if the new material bored you, I feel you should re-focus your attention upon a topic that actually really interests you. Or why not ask the writer, here, to consider altering their work. This would be much more respectful.I'm assuming you're not a senior Wikipedia editor.

Further, referring to your May post, again respectfully, I would ask you whether you are in a position with the Wikipedia organisation to dictate policy (?). I doubt that you'd be surprised if I went on to say that it is perfectly valid for an encyclopedia to comment critically on art presented in the past. Are you suggesting, for example, that the entry on Picasso should only present opinions on his cubist works contemporaneous with the time of their production? If you are, I would suggest that you would be gravely in error.

I would also like to point out that Yes were one of many bands of the early and mid-70s whose approach to music stimulated the birth of punk rock. This album and Yes themselves were not crucial in giving rise to punk per se. That would be much too large a claim to make on its behalf.

yours, Thos. Nov 6 2005 — Preceding unsigned comment added by ˚ Thos (talk • contribs) 20:51, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Assume what you like 'Thos', I DO have Wiki admin status if thats what you mean by a 'senior editor', and have been editing wikipedia since 2002. Apart from this I wasn't aware that there were any 'senior editors', I thought wiki editors were a topless non-hierichical collective, even if the whingers on Indymedia sometimes claim otherwise, and I DO understand wikipedia policy, which is to present useful encyclopedic, nuetral point of view information, not turn entries into waffling opinionated 'critical essays'. Yes, I got bored, your aditions to the article are lengthy and tedious fan point of view meanderings and render it no longer readable or useful, but then that is just my opinion. I can't be arsed to get into a dispute with you and shall forthwith refer this to third parties for intervention. quercus robur 19:29, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

But you were desysop'd.HammerFilmFan (talk) 05:22, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Added to Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts page [1] as per above:

Tales From Topographic Oceans- See discussion on Talk:Tales From Topographic Oceans. Anon user (Thos?) has expanded article into a 'critical essay' with lots of personal opinions, etc. Needs third party view/input/severe editing and cleanup, possibly user needs clarification re. NPOV and other Wikipedia policies. 21:10, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Apologies, this isn't an anon editor but user:thoss, who I assume is the previous anon contributor now signed in. Could still do with a third party look-over though... quercus robur 22:52, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Thos

My comments yesterday were rude and ignorant- I shouldn't have reverted your edits so brutally although they DO need an NPOV edit, preferably from a third party rather than me. I should have flagged this up, or at least pointed you in the direction of wiki policy (which somebody has now put at the top of your talk page) rather than just reverting the whole page. Sorry if I pissed you off, I'm noramlly quite a reasonable person to work with, honest! quercus robur 19:47, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Wow

This new article has thrown all objectiveness and neutrality out the window, i love TFTO personaly, but this article is just too biased towards the album instead of remaining neutral. Its begging to be re-edited.

BJR — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.156.59.90 (talk • contribs) 13:50, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

The Myth of Neutrality and its Relative Undesirability

If the article referred to above is "too biased towards the album" for established Wikipedia standards, then fair enough. However, Wikipedia-bods are kidding themselves if they think that neutral positions on encyclopedia entries are always possible. There is an inherent bias in all the entries on Wikipedia, produced by their length, depth and detail, or lack thereof. Thus, the entry on Bob Dylan, in these terms, is obviously far from neutral. So the notion of an existent Wiki neurality is so much pious, pompous nonsense, I'm afraid.

In a different way, the original Tales From Topographic Oceans article that I originally amended was far from neutral - it was this that prompted me to make my own contribution. The article I read reflected a biased position on the album - the one that has been consistently taken since Chris Welch of the Melody Maker and other critics panned it when it was released in late 1973. It wasn't an overt bias, but without question it leaves the impression on the reader that here is a record of negligible value and influence, except to prompt the arrival of punk a few years later. This is a completely unacceptable view of the record for an encyclopedia entry. In fact, those who were alive and following the birth of punk and the new wave will surely be able to testify to the fact that it was the massive success of artists such as Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, ELO and Supertramp in the singles market of the mid-70s that stimulated punk's assault on this same market. The likes of Floyd, Zeppelin, Queen, Tull, Genesis, Yes and King Crimson were obvious targets of attack for punk spokespeople, it was the titanic icons, Elvis Presley and The Beatles that punk rebels were most keen to verbally attack, and did so. They wanted to completely tear down the received wisdom of rock history, and in terms of reputation and influence, the purveyors of progressive music were secondary targets. To suggest then that TFTO was remotely pivotal in causing the likes of John Lydon and Joe Strummer to get going is far fetched.

