Gentle Giant (band)



""It is our goal to expand the frontiers of contemporary popular music at the risk of being very unpopular. We have recorded each composition with the one thought - that it should be unique, adventurous and fascinating.""

- Sleeve text from the second album.

Gentle Giant was an English Progressive Rock band active in the 1970s. They are notable for being one of the most experimental and versatile of the prog bands of that era. All of the members were multi-instrumentalists who often switched instruments during a single song. This made up for very intricate arrangements and a Genre Roulette style of music in which one song could vary between hard rock, jazz, medieval tunes, baroque counterpoint, modernist sounds and soft ambience. Many prog-heads consider them to be one of the 'hardest' prog bands out there. In fact they are not that hard to listen to, however, since the compositions focus on catchy melodies, rhythms and clever songwriting in general. The compositions are very concise, not as long as the typical prog-fest and played almost totally clinically.

Sadly, the band burned out creatively at the end of the decade and went to making pop songs - an endeavor frowned upon by the band in it's earlier stages. Their sound, however, still proved too complex to appeal to a wide audience and they disbanded in 1980.

The Other Wiki has an extensive article on them.

Their line-ups:

1970-72 Early line-up
"Phil Shulman: Lead vocals, clarinet, saxophones, trumpet Derek Shulman: Lead vocals, saxophone, recorder Ray Shulman: Bass, violin, trumpet, recorder, vocals Kerry Minnear: Keyboards, vibraphone, cello, recorder, vocals Gary Green: Guitars, recorder, vocals Martin Smith: Percussion (1970-71) Malcolm Mortimore: Percussion (1971-72)"

1970-1980: Classic line-up:
"Derek Shulman: Lead vocals, saxophone, recorder Ray Shulman: Bass, violin, trumpet, recorder, vocals Kerry Minnear: Keyboards, vibraphone, cello, recorder, vocals Gary Green: Guitars, recorder, vocals John Weathers: Percussion"


 * Gentle Giant (1970)
 * Acquiring the Taste (1971)
 * Three Friends(1972)
 * Octopus (1972)
 * In a Glass House (1973)
 * The Power and the Glory (1974)
 * Free Hand (1975)
 * Interview (1976)
 * The Missing Piece (1977)
 * Giant for a Day (1978)
 * Civilian (1980)

""Things must stay, there must be no change; anyway, time to rearrange""
 * Album Filler: Arguably the last albums were made wholly of these.
 * Album Title Drop
 * All Drummers Are Animals: Sexy animals, as this video and the top comment prove.
 * The Band Minus the Face: The departure of Phil Shulman was this. Derek says that he still doesn't know how the album following this departure got made, but they managed to carry on.
 * Band of Relatives: Three Shulman brothers formed the heart of the band in the early days. One of them dropped out.
 * Book Ends: In A Glass House begins and ends with the sound of breaking glass. The Power And The Glory begins with the song "Proclamation" and ends with "Valedictory", a song based off of the same tune but on distorted guitars instead of keyboards, as well as an overall darker mood.
 * Break Up Song: Free Hand
 * Canon Discontinuity: Fans generally disregard the last three albums.
 * Christian Rock: After the group disbanded, Kerry Minnear, a Methodist convert, tried to make a career in this genre.
 * Common Time: Mostly Averted. Sometimes played straight and sometimes played with: Often the time signature is 4/4, but the rhythms are still incredibly complex such as in the song So Sincere.
 * Concept Album: FOUR of them!
 * Design Student's Orgasm: The cover of their second album is a tounge licking a peach. It looks like something else, if one only views the front however. This is intentional.
 * Doing It for the Art: At least at first. See the quote above.
 * Early Installment Weirdness: Before forming Gentle Giant, the Shulman brothers played in a blue-eyed soul group called Simon Dupree & The Big Sound. When their attempts in soul proved commercially fruitless, they tried their hand at psychedelia (while still going under the Simon Dupree moniker) and got a Top Ten hit with "Kites". When they couldn't follow that up, they made the Beatle-esque single "We Are The Moles", this time going by The Moles. Due to the hype surrounding the anonymity of the Moles (at one point, it was speculated that The Beatles themselves had made it), sales of the single started to pick up, but quickly petered out when Syd Barrett (yes, that Syd Barrett) spilled the beans on the project. Eventually, the Shulman brothers gave up on Simon Dupree & The Big Sound and, out of its ashes, formed Gentle Giant.
 * Epic Rocking: Surprisingly averted. Their compositions manage to encompass much more in less time, it seems.
 * They tended to mix things up live and play extended medleys however.
 * Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The album Interview is a concept album of an interview.
 * Five-Man Band:
 * The Hero: Derek Shulman
 * The Lancer: Ray Shulman
 * The Smart Guy: John Weathers (He wears glasses)
 * The Big Guy: Gary Green (In the music his guitar solos makes him to be this)
 * The Chick: Kerry Minnear (Because of his high-pitched, feminine vocals)
 * The Sixth Ranger: Phil Shulman
 * Full-Circle Revolution: The Concept Album The Power And The Glory seems to speak of this; the first song describes an autocratic ruler asserting his authority over the people; the following songs talk of an ambitious person attempting to gain power and set things right, but the final song on the original album is a reprise of the first, with the new chorus


 * Genre Roulette: Up to Eleven
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: Arguably the album cover for Acquiring The Taste, which shows a tongue drooling over what appears to be someones buttocks.
 * Gratuitous Panning: Required so that the listener may keep up with different simultaneous lines in the music.
 * Happily Married: Most of the band these days. Phil Shulman left the band to keep it so.
 * Large Ham: Derek Shulmans stage performance may come off as this.
 * Love Nostalgia Song: Think Of Me With Kindness from Octopus
 * Minimalistic Cover Art: The Missing Piece
 * Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness: 1-5.
 * Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly
 * New Sound Album: Though every album has a certain continuity, they vary things up quite a bit.
 * No-Hit Wonder: Which isn't entirely unheard of in Progressive Rock, but still.
 * Non-Appearing Title
 * Progressive Rock
 * Pun-Based Title: The fourth album Octopus is a work consisting of eight tracks: an octa - opus.
 * Rock Opera: The Power And The Glory is an unusual one at that. It speaks of government corruption.
 * Rockstar Song: Most of the songs from the concept album Interview deal with rockstardom.
 * Sanity Slippage Song: An Inmates Lullaby is about a man in a mental hospital.
 * Self-Titled Album
 * Something Something Leonard Bernstein: The band has polyphonic songs in which multiple lyrical lines are sung simultaneously. Makes following the lyrics almost impossible.
 * Studio Chatter: Intentional on Interview
 * A somewhat humorous example also occurs on the song "The Face" from The Power And The Glory, when one can quite audibly hear an enthusiastic "Oh, WOW!" after a very fast electric violin solo.
 * Uncommon Time: Gentle Giants music as humorously illustrated by this picture
 * Vocal Tag Team: All of the members sung. In the early stages the band had three lead vocalists: Derek for the rock'y songs, Phil for the folky, dreamy songs and Kerry for thee classically-inspired ones.
 * Word Salad Lyrics: Knots definitely qualifies.