Kudos for trying it. It’s not their most accessible. Nor is it the most compelling. It was, however, the most self indulgent of their cannon. It takes the Symphonic Prog genre to a level not (at the time) achieved. I love it but I’m a die hard.
As a first listen it’s a tough challenge.
Tomorrow I might take on some ey-diddle-diddle in the form of The Dubliners or The Fury Brothers. I absolutely hated this stuff growing up in Ireland. I wonder if I can rekindle the rage or will I like it? There are almost certainly flutes, tin whistles, and banjos to contend with amid it all. Should be interesting.
Belting record that. I am particularly fond of Fuck You Too which is the proper name for track #4 
.
As for the traditional stuff, I quite enjoy it live in the local pub these days. I’m really not sure that I’ll hate it unless I choose something hideously sentimental. The Pogues don’t count.
Didn’t know that Olan - nice one 
and a classic indeed.
http://www.1000recordings.com/images/artist-d/dylan-bob-276-l.jpg
Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks
I’ve heard a few Dylan tracks over the years but never a complete album. To be honest I find his singing style to be idiosyncratic at best. I wanted to hear whether listening to one of his best albums would change my opinion.
Thought by many to be autobiographical which Dylan denies, Blood on the Tracks was written at a time of severe issues in his marriage. Either way, you can’t write emotive songs like these without first-hand experience of longing and bitterness.
The songs are quite sparse, concentrating on the vocals or harmonica, with just enough guitar, bass and drums to push each song along. The phrasing of the vocals are sympathetic with getting the story across than odd vocal histrionics (emotion?).
Summary
Despite it’s troubling lyrical content, I really enjoyed listening to this album - A solid 8/10.
That album is in my all time top three at the very least.
It’s probably too tied up with personal memories for me to be very objective about it though.
Did you listen to Horses 3 times yet Mark?
I actually listened to it 3 times the same day! I wrote the review after 2x.
Doesn’t @mosfet owe us a Bitches Brew review?
Sorry, I didn’t see that you had updated the OP!
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81gKZI89qHL.SL1500.jpg
The time is March 1970. Hendrix and Joplin will both be dead within a matter of months and what was left of the summer of love has kicked to death at a Stones gig at Altamont raceway. Miles Davis releases Bitches Brew. The cover says DIRECTIONS IN MUSIC BY MILES DAVIS.
And it’s the album cover which is noticed first. The Nubian dreamscapes announce loudly the music is about to get far out. Now, I have managed to listen to this work in it’s entirety once and I have to admit an awful lot did just wash over me. It’s music which by it’s nature demands studious concentration otherwise it quickly becomes a technicolor of musical sounds which have stopped making sense. To get a proper grasp of the album I think you need you to live with it for years.
So the music. I enjoyed aspects much more than I thought I was going to. Davis plays short stabs of trumpet and soulfully blue wandering melodies in an incredibly captivating way. His playing is always grabbing for your attention often by making sounds which I didn’t even know were possible with a trumpet. Trumpet ‘squealies’ are now a thing!
I also enjoyed his use of analogue delay on the title track, remarkable sounds from a trumpet, and at a time when these recording techniques were still in relative infancy, must have sounded absolutely other-worldly.
Yes, I’ll be listening to Bitches Brew again. Just need to strap myself in first, ‘cos it’s quite a trip.
Ok, I’m going to have a go at this.
Just now, as I was looking for an Everything But The Girl album to play, I found this:
I’d forgotten I had it. Can’t remember buying it or being given it. God knows where it came from. Possibly from my brother who gave me his vinyl a while back. I’ve certainly never listened to it before.
On my first listen now. First impression of the opening tracks is that it sounds a bit like the soundtrack from one of the early Dirty Harry films…
Oh Jesus fucking Christ, do I really have to listen to this 3 times…
Man up! I had to listen to Tales from Topographical Oceans three times, and forgot that there were ‘bonus tracks’ on the TIDAL version second time around.
Isn’t the idea to listen to seminal albums, Not any old random shite?
That Yes LP was seminal all right. Greatest load of old jizz I’ve ever encountered. Utter wank. 
'tis seminal. Seminal shite. Prog wank up its own arse.
It’s highly regarded in proggy circles and well out of my usual listening. So it qualifies. Not all of it was completely dreadful btw.
I’ll listen again tomorrow.
On my third listen this evening and I suppose it’s quite poignant given today’s news.
Side one which consists of the title track, split into 7 “movements” is, as you’d expect, a complex, possibly self indulgent, but immaculately performed and produced piece of music. The classical influence is obvious, but there are some nice rock licks in there too, and TBH, there’s not too much noodling. the lyrics come across as somewhat pseudo-intellectual, but they do at least tell a story (of a dystopian, post nuclear strike future) Greg, actually had a quite pleasing voice. You can definitely imagine dwarves in Green make up dancing around a polystyrene Stonehenge though…
Side 2 is more conventional.
The opening track, Jeremy Bender reminds me of some of McCartneys stuff, specifically Maxwells Silver Hammer. The lyrics are quite funny and it’s a jaunty little thing with the honky tonk piano. Apparently it was ELPs take on Oh Susannah…
Bitches Crystal also has the honky tonk piano thing going on, but it’s much more frantic. God knows what it’s about, Witches and shit.
The Only Way starts out with an elegiac church organ, but the honky tonk piano is still there. And some Jazz influence without a doubt. This track is basically an atheist hymn, as
"Can you believe
God makes you breathe?
Why did he lose
Six million Jews?“
and
"Don’t need the word
Now that you’ve heard
Don’t be afraid
Man is man-made”
make more than obvious.
A Time And A Place is more in tune with the stuff on side 1, hammond organ heavy, but more rock driven. The lyrics are a plea for help for the protagonist to achieve some kind of enlightenment, which may or may not tie in with the preceding track.
Are You Ready Eddy is a proper old fashioned rock ‘n’ roll belter, back to the honky tonk piano, this time channelling Jerry Lee Lewis. Listening to the lyrics, it seems Eddy is a sound engineer, references to scully, faders, sixteen tracks and the chorus has the repeated line “Eddy edit, Eddy Eddy edit”. It’s good fun, actually.
Overall, I hated side 1 on my first listening, somewhat overcame the hate on the second and by today could actually listen without prejudice, as they say. To me, it’s still a bit self indulgent and overblown, and dancing green dwarf enabling, but I could actually sit through it without having to restrain myself from kicking the stereo in.
Side 2 is ok, a lot more accessible. I actually liked it… especially Are You Ready Eddy.
It’s not the pile of shite I initially thought it was. But there is the possibility I’m being nice because Greg croaked it today… 
Having listened a few times to Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks and watched the Scorsese’s No Direction Home last night, I’m beginning to try more of his back catalogue.