So look,I found this 'original' article a lazily misinformed and inaccurate critique of TFTO, and as such, annoying in the extreme, when it is clear that the Wikipedia project is already emerging as an information source of huge importance in the UK. It also offers, as far as I'm concerned, a unique opportunity for a fresh appraisal of, in this case, art. So I couldn't let the original article stand - it needed obliterating, in fact.

Which brings me to a second and wider point. It pains me very much that the Wiki powers extant are striving for neutrality. This, it seems to me, makes for a very bland and dull encyclopedia. As I just stated, the remarkable phenomenon that is Wikipedia should, for me, serve to elevate, inspire and inform. You can do the latter with stone cold fact, but you can't do the first two if all you allow writers to do is attempt to produce sentences that aim to be completely without subjective content. Though many entries are excellent when all you want to do is research a fact, frankly, many of the music articles are dull and boring, excessively so, in fact, and this is so sad.

This said, I won't pretend that my article on TFTO isn't out of place when considering the Wiki pillars. This was my fault for not trying harder to find them before submitting my entry, and I apologize unreservedly for that. But whoever wrote the miserably mediocre fare that I read a few weeks ago ought to set themselves higher standards or not bother placing entries hereabouts at all. The erroneous Rick Wakeman curry story was particularly regrettable. Isn't there something in one of the pillars about verifying facts? I am very sorry to be insulting to this writer, genuinely, but you do need to rethink your attitude and this won't happen through people involved in this discussion being nice. Some tough love is required. If you don't thoroughly know your stuff, you shouldn't deign to edit any of the entries in the whole encyclopedia. And before anyone takes offence at this, surely this is standard thinking for all sensible and balanced editors and would-be editors. I mean, I think Franz Ferdinand's music is complete and utter rubbish (and Nick Cave's almost as bad) but I wouldn't dream of going anywhere near their entries, never mind trying to tone down anything complimentary that may lie there poisoning this whole enterprise.

Naturally, I welcome responses to this note, and hope that they are passionate, but balanced. Not a word has been set down above in anger, or in an attempt to provoke anger or annoyance in others.

Thoss 00:07, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm too lazy to sign in right now since the internet is being REALLY slow, but I wanted to commend the person responsible for the rewrite of this article. It is a fantastic reenvisioning of the completely and laughably biased page that previously stood here, and though it is impossible to get rid of all bias concerning something with which one has a strong opinion of, this is a valiant effort. Kudos. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.38.223.223 (talk • contribs) 20:38, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Year or Month-Year no day

These dates are always rendered without wikilinking. Fantailfan 23:26, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

TFTO is fairly straight-forward rock music in only a bit longer packaging. The charges of it being excessive or deserving of shunning are a result of the kind of extreme anti-intellectual thinking about music that simple-minded music nazi's imposed upon the world, presuming that anything called 'rock' had to be from the gut and had to be comprised of tiny, basic chord progressions and regular beats. Yes, Genesis, Henry Cow, Gentle Giant, and many others had demonstrated that rock had only scratched the surface of what was possible and the imagination could only be rewarded by exploring the world of sound. Punk advocates missed the whole point. If TFTO was attempting to explore a complex topic in too abbreviated a manner, the answer was more depth, not less. Perhaps the lesson should have been that this work should have been 300 minutes long, rather than around 80 -- but, of course, not through mindless repetition.

--Trichotymus 01:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

None of that is at all appropriate to this page.Vonbontee (talk) 06:49, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Tough Love

I agree with Thoss that what is needed is tough love. I think the TFTO page is frankly much better now, as well as more appropriate to what the Wikipedia needs. I often think that the punk-inspired criticism did not stand up to scrutiny.

Many times it is based on extra-musical points; I also question the capacity of many critics to provide a properly informed POV. How many of them are musically trained? The curry story if incorrect needs to be edited further.

Veplaini 19:36, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Concept and history rewrite

I've rewritten this section. Please let me know what you think.

Previous version:

The album is the most controversial album in Yes's discography, and possibly in the entire history of progressive rock. The album's concept, a four-piece work of symphonic length and scope (incidentally based on the Shastric scriptures, as found in a footnote within Paramahansa Yogananda's book Autobiography of a Yogi), was their most ambitious to date.

