Customer Reviews

Giant for a Day (Aniv)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Congratulations! You're reading about Gentle Giant's worst album (at least according to most fans). If you've already purchased this album you'll discover a good, solid rock album as opposed to the prog rock that dominated their earlier albums. Gentle Giant had at one time Genesis and other prog acts support them on tour. When these one time supporting acts broke through and the Giant didn't, well the Shulman brothers and Kerry Minnear (the trio wrote the material)decided it was time to do something drastic. The band retooled their sound squeezing out just about all of the unique elements that made "Octopus", "Free Hand" and "In a Glass House" so unique and also difficult to find airplay on the radio.

"Giant for a Day" isn't a bad album. It's the finest album that Yes and 10cc never made. The songwriting is fine--it's just not traditional "Gentle Giant" but then again the band changed from album to album. In fact it reminds me quite a bit of later 10cc when the band was forging ahead with a more straight forward pop-rock sound minus the unusual and quirky elements that made 10cc so memorable as well.

"Words From the Wise" sounds like it could have come off of a Yes album but the harmoneis are just different enough to remind you that this is GG and not Yes. "Thank You" and "Giant for a Day" are straight ahead songs missing the typical downbeat, instrumental prowess and unusual melodic arrangements that characterized all of GG's albums up to this point. While the band had clearly retooled their sound for popular success (which sadly still eluded them)they failed to take into account that by doing so they were alienating their core audience. GG fans bought it and hated it and then stopped buying the band's albums all together.

Hindsight reveals the charm of the album even if it isn't up to the band's usual standards. The concept album approach is gone with a series of songs that either stand or fall on their own. "No Stranger" and "Rock Climber" are both memorable as is the unusual instrumental "Spooky Boogie". This is certainly the band at their most pop sounding.

The band's last album "Civilian" returned to the concept album format that GG used so well for most of their albums. Although not up to their usual standards as well, it had a number of memorable tunes that made it unique as well. Perhaps GG should have changed their name when they made their last trio of albums or, failing that, written one or two "singles" for each album while holding on to their unique sound. Either way, none of their albums are truly bad per se just lacking the tight quality control or unique sound that made GG one of a kind.

Gentle Giant established a reputation in the 1970s as quite possibly one of the most contrapuntal groups in all of progressive rock: their music was staggeringly complex. This 1978 album however, shows a simplification of their music on all levels. Even the cover art, which depicts cutout masks of the bands "mascot" (the gentle giant) on the faces of a boxer; a beauty pageant winner etc. is suggestive of "populist" trends - that is, anyone could be a "giant for a day". This is not to say that the music on Giant for a Day is without redeeming qualities - there are some really nice melodies and as far as pop music goes, this stuff is well-written.

The band at this point was comprised of the lineup that made their definitive music: Derek Shulman (vocals); Ray Shulman (bass guitar, vocals); Kerry Minnear (keyboards,vocals); Gary Green (electric and acoustic guitars, vocals); and John Weathers (drums, vocals). While the playing on Giant for a Day is in no way reminiscent of albums like Octopus (1973) or Free Hand (1975), these guys do turn in some solid, albeit watered down performances - the dense counterpoint and intricate ensemble work is pretty much gone. The use of instrumentation is also simplified and the band favors the standard bass/guitars/drums/vocals with splashes of keyboards here and there.

Tracks on the album that I enjoy include the acoustic textures and sweet melodies on Thank You, Take Me and Friends, in addition to the instrumental Spooky Boogie (the closest thing to classic Gentle Giant as it gets on the album). The remaining tracks show the band trying to adopt styles popular at the time including New Wave, British symphonic pop and American stadium rock. While I do not like New Wave at all, I really enjoy some of the British symphonic pop and American stadium rock bands and those tracks appealed to me the most. Unfortunately, whereas those bands were not afraid to incorporate aspects of British progressive rock, Gentle Giant did not share this enthusiasm and stuck closer to the traditional pop song format.

As far as the DRT remasters go, this is one of the better ones and the CD booklet folds out to display the cut out mask that would enable the listener to be a "giant for a day". The sound quality is very good. While there are no bonus tracks, there is a music video of Words from the Wise. I have not watched the video so I can not comment.

