Audio CD review:
Van Der Graaf Generator - Present

Van Der Graaf Generator - Present

Band: Van Der Graaf Generator Title: Present Rating: Release Date: 18 September, 2006 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Every Bloody Emperor 2: Boleas Panic 3: Nutter Alert 4: Abandon Ship! 5: In Babelsberg 6: On the Beach 7: Vulcan Meld 8: Double Bass 9: Slo Moves 10: Architectural Hair 11: Spanner 12: Crux 13: Manuelle 14: 'Eavy Mate 15: Homage to Teo 16: Price of Admission

Customer Reviews This disc is copy protected!! I bought this 2CD set in the this summer when it was released and only played it on CD machines and not through my computer. Van Der Graaf Generator's Present advertised as [ENHANCED] [IMPORT]on Amazon from EMI is copy protected, and I could not see any enhanced content but then looking at the disc in explorer is somehow disabled. Well out of curiosity because of all the press about Sony's CDs protected by rootkits I put one disc it in my computer. Up popped a message that you need to install something to play the CD. I instantly exited out of the Yes/NO install box and yanked the offending disc out of my computer. I did not even give the disc time to respond to the Yes/no box. Well I immediately tested burning a DATA disc and my 16X NEC burner had become a 1X wonder!!!! Luckily I did a system rollback to the previous day and all seems Ok but Beware! Hey I bought ALL VDGG releases and was thinking of rebuying all the remasters. I now am having second thoughts. While I respect their rights, to inconvience a customer is just totally unacceptable. If I ever see another disc so marked. . . . or mismarked like at Amazon I will return it unopened!! So be careful out there!. A definite "Classic" But I dont think thats a bad thing - Hugh Banton comes off as the evil mad scientist on this album and when I went back to prior VDGG albums I realized he was ALWAYS an evil mad scientist! Without him, Peter Hammill is just a singer/songwriter (sorry Pete). I played this for a friend of mine and he thought it sounded just like "World Record" which I hadn't considered. "Present" is a lovely album indeed and anybody who has followed VDGG already has it, so whats the point of this review?. Not a classic You'd think that 40 percent of albums released are dazzling classics. One problem I have with the general reviews found on amazon are the large number of 5 star ratings. Actually classics are very rare - that's what makes them classics right. Van der graaf's being a hugely talented act can probably boast of 2 classic albums, namely "Still life" and "Pawn Heart". This latest offering is fairly interesting in part but I don't think your going to want to play it that often. "Present" has just too many lame moments where the band decided "Yeah, that'll do, leave it in". Not hungry enough boys. . . You can see a complete list of all Van Der Graaf Generator discography, or go back to the Van Der Graaf Generator tabs