The album was released when "prog" was at the height of its popularity – with bands such as Genesis, King Crimson, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, and the earlier albums of Yes, but is cited as a key to the genre's subsequent decline in popularity. For critics of progressive rock, the album exemplified everything that they considered wrong with the genre; the popular music magazine Melody Maker summed the album up in one word: "No." A similar reaction in Rolling Stone and others. The abstruse concept and extended execution were the main targets of the album's critics, who argued that too much musical padding had been employed with little in the way of a proper concept or lyrics to back it up. In this way, the album perhaps played a significant role in paving the way for the punk rock bands of the mid 1970s, epitomized by The Ramones and The Sex Pistols, by forfeiting a large chunk of the momentum that had been built up by the group's previous three studio albums.

Conversely, some critics and fans were enthralled by the album's sheer ambition and depth, lending Tales from Topographic Oceans an equal measure of critical approval that has stretched to this day.

I have changed it to:

The album's concept, a two-disc, four-piece work of symphonic length and scope (based on the Shastric scriptures, as found in a footnote within Paramahansa Yogananda's book Autobiography of a Yogi), was their most ambitious to date.

On release it received notably hostile reviews. Gordon Fletcher in his review in Rolling Stone described it as "psychedelic noodling". Chris Welch in Melody Maker described it as "Brilliant in patches, but often taking far too long to make its various points, and curiously lacking in warmth or personal expression".

Despite acquiring a reputation as an example of the worst excesses of "prog rock", Topographic Oceans became the band's fourth gold album.

I think the idea that Joe Strummer and John Lydon listened to the first few bars of Topographic oceans, and were inspired by this to learn how to play guitar and show the world what Rock n roll really means, is interesting, but perhaps overambitious.

Conversely, the final paragraph seems to be representation of opinion as fact.

So I've opted to cite two pretty negative reviews in significant music newspapers of the time, and juxtapose it with the commercial success of the album. --Tony Sidaway 23:09, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

New Age?

i'd like these album to have new age as a subgenre, as maybe, this is what caused the album so much trouble, the fact that it was to be considered typical progressive rock, after many listens, i have concluded that maybe this is not prog as was close to the edge a bombastic majestic entertaining piece. maybe this was kinda trying to be more of a grow on. kinda like mike oldfield's work you know. i know this is Original Research but, i just think it should be considered, please reply. FloydNIN (talk) 00:13, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

It does have some of the structure and feel of a late romantic symphony, Dvorak or Mahler - there's more of an overarching structure to the album than on CTTE, and "Ritual" has the function of a symphonic finale, resolving tensions earlier in the suite. I'm not that happy with calling it "new age" though - first, because the yogi/veda thing was, imo, more of an excuse than actual inspiration for the music: Anderson needed something to hang this project on, but it was the kind of extended project that had to happen within the prog rock movement - and also because the music actually rocks a lot more than typical new age stuff. There's an emotional edge and urgency and an ability to pull the lines of development tight together into towering, laser sharp climaxes, especially on the last two sides, and that's different from people like Klaus Schulze, Gong and Soft Machine - if we'll take them as typical new age musicians. /Strausszek (talk) 22:18, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what "new age" might mean in terms of music (it's a vague enough term in other fields!) If any of the group or any major reviewer has given an exposition of the use of the term in relation to this album, then we should look at that, otherwise I don't think it's helpful. --TS 17:38, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Why the "requisite" Christgau review?

It seems to me that we should strike the Christgau review from the infobox. As his WP article says, he was no fan of progressive rock, which is also evident if you look at even a few of his reviews of progressive rock albums. For instance, he best liked King Crimson albums that sounded like jazz to him. IMO, the only reason that there's a Christgau review referenced in seemingly every album article is that they're available on the internet, not because of any special talent he has for judging progressive rock. I move we strike it as a violation of NPOV here and in every article about a progressive rock album.Academic38 (talk) 08:10, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

The Tour Stage and Props

In the interest of accuracy, I wanted to point out what appears to be a discrepency with the creation and use of the stage props for the TFTO tour. The article reads as if the props were created by Roger Dean for the TFTO tour. Some of the props were used during the Close to the Edge tour, specifically "...a set of curved organ pipes; a giant bug over Alan White's drum set...". I know this because I attended a concert during the Close to the Edge tour, in Tampa on September 16, 1972, and saw these props. I only mention this because an ambiguity is created by the text of the article that you may or may not care to address.

