Changing Tastes

I remember back in 1971 being somewhat disappointed after my purchase of Gentle Giant's Acquiring the Taste. I was hoping for something progressively rocking-out along the lines of Yes or ELP and this just didn't do that. It was so much more mellow somehow. But albums were expensive in those days - well, they were if you had very little money - and so, despite my disappointment I listened intently and grew accustomed to the efforts of the Schulman brothers et al, without ever quite falling in love with them.

Fast forward four decades or so and I discover with some little delight that someone has up-loaded the same sophomore album at youtube and I can listen again having lost the original vinyl more years ago than I care to recall. Of course, by this time I've listened to quite a bit more by the Giant from their later albums with much appreciation. But nothing has quite prepared me for the shock of just how darned good Acquiring the Taste actually is, how extraordinarily assured and inventive. And I now realise that what I was buying back then was something by way of an education for my ears; it's just that I failed the test at the time.