YouTuber's first listens to Van der Graaf Generator

There are several people who make YouTube videos of their reactions to listening to a piece of music for the first time. I have to admit that I don't find most of these videos very interesting or valuable, but there is one YouTuber who has started listening to Van der Graaf Generator, and intends to listen to all of their music (I think that he is referring to the 1970s incarnation of the band and not the 21st century reformations). I have just found out that these videos are three years old ... but then the music is +/-50 years old!

Today I was listening to his take on Man-Erg, which is definitely the most accessible track from the masterpiece Pawn Hearts album. I admit that I don't find the commentaries very illuminating, but this time the commentary was very much on the ball. Leaving aside the superlatives, he said "I've kind of said this before, but out of all the progressive bands that I've listened to, here on the channel, and of course on my own, I do feel that Van der Graaf Generator is the most cerebral. They're the most mental - and I don't mean 'mental' in a crazy or insane way - I mean 'mental' and 'cerebral' in that their music, Peter Hammill's lyrics, cut down to the very core of what makes a human tick. What goes on, psychologically, inside of the mind. Because his lyrics just literally cut deep right into that. I think that's one of the things that separates their music from other progressive bands. Yes, the music itself is definitely different. I love the spacey vibe that they have in their music; they have this interesting way of building atmosphere in their music that I want to explore deeper .... It's that cerebral kind of creativity that they have that I think is hard sometimes to get on a first listen ... some songs are going to take longer to connect with you, some songs take longer to understand .... They may be one of those difficult bands to get into right away, but I also feel that once they click for you, they're also going to be the most rewarding" (13:12-14:42).

I couldn't put it better myself. In fact, I've never really been able to articulate my feelings about these songs. I used to say to myself that "Pawn Hearts" contains "the complete human condition", but that's a bit glib. Listening to this video pulled me back to when I was 15 and listening to this record constantly for a few months. There was so much wonder at the world that the words and music conjured up. 

Unfortunately, a bit later on, I started listening to the music in a more analytical way, figuring out the chords and the rhythms, and along the way losing the holistic view.

I have always held VdGG to be in a different dimension - none of the two guitars, bass and drums 4/4 rock. The music is impressionistic; it's still music, of course, and can be analysed, but it has the same relationship to 'regular' music that the impressionists' paintings have to general art. I like the impressionists, both in art (e.g. Monet and Cézanne) and in music (Debussy and Satie), more than their more traditional colleagues.

---

This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
424	03/11/2011	The thousand-dollar penalty for reusing passwords	Computer
1087	03/11/2017	More thinking on the page (DBA)	DBA
1182	03/11/2018	Protecting cells in Excel files	Programming, Delphi, Excel, Office automation
1354	03/11/2020	Overcoming the 'leading zero' leads to other problems with Excel	Programming, Excel, Office automation
1547	03/11/2022	Have I found the solution to a cooking problem?	Cooking, Meta-blogging