ReggieMoto (talk) 01:07, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Discord

Prior to my edit of a few minutes ago, the first paragraph of the "Discord" section was an incoherent mess. I've done my best to fix it up, but since I'm not familiar with the history being discussed, some inaccuracies may have popped up in translation. For that matter, it wouldn't surprise me if the original text was based on errors in addition to being unreadable. If someone could give it a quick proofread and confirm that everything there is correct, that would be great.--Martin IIIa (talk) 20:25, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Trouble archiving links on the article

Hello. I am finding myself repeatedly archiving links on this page. This usually happens when the archive doesn't recognize the archive to be good.

This could be because the link is either a redirect, or I am unknowingly archiving a dead link. Please check the following links to see if it's redirecting, or in anyway bad, and fix them, if possible.

• http://www.allmusic.com/album/tales-from-topographic-oceans-r22458/charts-awards
• http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/nme_d&d.html#ctm
• http://dutchcharts.nl/showitem.asp?interpret=Yes&titel=Tales+From+Topographic+Oceans&cat=a
• http://swedishcharts.com/showitem.asp?interpret=Yes&titel=Tales+From+Topographic+Oceans&cat=a
• http://norwegiancharts.com/showitem.asp?interpret=Yes&titel=Tales+From+Topographic+Oceans&cat=a

In any event this will be the only notification in regards to these links, and I will discontinue my attempts to archive these pages.

Cheers.—^{cyberbot II}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 14:21, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

undoing of FY info

Hey, LowSelfEstidle -- I curate Forgotten Yesterdays. Care to explain why you decided it was 'unreliable' concerning Tales tour setlists, which I've researched pretty deeply? Krabapple (talk) 02:54, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

LowSelfEstidle, I concur with Krabapple. FY seems to me to satisfy WP:BLOGS here as an independent website that can be considered reliable. This Washington Post article demonstrates a third-party reliable source commenting on FY's reliability and Steve Sullivan's expertise. See also here. Bondegezou (talk) 08:56, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Sure, no worries Krabapple and Bondegezou! Thanks for the reply and the research involved. There weren't any good enough sources on the tour date list itself or FY as a whole I thought, hence the revert. Fingers crossed it passes a potential future GA or FA review! LowSelfEstidle (talk) 09:03, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Is Tales a single piece of music?

There are two ways to view Tales from Topographic Oceans:

(1) It is a concept album containing four distinct pieces of music, each about 20 minutes in length. Or, if you prefer other terminology, it consists of four distinct "songs" or "compositions". In this view, Tales is analogous to other concept albums, such as Sergeant Pepper or Dark Side of the Moon or Brain Salad Surgery.

(2) It is a single piece of music, around 80 minutes in length, divided into four movements. In this view, Tales is analogous to a symphony which consists of four movements; even though the movements don't share melodic phrases with each other and there are brief silences between the movements, the symphony as a whole is recognized as a single composition. For example, Symphony No. 1 (Beethoven). This view would also make Tales, taken as a whole, analogous to Karn Evil 9 (which is divided into three "impressions").

It is my opinion that #2 is correct. The liner notes for Tales clearly call the four parts "movements", and calls the entire collection of four movements a "composition": [2]

How do other Wikipedia editors stand on this question?

The reason I bring this up is that I recently got into an editorial dispute regarding this question -- [3] -- and rather than having an edit war, I wanted to resolve it amicably. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 20:31, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Actually, there is a motif repeated (the phrase Howe plays on The Revealing Science of God, starting at 3:54 in the remastered version, 2:00 in the original is repeated in several places in the other songs). But band members, and specifically Howe and Anderson (the main writers for Tales), have consistently referred to the four movements as independent songs in interviews. We all know Anderson has a quite lofty way of speaking, so the movements mentioned in the liner notes may be considered as just part of this way of speaking.--Gorpik (talk) 07:22, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, there is a degree of "symphonic unity" to the album, but not nearly as tight as in a Beethoven, Brahms or Dvorak symphony. Not so much about themes - though a few themes do recur - but more in the sense of pacing: the music sets up long-term tensions that are worked on and finally resolved in "Ritual". I think the band, at least Anderson and Howe, were loosely aspiring to creating a "symphony for a rock band": "The Ancient" has some aspects of a wild and wayward Scherzo movement, traditionally the third in classical symphonies, and "Ritual" has some aspects of a grand finale. But to all intents and purposes we're dealing with four distinct pieces, with very different tonal colouring, rhythm and balance between lyrics and instrumental passages. 192.121.232.253 (talk) 10:41, 24 April 2019 (UTC)