Giant for a Day is yet another example of progressive rock musicians embracing mainstream musical styles in the late 1970s. The followup album Civilian (1980) is purportedly similar to Giant for a Day, although I have not heard it. I guess it is worth noting that the cover art on Civilian took the cover art of Giant for a Day one step further and simply depicted "faceless masses". After Civilian, the band dissolved when it became obvious that trying to emulate a New Wave or American stadium rock band was not going to sell records.

Recommended starting points for folks who are just discovering Gentle Giant include Acquiring the Taste (1971), Three Friends (1972), Octopus (1973), In a Glass House (1973), The Power and the Glory (1974), Free Hand (1975) and the excellent live album Playing the Fool (1977). If you like those albums, check out the eponymous 1970 debut Gentle Giant, Interview (1976), and The Missing Piece (1977)(The Missing Piece markes the beginning of the commercialization of their sound yet is still pretty good).

Of Gentle Giant's original albums, this was the weakest. If you're building a Gentle Giant collection save this one toward the end. As others have noted, this does not represent Gentle Giant doing what they do best. If I recall correctly, by this time the band was in the orbit of consultant Lee Abrams who was doing his best to help the band find a happy meeting ground where they could sufficiently compromise to meet the needs of commercial radio playlists. While I do enjoy plenty of mainstream rock and even outright glucose confection, I recognize that such an approach did not play to Gentle Giant's strengths.

That said, although I tossed this to the used vinyl bins back in the day, now that individual downloads are available I selected "Little Brown Bag", "Friends", "Words From The Wise" and "Spooky Boogie" as the redemptive moments from this disappointment. Those newly interested in the band should hastily gravitate toward "In A Glass House", "Power and the Glory", "Octopus", "Free Hand" and "Interview" as a starting point. I must admit that I'm glad that Gentle Giant's salvo at commercial acceptance failed. I'd hate to see them have endured another twenty years issuing the equivalent of "Abacab".

This is unfortunately the worst Gentle Giant (which is weird to say since all the rest are good!) The band hit a very low point with this, their second to last album. The only songs that are worth mentioning are the title track, Words to the Wise, and Friends, which is the only song featuring drummer John Weathers on lead vocals. Most of the rest are very bland. One of the really bad songs is Spooky Boogie; extremely un-Gentle Giant.

I'd only recommend getting this if you have every other album and only want to complete the collection.

JR

This album has been bashed by alot of die-hard GG fans and I can
understand why. It's not as intelligent, sophisticated and as
complex as their earlier albums and some of the songs, especially
on the second half of the album, like "No Stranger", "Friends"
and "It's Only Goodbye" are rather weak. Also, the cover is a
bit gimmicky. I happen to really like this album, however. I think some of the songs, like "Words From The Wise", "Take Me" and "Little Brown Bag", are some of the catchiest songs GG ever
did. Gary Green gets a chance to really rock out and even some
of the weaker tracks have a charm of their own. My favorite
song is definitely the mock scary instrumental "Spooky Boogie".
This song is very catchy and very listenable and showcases the
band's wonderful sense of humour. I do a radio show on Sunday
afternoons in Ithaca and I've played this track on my last two
Halloween shows! I really love this album!!

...the last being "Civilian", which I notice isn't available here. That album held the group's only top-40 single "Underground". It was clear that the group had had it with the mass-market's hostility towards prog rock (nobody knew back then that a bunch of little American kids would grow up to be Dream Theater and Spock's Beard). This album has its moments, though. "Words From the Wise" showed they hadn't lost their touch as the only prog band to approach Yes in vocal harmonies--hell, the song even sounds like the b-side of "Yours Is No Disgrace". "Spookie Boogie" is still the funkiest song I've ever heard a prog band do. And "Take Me" is practically gospel. The problem was, they didn't sound like Gentle Giant over these two albums, and in my opinion, that did 'em in.

What was a great progressive rock band like Gentle Giant doing wasting their talent recording this kind of bland pop?

