Van der Graaf Generator/YMMV


 * Big Lipped Alligator Moment: The title track to The Aerosol Grey Machine. While the rest of the album is folk-based prog, this one is a forty second jingle parody advertising fume huffing.
 * Crowning Moment of Funny: The 'elevator music' breakdown in "The Sleepwalkers".
 * "Just one breath and it's instant death, it's the Aerosol Grey Machine!"
 * Crowning Music of Awesome: For most VdGG fans, Pawn Hearts and Godbluff are the pinnacle of Prog Rock. These and H to He... get their fair share of praise amongst the Prog community.
 * Some of Hammill's solo output qualifies, particularly stuff from Fool's Mate and Nadir's Big Chance.
 * Dead Horse Genre: For a Prog band, this is inevitable criticism. However, Johnny Rotten was a big Hammill fan, so...
 * Ear Worm: The intro and chorus of "The Undercover Man", the jam in "The Sleepwalkers", the riffs in "Killer", "Arrow" and "Scorched Earth", the chord progression in "Man-Erg", the riff in "Man-Erg"...
 * Face of the Band: Peter Hammill has had a illustrious solo career as long as the history of the band that he is the heart of. Whenever the band split, he carried on. His 1975 solo album Nadir's Big Chance contains proto-punk songs before punk was popular.
 * Germans Love David Hasselhoff: VdGG were a huge success in Italy, and their tours there were insane.
 * Mondegreen: It can take quite a while to work out what Hammill is actually singing.
 * Narm Charm: "Killer". You'd think a song where Peter Hammill expresses sympathy towards a shark while singing in an over the top manner would garner nothing but ridicule. And yet, it happens to be one of the band's most beloved tunes.
 * Nightmare Fuel: A veritable mine. Don't listen to Pawn Hearts in the dark with headphones on. Bad idea...
 * Tear Jerker: "Afterwards", "Refugees", "House With No Door", "Man-Erg", "W", "The Undercover Man", "Still Life"
 * True Art Is Incomprehensible: H to He Who Am The Only One. Excuse me, what?
 * The fact that H To He almost certainly refers to the basic nuclear fusion reaction that occurs in stars doesn't really make it any clearer.
 * True Art Is Angsty: If a VdGG song doesn't deal with a story (ie "Killer", "Arrow" etc), then it's usually about the troubles of a dark warped mind.
 * What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made On Drugs