Talk:Gentle Giant

Quality
Congratulations guys! You really nailed this biography. It was sooo lacking just six months ago! GG is my favorite band all time and you really do justice to its importance! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.148.54.94 (talk) 22:15, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Factual material
The factual material is pretty good. When it comes to albums’ reviews, it sounds quite opinionated. Shouldn’t be taken as an absolute standard. People new to GG should read reviews on Yahoo or Amazon where a wider spectrum of opinions is present. Although usually only fans search for GG anyway.

Major factual error:

"Concept albums, long songs (often limited only by the 22 minute capacity of an LP side)"

I think their longest single track was about 12 minutes. Most of their material was in the 5 - 8 minute range, and much of it was less than 5 minutes. Also, there was no 22 minute limit on LP side length. I'm deleting that line, just because it's plain wrong.

Hwarwick

NPOV
I tried to make the article more neutral - there are so many vague terms that seem more like fan hyperbole.

I removed this line:

Their music is described by one critic as "an unlikely mix of dissonant 20th-century classical chamber music, medieval vocal music, jazz and rock."

I found it on the |Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock in a review by Mike Ohman. Is he a critic or a fan? (Maybe the line could return saying it's from a fan?)

The album The Power And The Glory received the highest critical acclaim. -- I removed this line since I think it needs some reference to back it up.

In general, the page has a lot of opinions. I'm trying to clean them up, hopefully producing a better (?) page. (Please be gentle - this is my first major rewrite on Wikipedia!) -dvs- 21:07, 27 May 2005 (UTC)


 * IMO, Mike Ohman should be regarded as a critic. He has reviewed enormous amounts of progressive rock and has shown little sign of being a Gentle Giant fan. Wurdnurd 21:27, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I think of Ohman as a fan with encyclopedic knowledge who writes like a critic. Varlaam (talk) 00:04, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

UK/European charts
If anyone can find a reference to GG hitting the UK or other European charts, please add them to the page.

Higher Quality
I'm slowly starting to add info to the Gentle Giant page and related ones. I think we need to have an article for each band member and also a page for each album. I have already begun on the albums by creating infoboxes and uploading the proper boxart, but these are still not much more than pretty stubs. It would be nice to have more info on the albums themselves.

The same goes for the main band article (this one). I think we could use some pictures of the band as well as additional information. I'll add a bit here and there when I can, but my time is limited and I can't do this on my own. --Comics 05:49, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Too high quality?
Hats off to the author of the part on Compositional style! Respect!

I've listened to this band for about 25 years now but I find it difficult to understand much of this part. I don't have any musical education and I think the average user of Wikipedia does not, either. Wonder what they figure out of this chapter.

Furthermore I think that this part is way too dominant in the whole article. I don't mean it should be shortened, rather adding new material to the whole article. Much, much more in the History chapter, for instance, instruments played, etc...

Who should do it?

We - You and me = people who care about this band!

--Washington22irving (talk) 16:21, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Octopus photo?
In the "See Also" section there's a link to Roger Dean, saying "features an image of the cover of Octopus". I thought that would have meant that the Wiki page for Roger Dean has a photo of Octopus, but I couldn't find it. Can this be reworded then? -dvs- 14:16, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I have deleted the whole section. The Roger Dean article does not have a picture of the UK Octopus album cover which he designed, as you noted.  Furthermore, Dean only did one cover for Gentle Giant.  I wouldn't consider him to the especially relevant to GG as he is to Yes, for example. –Comics (Talk) 23:55, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Fugue or not
Though popular believe has it that "On Reflection" contains a fugue, this is not the case. At best, the opening of "On Reflection" is the exposition of a fugue. However, if strict baroque rules are applied, this part lacks a strong countersubject, and as such might be better qualified as a round. I've decided to not apply the strictest rules and to accept the notion that this part has enough characteristics to be called the exposition of a fugue. Opinions? Wurdnurd 21:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC) Agree with everything except your opinion about the existence of a strong countersubject, which is your opinion. I find the second subject plenty strong, thought the third and fourth tend to get lost. Sebum-n-soda 17:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

British? Scottish
While this article lists Gentle Giant as British, Gentle Giant are in fact Scottish and the article should include this distinction so they are not confused with being English. I will add this to the article as soon as I find the reference. --Teetotaler 15 June, 2007


 * Hmmm. That's interesting as I've never hear anything to suggest their nationality as Scottish, and blazemonger itself (which is undoubtedly the most credible GG source that comes to mind) cites them as a "British" band. Of course, the Shulmans - excepting Ray - were born in Scotland, but their career and fellow musicians all hail from England. - C. M. Reed 01:13, 16 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Worraboot Weathers? -- (unknown user)


