Marillion/YMMV

These things about are subjective - not everyone will agree with all of them.

""The first half will be quiet, slow, depressing music. The second half will still be depressing, but a bit louder.""
 * Broken Base: And how!
 * Crowning Moment of Awesome: The first time they pulled off the pre-order gambit. Doubles as a Take That to the music industry.
 * Crowning Music of Awesome: Any Rothery solo spot
 * "Grendel." I don't care what anyone says.
 * "This Strange Engine."
 * Dork Age: The 1997 - 1999 era is usually considered this. Whether 2001's Anoraknophobia ended or continued it is a point of debate.
 * Face of the Band: Both Fish and Steve Hogarth are powerful stage presences.
 * Fan Community Nicknames: "Freaks" for Fish fans; "Anoraks" for Hogarth fans.
 * Germans Love David Hasselhoff: They get little attention in the UK, but they are quite popular in Holland.
 * Ho Yay: Between Steve Hogarth and Porcupine Tree's Richard Barbieri. Behold.
 * Magnum Opus: Generally considered to be Misplaced Childhood for the Fish era and Brave for the Hogarth era. Though it's worth noting that Fish himself thinks Clutching at Straws is his best work with the band, as does a sizeable contingent of fans and critics.
 * Narm: "Grendel", also known as The Song Which Must Not Be Named. See Purple Prose.
 * Narm Charm: And yet, it's a lot of people's favourite song and often compared to Genesis' "Supper's Ready".
 * Needs More Love
 * Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: Misplaced Childhood gets pretty Anvilicious about the devastation caused by war towards the end of the album, but considering how many people still blindly support whatever wars their government wants them to support, it's a message that apparently needs to be hammered home again and again. Brave has its own anvils about things like the horrible effects of abuse, and again, they're still completely necessary.
 * True Art Is Angsty: Lampshaded by Hogarth.

"Steve Hogarth: "Years ago when I was part of 'The Europeans' we sometimes rehearsed around the corner from Holloway Women's Prison. I think prisons are fascinating places, like all alternative societies, and I used to stare up at the walls and watch the gate police. Years later I saw a documentary on TV. A camera crew had been allowed to film inside. A lot of tough girls for sure, but among them, there were women who should have been in mental hospitals - not prison. Victims of an 'underfunded' society which would lock up the desperate rather than tend to their troubled minds.""
 * The Woobie: Steve Hogarth. Being "the new singer since 1989" is hard enough without all the misery that's happened to him, and it shows.
 * Fish falls more into Jerkass Woobie / Iron Woobie territory.
 * Tear Jerker: "The Great Escape". Dear God, The Great Escape...
 * "Holloway Girl" becomes this if you know what it is about: