Third by Soft Machine

Third

Soft Machine

2.45
Rating
20796
Votes
1
23%
2
32%
3
27%
4
14%
5
5%
Distribution

Reviews (page 6 of 7)

Acid is GReAt!

Third is a live, double album by the English rock band Soft Machine, and is their third album overall (hence the title). It's a jazz rock and electronic piece with a single composition for each of the four sides. Critically acclaimed, this album did a great job of fusing jazz and rock that made this the top album of Soft Machine's catalog. I liked the concept for this album which is live jazz rock, but the tracks were too long in my opinion as a result of this recording process. There's a few slow spots or even quiet/silent sections that I feel like could have been edited out to decrease the run time. If you like jazz, then you should appreciate this album.

An overly long and samey progressive jazz rock slog.

Moon In June //

Psychedelic Rock. Für Liebhaber.

I love jazz, and prog rock like Pink Floyd and The Alan Parsons Project, but could not imagine ever playing this again.

Vibes I think. No lyrics in rock songs is always kind of a turn off for me but I’m kind of grateful for it here since the guy’s voice is really pathetic and annoying. But it’s funny so I’ll give it a pass. I really don’t like how all the drums are panned to the right the entire time. It’s really distracting and grating after a while. Nevermind, it’s not really vibes

Nah. Just nah. It’s not egregiously terrible, but these songs drone endlessly on without any clear direction; especially Track 3, my god. It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the most baffling instrumental choices I think any of these albums have made so far. For a pretty early attempt to blend jazzy instruments with electronica and synth, I have to give it credit for occasionally succeeding. The problem is, those moments are so short and so fleeting under these incredibly fucking long songs that it’s like finding a $1 bill while you’re walking through a sea of pennies. Those moments are enough to put this album at a 2 for me, but… this just wasn’t it, man.

That's not my taste in musik.

I don't think this is for my listening pleasure. I can see it's interesting for music, but no song really needs to be over 9 minutes....

I can imagine how back when this came out it may have been incredible, but with today‘s music and my musical background I don‘t really get it (yet). Though I gotta say i really enjoyed the vibe in ‚Slightly All The Time‘

I may have gotten into them during the day, but they're not for me now. I did like some elements, but it wasn't cohesive for me to like as a whole.

Jammy psychedelic jazz rock. Nothing too interesting is said in this and the bass is mixed way too loud.

Weird shit

Long, drawn out jazz rock. A double album with one 18+ minute track on each side. It's not bad per se, but is somewhat dull, self indulgent and tedious. Rating: 1.5/5 Playlist track: Slightly All The Time Date listened: 05/01/24

Very long jazz songs, four in total. A small portion of the songs were decently fine jazz. The rest was a little too experimental for me, with squawking trumpets and weird beats and synthesizer. Not very musical at all

Ab dem 2. Lied wird's besser

Did not really get into it

I some times wonder if I had grown up when psychedelic rock was a thing if these would make more sense.

Didn't grow on me. A tough listen

Something strange

This was a challenge. The first 6 minutes are just some weird soundscape, no real melody or anything, but if you treat it like an orchestra tuning up you can get through it, and it improves, marginally. The rest is ...fine (and I like prog), but I really wouldn't want to hear this again. It's over long, not interesting enough, and Robert Wyatt's voice, which works really well on Shipbuilding, does not really work here.

I thought it was OK. 2/5

Bra at alle sangane e over 18 minutt. Kunne sikkert satt pris på da hvis eg hadde hørt da nåken titalls ganga, men satte seg ikkje heilt etter første forsøk

An odyssey. I’m still getting over the audacity it takes to start off an album like that. It straightened out a bit but why wouldn’t I just listen to other jazz?

Too long; didn't care.

5/10, didn't really get into this? Some of the repeating elements were cool, but the minimalism aspect didn't shine through well for me

enjoyable in parts, but so all over the place that it's hard to justify the parts i like, yk? 2

Sorry, too out there for my liking.

I typically like jazz. These songs I did not. They dragged on for 18-20mins taking forever to build.

This isn't offensively bad, but I can't really recommend anything about it. 1.5.

Very few songs are good enough to justify being almost 20 minutes long. None of these songs were worth the length.

It felt like a really long jazz record. I didn't turn it off. Low bar for jazz records.

Bored out of my mind. Thought maybe it needs some vocals. Then they came in on the third song and didn’t help.

Jazz rock, electronic, ambiental. Muy largo. Si no fuera por lo largo que es, le subiría la puntuación.

80 minutes, 4 tracks, mostly nothing. 4/10

I like a lot of prog albums quite a lot. This one is very "mid" as the kids say. It's extremely meandering and just feels like it's padded out to fill up a double album for the sake of it. The musicianship is loose without feeling intentionally so. It comes off as amateurish and bored.

Usually a huge fan of long, sprawling tracks, but I do require some interesting journeys along the way. This LP doesn't have much to share in that department, choosing instead to meander and bump its way through 4 artificially extended tracks that gave been inflated to reach an arbitrary goalpost of 18 minutes each. Just could not grab on to anything this LP was trying serve, which again is a damn shame given how long tracks like these don't come through here often

Je me suis longtemps demandé pourquoi l'expression "énorme daube" avait été créée aussi peu de temps après la publication de cet album et j'ai finalement compris hier soir.

There's some cool stuff in here. An atmospheric proggy jazz fusion album utilizes heavy synths, atonality, and minimalism to draw out four 20-minute tracks without it becoming too grating. It sounds dated, with a lot of moments feeling like gimmicks you could use with technology at the time that has become overshadowed with what the 80s could offer. It takes half of "Facelift" to get to the point, where it becomes something that vaguely resembles Bitches Brew with how some instruments screech and class while others remain constant. It tries to be as weird and abrasive as possible, and it's pretty good at this. It does have a natural progression. "Slightly All the Time" is chill and groovy, feels like a more low-key Chicago song. Goes through a lot of variations, emphasizing the improvisational method. It's ok but doesn't impress me much, and some of the transitions feel forced. "Moon in June" sounds like a typical prog rock song, less jazz, and more of the overly dramatic vocals like what you hear from Peter Gabriel. But it's god awful. And I think he's doing this on purpose to parody love songs? To make a point he doesn't need lyrics? I seriously can't tell. He gets meta in a few parts, "Don't really know what I'm singing about" or more subtlety, "Oh but you never say you like me... or something nice like that" that almost seems like he's purposely singing and writing lazily. According to wikipedia, it's a stream of consciousness, so I wonder if he's just singing whatever comes to his mind on the spot while recording, no written lyrics. Justifies it a little, but still shows he has no talent in rapping. Nevertheless, the music is pretty dull except for the instrumental middle section. Again, they try ending in a long dramatic unsettling coda, which serves its purpose and stands out, but doesn't impress me. We end with a space rock track "Out-Bloody-Rageous." It's mystical and otherworldly, but it doesn't take the beginning idea too far and it gets a bit boring. Turns into another jammy jazz fusion section, fairly good. The middle point shifts back to space rock, this time replacing the brighter industrial synths with a sax lead, kinda cool. In the last quarter, the bright synths return but multiplied and faster. Serves more as ambient music at that point. This piece does feel like a clustered mess overall, and I feel like the different sections only help me from not getting exhausted by each of them. For a prog album, they mess around a lot and get some cool sounds. But it's a very messy record, with very little that blew me away. On a few occasions I wondered how they did it, and you have to admire their innovative ideas, but they really take them very far or have them work together.

Noisy musical experimentation that periodically reveals beauty, but not often enough…

I didn't really care much for this. It started off pretty terrible and although it did get better, it didn't ever redeem itself, in my opinion.

First song i found hard to listen ro Song 2 and 3 are quite nice but they dont exactly grab me I honestly expected better of what i read... not for me

Had trouble staying awake during this one

At its best, it reminded me of Traffic, which is a good thing. I'm a fan of prog rock overall, but this was too much pointless canoodling for me. 2 stars.

When I saw 4 tracks and 1 hour and 20 minutes I groaned. The groan was warranted but at the same time it wasn’t horrible. But I was also high. So take that for what it’s worth.

Un disco densooooo AF. Malditas drogas.

Almost jazz prog rock. Interesting as background music, cool horn section.

Didn’t love it didn’t hate it.

