So by now it's September, 1977. I'm 19 years old, living at my mom's house in Northeast Portland, reading the Portland newspaper (they were delivered to your front porch everyday, they looked like this)
(JIC some of you younger folks don't know, they've since kinda gone the way of the phone booth)
...so as I peruse, an ad from a nearby record store catches my eye...There's a new Gentle Giant album!
I drop the paper, run out to my bicycle, and pedal like mad for about a 5 mile round trip, then arrive back home with a copy of the latest Giant album, The Missing Piece
I slit the cellophane, pull out the inner sleeve, carefully pull out the record, gently place it on the spindle, and cue up the tonearm to the lead in groove to the opening track, "Two Weeks In Spain". I am fully prepared to be astounded...
Huh? WTF? I'm sitting there all through the three minutes, waiting for this song to start being Giant and stop being boring. It never happens. This is the worst Giant song I'd ever heard. Surely the next track, "Turning Around", will be better
So by this time I'm just sitting there slack jawed. Two dumb songs in a row. They had never disappointed me before, but I'm sorry, this is crap. They sound like they've dumbed their music down, like they want to get radio play. BORE-RING. Ok, *surely* they'll snap out of it on the next track, what's the name? (checks album cover) "Betcha Thought We Couldn't Do It". Uh-oh, that doesn't sound good....
You're right, I definitely thought you couldn't put out boring crap like this. They think, *think*, they're being punk. Not even close. They stopped being who they were and were trying to be someone else, and that just about never works. And it certainly isn't working now. From this point forward I have no expectation of hearing anything good from my favorite band.
The next song continues the crapfest, "Who Do You Think You Are"
Yawn. What'd I pay for this record again?
Next up, "Mountain Time". Zzzzzz
I don't remember for certain, but I don't even think I turned the album over. Eventually I did listen to side two, and it's not as awful as side one, but still not very good. It sounds like Giant trying to be Giant at the jump-the-shark point of their career, "As Old As You're Young"
The best song on this album, without a doubt, "Memories of Old Days", still isn't as good as anything on Interview, "Another Show" included, but it's better than anything else on this gawdawful album.
Another failed attempt at the more classic Giant follows, "Winning". They sound like a parody of their former selves here
The closing track is the only other track that kinda works in the traditional Giant style, "For Nobody", this is actually pretty good, I like the attempt at signature Giant vocal layering but the phase-shifting effects really detract from it. The overall effect is too little too late...
Two albums left to review. As bad as The Missing Piece is, their next was the absolute nadir of their career, by near unanimous consensus. The only Giant album I've never even owned a copy of, Giant For A Day, is, sadly, next