 * Re GG's Scottishness - two of the three Shulmans were born in Scotland, but only Phil Shulman lived there past the age of one, and the band were brought up in the south of England. I believe Malcolm Mortimore is Scottish, but Gary Green is a Londoner. Not sure about Martin Smith. John Weathers is Welsh. All of the info about the Shulman's Scottish background can be found in the interviews with them on the homepage linked to at the bottom of the article. Incidentally, the Shulmans are also Jewish, which might also be worth mentioning. Perhaps the place for all of this information is in the various articles on individual group members? - Dann Chinn (talk) 00:03, 25 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think you call Gentle Giant a "Scottish" band just because a couple of its members happened to be born there. GG as a band was formed in England, and most of its original members are/were not Scottish. Given the fact that the band has members from England, Scotland as well as Wales, I think "British" is the most suitable description. Jah77 (talk) 22:58, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * It's also worth noting that none of the Shulman brothers speaks with a Scottish accent, nor do they seem to identify specifically with Scottishness. If anything, they appear to identify mostly obviously with Portsmouth, where they grew up and formed their first bands). The Scottish link should be acknowledged for historical interest, but not foregrounded. Dann Chinn (talk) 22:00, 14 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I've seen them live. I refrained from walking out although the Toronto Star's rock critic did. One of Ray or Derek was wearing his "Got No Breeding" t-shirt. Grotesque. That was the pop years.
 * In 30+ years I've never heard them referred to as Scots, and people would have pointed that out if it were the case. Ontario swarms with Scots. They're Englishmen. Varlaam (talk) 23:41, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I believe it was Ray with the t-shirt. If that was intended as an ironic commentary on punk rock, then he should have said so, but did not. Derek was doing something else similarly retarded. The audience regarded them as sell-outs since they played only 2 of their "real" songs. Varlaam (talk)

Styles
howdy, i studied Geir Hasnes Writing on the group and did some writing here as well. please discuss on it! cheerso194.94.133.193 18:38, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Gentlegiant.jpg
Image:Gentlegiant.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 10:28, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * This has "not" been answered. Fair use here (in wikipedia) is considered valid only if used on the article about the actual subject - so in this can the album article. This usage here is to illustrate the band, which this isn't a picture of. A new picture (of the band) should be sought. :: Kevinalewis  : (Talk Page) /(Desk)  12:06, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Too high quality?
Hats off to the author of the part on Compositional style! Respect!

I've listened to this band for about 25 years now but I find it difficult to understand much of this part. I don't have any musical education and I think the average user of Wikipedia does not, either. Wonder what they figure out of this chapter.

Furthermore I think that this part is way too dominant in the whole article. I don't mean it should be shortened, rather adding new material to the whole article. Much, much more in the History chapter, for instance, instruments played, etc...

Who should do it?

We - You and me = people who care about this band!

--Washington22irving (talk) 16:21, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Have a look at the Blazemonger site and read with caution the Stump biog and you can start the process. :: Kevinalewis  : (Talk Page) /(Desk)  16:33, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The "compositional style" section is very welcome, but quotes too much from the original source article and also repeats material found elsewhere in the main GG article itself. It also goes into detail in describing and defining specific musical terms in their own right. It could be considerably compressed, with the aforementioned definitions of musical terms replaced by links to definitions in Wikipedia. -- Dann Chinn (talk) 23:55, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Origin of the Name?
Does anyone out there know why they chose the name Gentle Giant? My best guess is that it was taken from C.S. Lewis's "The Silver Chair" (One of the Chronicles of Narnia). In Chapter 7, "The Hill of the Strange Trenches," there is a sentence which reads:

"Obviously, the Gentle Giants feared no attack."

Is this where the name is from? --24.19.171.110 (talk) 01:01, 30 August 2008 (UTC)


 * In this manner, you could also suggest Gentle Giant was named after a fat horse. The Talk page of an encyclopedic article doesn't seem like the right place to ask this type of questions, as the page is for discussing the future of the article itself. Plenty of services on the net are for these questions. However, if you read the article and follow the link on Francois Rabelais, you will be on the right track. Also, I've moved your question. New text is not to be written at the top of the page, as per WP rules and suggestions. Wurdnurd (talk) 15:04, 16 November 2008 (UTC)


 * C.S. Lewis? No. Although Silver Chair is a popular book.
 * "The Gentle Giant" is an old English (?) folktale. I had it in a children's anthology in the 1960s.
 * Varlaam (talk) 23:30, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * It took a while to remember the book's title.
 * I think this is the book that familiarized me personally with the folktale:
 * http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDM482656&R=482656

