Marillion and Rush have one thing in common...

[acroyear]

Everytime a new album comes out, the casual listener (and the detractor) will say it sounds exactly like everything they've ever done (or everthing they've ever done since album n which was their "best album ever").

Meanwhile, the fanatic fans will be impressed at how it doesn't sound like anything they've ever done before.

Any other bands like that?

Comments

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

Are there casual Marillion listeners anymore?

Not in America, certainly, but in Europe where they still get some attention.

As for Marillion, pretty much the H era and the Fish era are almost considered as different groups by a lot of fans.

I thought that for a little while, then started looking at their musical form.

They still write the same way. They don't try to stretch a riff into a 4 minute single (a-la Kayleigh, where they got lucky). They still work by taking lots of two-minute bits and glue them together and their real composition is in coming up with the right glue. Genie and Cinderella Search are just about the same song. The same technique stretched over 15 minutes is Invisible Man or Strange Engine. Stretched over 45 and you have Misplaced Childhood.

The main exception is their long fade-out songs, like in Neverland, When I Meet God, and 21st Century. But even that is a return to form, 'cause that's Incubus and Fugazi...and Script.

They really are the same band in structure in many ways.

[cyberkender.livejournal.com]

The Internet and knowing people who are fanatics creates casual listeners for almost everything. :>
I can be counted as a casual listener of theirs.