Spoken Word & Prog

[Splicer]

Some spoken word or samples of audio are fine to set the stage, but if I have to listen to six minutes of exposition to finally get to a song, I guarantee I've lost interest. Artists are welcome to let me know ahead of time that I'm listening to the equivalent of a radio drama or stage play because I'm kind of expecting songs that tell me the story, not long tracks where they have to describe what's going on. In the case of the latter, they should simply try to write better lyrics or let me interpret the story my way.

Galahad's album Seas of Change came up in my "you might also like" suggestions. This is what prompted the above. There's also an album from last year with some sort of time travel story where between every song are long stretches of listening to bad voice acting/script writing.

[clivey]

Some spoken word or samples of audio are fine to set the stage, but if I have to listen to six minutes of exposition to finally get to a song, I guarantee I've lost interest. Artists are welcome to let me know ahead of time that I'm listening to the equivalent of a radio drama or stage play because I'm kind of expecting songs that tell me the story, not long tracks where they have to describe what's going on. In the case of the latter, they should simply try to write better lyrics or let me interpret the story my way.

Galahad's album Seas of Change came up in my "you might also like" suggestions. This is what prompted the above. There's also an album from last year with some sort of time travel story where between every song are long stretches of listening to bad voice acting/script writing.

I adored the method used on "War Of the Worlds"

[Brad 2 the Bone]

I generally abhor spoken word stuff. The silly anatomy lesson ruins Djam Karet's "Suspension & Displacement" for me. I ordered a Cecil Taylor CD once and was very worried when it arrived and I saw that there was no piano listed in the credits. The CD began with Cecil explaining with dramatic flair that "angles of incidence equal angles of refraction" and that was about the high water point.

[Top Cat]

I agree, too much spoken word ruins it for me, but the example of War of the Worlds, is a good one, because it works quite well.

I recently posted my newest song "Release" in the Artists forum, and I use excerpts of Winston Churchill's speech, We Must Arm from Oct of 1938.

My first mixes contained rather long excerpts from the speech, and after numerous listens, my wife and I both agreed the length of those excerpts were too long.
It's a fine line when editing a speech like that, because you risk the chance of losing the message.
But in the end, we think the duration for each segment fit in with the music and message and did not become monotonous.

[Zeuhlmate]

Something like this? (W S Burroughs)

[Crawford Glissadevil]

Depends. War of the Worlds does it great. Galahad's- Seas of Change was my album of the year for 2018.
"Galdalf's Fist" does a superb job with actor's dialogue on "The Clockwork Fable".

On other albums, "tacked on" spoken word can be a momentum killer.

[Scott Bails]

I generally don't care for spoken word, aside from a sentence or two to add some color. But I do like how Downes Braide Association use Barney Ashton-Bullock's poetry and voice on their last couple albums. It fits so well with their music, and his voice is perfect.

I also would love to hear the full story that John Mitchell starts on his third Lonely Robot album. He finishes the album with "Chapter One" of what seems like a pretty interesting story that would further explain his trilogy of albums.

[Digital_Man]

I typically enjoy spoken word in music and especially in prog. However, some exceptions would be if it gets in the way of the music or somehow seems out of place.

There's a US band called Glass who does the spoken word stuff very well. It fits in well with their mostly instrumental Canterbury styled symph prog.

[progmatist]

The best example I know of is in Procol Harem's In Held Twas I. The punchline of which I've used in my signature for some time now.

[Progbear]

I generally don’t like it either. I feel narration tends to ruin good music. I know lots of people have nostalgic fondness for War of the Worlds, but I always found it to be cheesy and awful, and Richard Burton earning a paycheck makes it even worse (extra demerits for Phil Lynott giving flat out the worst vocal performance of his entire career). Someone else mentioned Procol Harum yet failed to bring up “The Worm and the Tree,” which gets my vote as worst side-long prog epic of the 70s.

I admit I still love Weisses Gold by Stern-Combo Meissen, but the dry German narration comes close to spoiling it. Or maybe I’m just envious that narrator Ernst Kahler is able to do that “back of the throat” rolled “R” so effortlessly. I am physically incapable of producing that sound!

[Top Cat]

I like War of the Worlds because it's a great story, great music and I love what Richard Burton added to it.(nothing wrong with making money, it's not like he lowered himself to doing porn voice-overs). lol
Also, my love for the work has nothing to do with nostalgia.
I found some very good condition vinyl copies of The War of the Worlds and Jesus Christ Superstar(original) and find they hold up musically today as much as when I bought them new.

But I have found some "nostalgia" music where my memory of it, and how it holds up today is quite different. Both my wife and I were reflecting one night on classic popular music from the 60's and Herb Alpert&the Tijuana Brass came up. The next day I went on Youtube and listened to some of the first album, and it was like, what???