The best comparisons I can come up with here are to groups like the Little River Band or perhaps Pablo Cruise or Player. This is just pop, sometimes with a mellow California angle (e.g. "Friends and "No Stranger"), sometimes trying to rock out (e.g. "Little Brown Bag" and "Rock Climber"), and sometimes veering into New Wave/synth-pop (e.g. the title track.)

Like most other late 70's pop albums from the aforementioned bands like Player, this is just a throwaway, unless you actually *like* this kind of very dated, bland pop. The mystery is why they decided to take this direction right after reaching their musical pinnacle with some of the most creative, challenging music ever recorded in the rock genre on albums like _The Power and the Glory_, _In A Glass House_, _Free Hand_, and _Interview_? This is talent gone to waste. They should have stuck with what they did best and left the pop to those with less imagination and talent. For Gentle Giant completists only.

With the exception of John Weathers' blissfull song 'Friends' there is not a good track on this CD. It is filled with tired half rock songs. Musically they were totally lost. Incredibly they manged to recover from this disaster to produce the much more listenable rocker 'Civilian'. Gentle Giant were never a good rock band though. Stick to early stuff to find what they really about.

If you are new to Gentle Giant, or you have one or two albums and want to expand, you might want to skip over this one. This album is what "Under Wraps" was to Jethro Tull or "Love Beach" was to ELP. Ok, ok, the Love Beach thing was a low blow. Let's just say... Giant For A Day is for the hard core fan only. For a better "later" GG album, try "The Missing Piece".

I know that there are many people that think " Giant For A Day " (which originally came out in 1978) is Gentle Giant's worst album, but I am happy to report that I am not one of them. (My least favorite G.G. album is " The Missing Piece ", followed closely by " Live:Playing The Fool "). I can certainly understand WHY " Giant For A Day " would be many people's least favorite G.G. album, however. For one ( and this is a BIG one), there is the original album cover itself, which comes with a cut-out Gentle Giant mask and is about as gimmicky and as silly as this band ever got. Quoting what is said on the cover:

" 1. Cut Along The Dotted Line.
2. Affix Elastic To Mask.
3. Put On Your Mask.
4. Be a Giant For a Day..... "

This was just a ridiculous idea (though I found it a humorous in a good way) and only served to cheapen their image at a time when G.G.'s record sales were declining, along with their public profile. Shame about the cover, because the music on the album is not that bad, really. Which I guess would bring me to the second reason why this album was not wholly embraced by G.G. fans. The songs themselves are for the most part straight forward, guitar driven, rock-n-roll/pop numbers, though there is still enough of Gentle Giant's unique musical personality in there, especially on the rather upbeat opening track " Words From The Wise " and mock scary instrumental " Spooky Boogie " (my favorite song here).

The title track is a somewhat punkish hard rocker with some mighty catchy guitar riffs, though the refrain is sung far too many times at the end. Acoustic guitars pop up on two songs, " Thank You " and " Friends "; the latter is about a minute and a half long and has drummer John Weathers, who wrote the song all by himself, on vocals, accompanied just by guitar.

The two other highlights on the album (at least for me) is the soulful, progressive pop number " Take Me ", which would not have sounded out of place on a Doobie Brothers album (and probably would have been a hit if Michael McDonald had sung it) and the catchy as all heck heavy rock and roller " Little Brown Bag ", which features Gary Green's best guitar riff ever. Unfortunately, the second half has some real duds in "No Stranger", a weird, slightly soulful piece and " It's Only Goodbye ", which sounds like Gentle Giant trying to intentionally write a hit ballad. The album does end on a good note with the rock and roller " Rock Climber ", which I guess talks about a groupie.

So, " Giant For a Day " isn't nearly as complex as earlier Gentle Giant albums and doesn't have any long songs on it. And yep, it does have a terrible cover. I still think it's a good Gentle Giant album....there are many catchy guitar riffs here and an abundance of sing-alongable vocal melodies. A much less challenging listen than some of their earlier albums and I find nothing wrong about that. This newly remastered version comes with a lyric sheet and on the flipside, a cutout Giant mask. Like the other recent G.G. remasters, there are no additional liner notes and no additional photos. There IS a bonus video on this though, for the song " Words From The Wise ", which has G.G. miming the song in the studio.

Giant For A Day is definitely worth having.