Tales from Topographic Oceans.

[Yesspaz]

I really like the album. It's not my favorite, and I think I'd like it more if say, one side from it was spread out over four albums with shorter stuff. Say, "Revealing" with side two of Tormato and "Remembering" with side one..., etc. I don't listen to it nearly as much as I do Relayer, Going, Tormato, Close, Keys, Ladder, etc. I think the reason is that while it's, in Jon's words, "immaculate," it really is an exhausting album to digest whole. There are a lot of 4-song double albums - Tangerine, Godspeed, and Soft Machine come to mind quickly - yet none of these are as packed as Tales. They can wash over you, but you have to focus on Tales. That intensity of focus for that long will wear you out. Whenever I listen to Tales, I always find myself (and don't take this the wrong way) cleansing my palatte right after with something simple and heavy, simple and atmospheric, or something rootsy. It's like I've been up in the stratosphere too long and I need to get reacquainted with the earth beneath my feet (or after spending a day at a museum I need to watch Futurama for a while). A good chaser after Tales is a CCR album.

Each individual song is wonderful, but as a whole they can be a bit much.