[Lopez]

Can't quite call it prog: there's a lot of spoken word on Robert Calvert's Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters. I don't like it.

[JKL2000]

I generally don't care for spoken word, aside from a sentence or two to add some color. But I do like how Downes Braide Association use Barney Ashton-Bullock's poetry and voice on their last couple albums. It fits so well with their music, and his voice is perfect.

I also would love to hear the full story that John Mitchell starts on his third Lonely Robot album. He finishes the album with "Chapter One" of what seems like a pretty interesting story that would further explain his trilogy of albums.

Scott, have you heard Steve Hogarth reading "A Child's Christmas in Wales" with ambient Marillion backing? It was on one of their Christmas CDs (it may have been on the most recent, lackluster (but excusable because of COVID) fanclub Christmas CD. It's good, but the reading is the focus of that piece.

It's always a good sign that the spoken-word portions were too much when a band re-releases an album with the spoken-word parts removed: Pete Townshend, Blind Guardian, and another I recently heard about but I forget what it is.

There are definitely more bad examples of this than there are good examples.

BTW, Scott, can you recommend ONE Lonely Robot song for me to try? I often hear John Mitchell guitar solos I like on other artist's albums, but the couple of stabs I've taken at getting into Lonely Robot failed.

[JKL2000]

I generally abhor spoken word stuff. The silly anatomy lesson ruins Djam Karet's "Suspension & Displacement" for me.

The Djam Karet one never bothered me, but maybe it will now! I do tend to feel like I HEAR that spoken-word part more often than I should, a possible sign it's bothering me a bit.

"Galdalf's Fist" does a superb job with actor's dialogue on "The Clockwork Fable".

Have you ever listened to that thing all the way through? Just curious, as it's three CDs! I haven't listened to the whole thing, but I like some of what I've heard.

[EBES]

One of my all-time favorite albums is Art Imitating Life by Mimesis, which is long electronic soundscapes topped with Steve Kilbey of The Church narrating surreal spoken-word monologues for 10-15 minutes per song. I love it so much that I've always wished there was an entire subgenre of psych/prog/electronica soundscape topped with spoken word, and I'll periodically put Facebook posts asking if anyone knows more music just like this and it always fails. I opened this thread in breathless excitement thinking I'd finally found my grail and... a bunch of people complaining about spoken-word in prog. Dangit!

[Dave (in MA)]

TBH I find War of the Worlds to be sufficiently cheesy independent of the spoken word parts, and that the single Forever Autumn/Eve of the War (incl. Richard Burton) to be all I really ever need to hear from it. And I decided to write that sentence after seeing post #6 but prior to seeing post #10.

[interbellum]

Funny I just got One World One Voice, which starts with Robbie Robinson reading.
Other oldies that come to mind: The Moody Blues: Days Of Future Passed and Seasons my Magna Carta.

[Scott Bails]

BTW, Scott, can you recommend ONE Lonely Robot song for me to try? I often hear John Mitchell guitar solos I like on other artist's albums, but the couple of stabs I've taken at getting into Lonely Robot failed.

Try this one. Mitchell's voice can be an acquired taste, but this is a great song, IMO, and if you listen close you can hear Steve Hogarth on backing vocals on the back third or so of the song.

[Zeuhlmate]

There is a lot on this, in english - singing is in breton

[boilk]

I'm a big fan of a couple of spoken word poetry proggy albums. The first is by Thin Lips, which is an album worked on by a couple of members of the RIO band Ahvak, who create music inspired by a poem read by Karen Alkalay-Gut.

The second is the band Dry Cleaning, who have a few prog tendencies on a couple of songs, but songs are mostly driven by fat, grooving bass lines, that set the table for spoken, almost sung lyrics.





Neil

[happytheman]

Do The Moody Blues qualify?

[Digital_Man]

Do The Moody Blues qualify?

I don't see why not. If anyone did it right it was them.

[EBES]

I'm a big fan of a couple of spoken word poetry proggy albums. The first is by Thin Lips, which is an album worked on by a couple of members of the RIO band Ahvak, who create music inspired by a poem read by Karen Alkalay-Gut.

The second is the band Dry Cleaning, who have a few prog tendencies on a couple of songs, but songs are mostly driven by fat, grooving bass lines, that set the table for spoken, almost sung lyrics.

That Thin Lips album, at a sampling, seems odd and abrasive enough to be of interest, and I've added it to my list of things to check out in more depth. I listened to Dry Cleaning when I was going through the end-of-year best-of lists and they didn't stand out at the time but that Tiny Desk show was intriguing and I may have given them short shrift. I'll have to give a closer second listen.

[interbellum]

Do The Moody Blues qualify?

See #17

[interbellum]

There is a lot on this, in english - singing is in breton

Very well! Live In Dublin also has a fine spoken work-piece in the second track, Delivrance. The first two track also remind me how Camel would have sounded if they were a folkrockband.