The Golden treasury of children's literature Contributors: Untermeyer, Bryna Ivens. ; Untermeyer, Louis, 1885-1977. Year/Format: 1966, Book, 544 p. : Subjects: Children's literature.
 * Varlaam (talk) 00:42, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Rabelais has been noted above as our putative source.
 * While it is true that the tales of Rabelais feature giants, they are generally described as "scatological" and "satirical", rather than gentle.
 * (Note: Our article on Rabelais appears not to mention the giant statue of him in Chinon: Statue of François Rabelais in Chinon.)
 * Don't forget that when Mel Brooks was criticized for his fart jokes and the like, he preferred to refer to his humour as "Rabelaisian".
 * There are giants in Gulliver's Travels and some are friendly, notably Gulliver's nurse Glumdalclitch who keeps Gulliver poised on her giant breast, but as far as the actual alliterative phrase "gentle giant" goes, I believe we are dealing with the folktale and nothing else.
 * Varlaam (talk) 01:49, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

'''Still... it's Rabelais'''

How about Pantagruel's Nativity from the 1971 album Acquiring the Taste. François Rabelais' best know work is Gargantua and Pantagruel.

Pantagruel's best friend in the Rabelais novel is Panurge. Two lines from the song The Advent of Panurge from the album Octopus:
 * "Then said he fair Pantagruel
 * My name is Panurge and I have come from Hell.

and the closing two:


 * "Faithfully their vow was made and from
 * That day they were as one"

Pantagruel and Panurge, that is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.225.141.187 (talk) 00:36, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Undoing recent "link spam" deletion
I have undone this recent deletion of material I added to this page, as (with respect) I believe that justifying it as action against "link spam" is overzealous and inappropriate.

The deleted material consisted of two links to MySpace pages devoted to the band (one of which itself linked to other MySpace pages each devoted to a particular Gentle Giant album). These links were not intended to promote the MySpace pages in their own right, but to provide Wikipedia users with quick links to pages with Gentle Giant soundclips. I am not personally involved with either page and only discovered them on the day of the edit. -- Dann Chinn (talk) 23:50, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Music, songwriting and compositional style
This section had just been deleted as being incomprehensible to the average person. I don't know of an average person at all interested in Gentle Giant - that was the point. However it someone can reword some of this in plainer terms that would be nice. :: Kevinalewis  : (Talk Page) /(Desk)  14:45, 14 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Good save, and good suggestion. See my previous comment on compressing that section (it's in the "Too high quality" thread above). I'll see if I can do this sometime soon. - Dann Chinn (talk) 16:00, 14 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed. To the anonymous user who deleted the section: Arguably, a large part of the essence of Gentle Giant is in the formal aspects of the compositions. The whole notion of an article having to fit an "average person" seems absurd, as this of course depends on the subject. Normally, the introduction of the article should indeed fit the "average person", but in the rest of the article one can only hope to reach the "average person" with complex issues. Also, WP links _are_ part of the section. "Average persons" can follow links and can read. Please refrain from deleting again, and rather allow the WP community to try and word differently. Wurdnurd (talk) 14:55, 16 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I've now made an attempt at compressing this section. Please read and discuss. If it really doesn't work we can revert the edit - but this section has been a bone of contention twice now and hence probably needs some kind of action. Note also that the link to the original article no longer works - while we're unsure of its long-term online location, I've linked to a cache page and noted the book in which it is published. - Dann Chinn (talk) 20:30, 16 November 2008 (UTC)


 * My view is that this new version is far more readable and thus more comprehensible. At least it is a start in the right direction. :: Kevinalewis  : (Talk Page) /(Desk)  22:23, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Teach me
Can someone show me how to put together a "current" and "former" member list for bandmates "hiding" the list of changes in band members over the years? If so, please leave a note on my talk page. Thanks! --leahtwosaints (talk) 06:24, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Discography
The discography fails to reference the 1996 Out of the Woods and 2000 Totally Out of the Woods albums, both compilations of material performed for the BBC. I'm not a GG expert so won't modify the article. --Ef80 (talk) 18:44, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

"Knots" and Albert Camus?
C'mon. "Knots" is the song that was inspired by R. D. Laing's convoluted psychological poetry / musings. Have you ever struggled with a Laing book?

The Rolling Stone Record Guide (1979) reads "Octopus is based on the work of psychiatrist R. D. Laing and novelist Albert Camus" (p. 148) but unfortunately does not further elaborate. That was written by Toronto critic Alan Niester.

