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The Boys in the Band Lyrics

[Instrumental]
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Cover art for The Boys in the Band lyrics by Gentle Giant

Progressive music is usually a genre where musicians are endlessly praised by fans and criticized by those who aren’t. Many people who aren't usually interpret the music as either entirely too lengthy, convoluted, or chocked full of soulless wankery to actually enjoy. Gentle Giant are certainly progressive, but they are unlike any other band, before or after their time, even those in the progressive genre. They are able to do it all.

When I say that, I mean Gentle Giant encompasses “what music CAN be”, on every level and sense of the word. Their ability to portray themes and stories (both lyrically & musically, over the span of a song or an album), their technical skill that runs across a plethora of instruments, their extensive knowledge of music theory and capacity to convincingly play near any genre, their dynamics of timbre and lyrical content journeys across all sorts of boundaries that it becomes difficult to use simply “a few words” to describe it: Short, Long, Bright, Dark, Carefree, Foreboding, Introspective, Abstract, Melodic, Brash, Quiet, Loud, Triumphant, Sorrowful, Clever, Goofy, Thought-provoking and many more, never mind all the genre titles. It’s all summed up within the dichotomy of their name: Gentle Giant. Most of the music can be very complex and challenging, but if you’re open minded & willing to give it a chance (and quite possibly several more), you may find yourself acquiring the taste.

Although "rock" is a very confining term when referring to Gentle Giant, this is a rock instrumental, and like many instrumentals of said genre, it presents itself as a showcase of superb musicianship. It even says in the liner notes of the album "Not to be confused with the play of the same name - at least not the characters, we hope. This piece is for Gentle Giant as a whole - our engineer, Martin Rushant, included". (Martin being the guy who laughs and spins the coin). These guys are playing for themselves and literally start on a dime. This is also the last album where the band performed as a 5 piece (Phil would leave after this album). This song for me just comes of as a really fun rock jam (the opening measures), with some goofy (the section that divides the opening measures) and a touch of melancholy (the blues guitar & saxophone passage with keyboards gliding over the top) mixed into one.

@Khaos what amazes me so much about the band is that they are able to seamlessly blend in so many moods, changes etc. in such short songs. Many of the current prog bands tend to need 10 minute plus tracks to shift half what Gentle Giant managed to do in 5 minutes.

Many modern bands can't attain that shift within a song either ... that is it either comes across forced, or doesn't fit. Gentle Giant rarely seemed to struggled at that, this is a great example of their ability and craft!

 
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