I wanna start an argument...

[Powerslave]

Today, I was listening in to AM for a little while, and the track playing was Genesis's "Lamb..." side 2 (it had a big skip in it, but that's for another post). I listened for a while, then came back from lunch to hear Side 3 being played. I listen to AM almost every workday, and it seems that every day, without fail, someone requests a couple of sides of this classic prog album.

Now, in the same vein as Jim's earlier post about the AM audience requesting too much Yes and Genesis, I suggest that the recently added album-side suites of "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" be removed from the request list, along with any other mainstream epic run-in mixes that could be or already are broken up into their smaller pieces (with the exception of two-minute-or-less instrumental intro pieces).

My reasoning? I don't know many casual Yes or Genesis fans, do you? I suspect most of AM's audience are either not that fond of the groups (but why would you be here, then?), or are pretty fanatical about 'em. You sing along, you air guitar (or keyboard, if you're like me), you even own a few albums. You are most likely an intensive progressive music fan. And being such, do you really need to hear music that you already SHOULD own? I mean, if you are a Genesis fan, how could you NOT own "The Lamb...?" If you dig Yes, wouldn't you be INSANE not to own "Close to the Edge?" I think, if you're listening in and you have a hankering for some "mutton on the street," you can request one track from it. I have my favorites, and other stuff I'd rather skip over to get to those favorites.

So, I feel, much like the program director suggested, that AM is for exploring new types of music, trying new sounds, throwing in a classic every ONCE IN A WHILE, discovering what works for you and what doesn't, and (most importantly) why it does or not. I don't find much excitement in listening to half a CD that I already own (and I suspect most listeners do too) while waiting to hear something with which I have no idea what to expect. Making the audience sit through the same ol' BS (even tho it isn't s___) day-in, day-out when we could all be trying something new, should not be the goal of the request list. That's why I feel some of these 20+ minute tracks don't need to be on the list.

I do believe that some of the live run-in stuff is great to hear, but only if it is truly different from the studio. I think Genesis themselves actually said that "Lamb" had very few places for improvisation and variation when being played live ("The Waiting Room" being their only example). And I do realize that some tracks were not meant to be shortened, and that's OK too. To cut up "Dogs" or "The Gates of Delirium" would be really lame and crappy. But the people who should be requesting tracks like these should be folks that are brand new to the bands and/or progressive music and are thinking, "I've heard some of their stuff, but what on Earth could they possibly be singing/playing about for TWENTY-THREE BLEEPIN' MINUTES!?!?" Then their curiousity should get the better of them and they should request it, and we'll all (the rest of us) get the treat of an epic we haven't heard in a while, and the satisfaction of knowing there's a newbie out there who is getting his first taste of a truly mind-blowing experience. Then when he's taking his breather/nap/fetal position in the corner, we can enjoy some more new stuff so that we might also feel like him. IMHO, that's what Progressive Rock is all about.

RANT OVER

PLEASE respond to this post and tell me what you think!