Varlaam (talk) 23:26, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Laing has a book called Knots.
 * http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDM271696&R=271696

Knots by Laing, R. D. (Ronald David), 1927- Year/Format: 1970, Book, 90 p. Subjects: English poetry. Publication information: [London] : Tavistock Publications, [1970] ISSN: 42273330 Physical description: 90 p. Record ID: 271696 Title (unaccented): Knots Local Format: Book More creator details: R.D. Laing. Series: World of man Series: World of man (London, England)
 * The Canadian cover of Octopus is the same as the US, and I recall it mentioning both men.
 * I have altered the article accordingly.
 * Varlaam (talk) 00:23, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The lyrics are slight variations of Laing's - see e.g. Knots on oikos.org and Knots in Google Books. Rp (talk) 19:00, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * And a fine little book it is too. My copy from 1978. But what article addition(s)/change(s) are you proposing?Martinevans123 (talk) 19:06, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * None. Apparently "Knots" was associated with Camus in earlier versions of the article. Rp (talk) 06:02, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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Reunions
The "Reunions" section talks about two partial reunions and describes the first one as follows: "The first of these was a 2004 collaboration between four former Gentle Giant members - Kerry Minnear, John Weathers, Gary Green, and Phil Shulman (who only participated as a lyricist). This quartet reunited as a studio-only project solely in order to record three new compositions for the Scraping the Barrel box set ("Home Again", "Moog Fugue", and "Move Over"). There was no live activity and the quartet disbanded immediately after the recordings." First of all, the box set was released in 2004, but the collaboration took place several years earlier, around 2000 or 2001. Second, calling this a "reunion" and saying that the quartet "disbanded" afterwards is rather misleading, as the musicians' parts were recorded separately and there never was a physical reunion; seems rather silly to say that they "disbanded" when they never actually got together in the first place - definitely not in the same sense as Three Friends, who played actual live concerts. Jah77 (talk) 12:31, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Go ahead and fix it, I say ... Rp (talk)
 * Done. I also removed the POV reference to other bands' "moneyspinning" tours. Jah77 (talk) 13:03, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Proposed merger
Since Three Friends (which appears to be currently defunct anyway) is effectively a Gentle Giant tribute band - albeit one that includes members of the original band - that only plays the music of GG, hasn't released any records, hasn't made any music of its own or received any major media attention, it can't really be considered notable outside Gentle Giant. I therefore propose merging the essential parts of that article into this one. Jah77 (talk) 14:24, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Since no one objected, I went ahead and merged the articles. Jah77 (talk) 13:52, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

No official website
is run by according to. There never has been an official website of the band. Sikonmina (talk) 12:00, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Who technically operates the web site is irrelevant. The point is that it is officially sanctioned by the band. Do you really think the Rolling Stones web site is run by Mick Jagger personally? Jah77 (talk) 15:34, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * www.gentlegiantmusic.com or its former URL are referred to as the official Gentle Giant home page on a number of cd re-releases from the last decade or so, so please stop claiming that there has "never been an official website" for Gentle Giant. Jah77 (talk) 16:15, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Which rolling stones website? Sikonmina (talk) 04:45, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The site was founded by Dan Barrett, who is a massive GG fan, but it has gained official status over the years and, as commented by another user, has been listed as the band's website in multiple releases. Clausgroi (talk) 01:21, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposed merger #2
As Alucard Music, for all intents and purposes, is just a publishing arm of Gentle Giant - its publications are limited exclusively to (re-)releases of Gentle Giant material - it isn't really notable outside the context of this band and all relevant info could easily be merged here. Jah77 (talk) 15:52, 12 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Good idea. Binksternet (talk) 17:33, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ Klbrain (talk) 05:24, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Band's origin
Today, reading the liner notes of the Scraping the Barrel box, I confirmed what I had suspected before: Gentle Giant is from Portsmouth, not London. The band spent most of their time in London because both the label and the studio(s) were established there, but that doesn't change the group's birthplace, which was the city the brothers Shulman lived. The same principle applies to the Beatles: although they were almost always in the capital, nobody disputes the band is from Liverpool.

This is a direct quote from Gary Green, the guitarist for GG: "After joining the band, I moved to Southampton and stayed with Martin Smith (...) From there we commuted the 25 miles daily to Portsmouth, the groups [sic] hometown, where we spent the first 5 months or so rehearsing the material that would become our first album (...)"

Does anybody have anything to counter-argue? Clausgroi (talk) 01:16, 15 January 2024 (UTC)