Heel erg jazzy-chaotisch. Maar net georchestreerd genoeg dat het niet stoort.

i reckon this would only make much sense if you had a monstrous bowl of narcotics. might buy it on vinyl and head to La Paz to get on it with Manny Pacquaio.

EATING CHOCOLATE CAKE IN THE SHOWER EVERY MORNING HAS TAUGHT ME HOW TO FEEL LIKE A REAL MAN. I CAN USE IT TO DISGUISE WHEN I SHIT MYSELF. CAKE AND SHIT, CAKE AND SHIT, CAKE AND SHIT. SHOWERING WITH CAKE AND SHIT. SHITTING IN THE SHOWER, SHITTING IN THE SHOWER. CAKE AND SHIT. I'M A REAL MAN. EAT MY SHIT.

Get a big plate of drugs in you and stick this on. They're playing it at RadioSHACK in La Paz. Half man/half fly Scott Kelly is being sick in there as we speak.

It's jazz noodling. They've got skills, but who cares? Best track: Slightly All the Time

Fuck this. I hate when the artist has no damn respect for the listener to make their music even a little enjoyable. There are so few bits to latch on to in this project that they may as well not exist entirely. There are barely any enjoyable aspects to this whole album. 2/5

The first track is bad. The second track, Slightly All The Time, is pretty good ambient music for a metropolitan city. I enjoyed the surprising directions the track went in. The third track is bad. The fourth track is bad. 1.5 stars.

Imagine going to see this live and waiting about 10 minutes for something to happen in a song...... I don't mind progressive music but that opening track was too much of nothing but noises. Second track was better, quite jazzy. I dunno, rest of it passed me by a bit. Not horrible, but certainly won't be back

Not my style

Maybe I wasn't in the best mood but this album didn't do much for me

If you're not willing to follow this one down the rabbit hole, like I was not, listening to it is a fairly torturous exercise. The word pretentious is overused but cmon, if there was ever a proper fit..

# Album Name: Third # Artist: Soft Machine # Rating: 1/5 # Comments: Absolutely not for me. Bored the shit outta me. Way too long and crap # Top Tunes: None # Would I listen to it again? No

This would've been excruciating to experience live (though it wasn't an actual live show, just a live recording), and the only thing that made it less excruciating to stream was that I could consume it in small chunks, instead of all at once. 954 albums in, and this is one of the worst I've heard. A double album with four painfully long tracks that go absolutely nowhere. It made me angry to listen to.

No, under no circumstances do you need to listen to this before you die. They play instruments. Cool bro, next. Save the time.

skipeada historica

Okay so I think they put 4 musicians in different rooms and had them try to jam with eachother. I question how this ever made the list and how the list was picked. Also I question life now. Is this real? Maybe that’s why this albums here. To show us all this is an assimilation. Beware of this album.

Are you kidding me? 20 min/song?!

Dudes making random noises for almost the length of a feature film. Like look I get that you like being bad musicians but maybe throw some more lyrics in idk then you'd at least be interesting bad musicians

This is awful music. Pretentious crap. 4 long tracks of varying unlistenability.

My God! Brits love their prog rock and their electronic dance music. This album ended 2 hours ago and somehow I feel it's still going on. People hating on the first song, Facelift, and somehow that's the only one I found interesting. (Although I much prefer Alice In Chains' response album to the song)

the first song on this album is up there as the worst song on this entire list

Its shit. Don't bother.

Why are all the songs like 20 mins long... also, just not my thing, too much going on to enjoy listening

Couldn't get through the first song

Yaaaaawwwwwwwnnnn

This was quite a chore. Kinda thankful much of the album was blacked out by Spotify.

It’s like someone said, “Oh, you don’t like jazz? Let us show you just how bad jazz can get.”

Sucked. Whenever I felt like it was about to redeem itself, it'd get worse.

I only know this artist because this site had me listen to Robert Wyatt's "Rock Bottom." I didn't really enjoy that album, but let's hope this one is more enjoyable. I enjoy prog rock and jazz. This is somehow neither and both. And on top of it all, still not enjoyable. To paraphrase Dr. Ian Malcolm: These musicians were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.

Massive double album of dry, academic-sounding prog that sounds like it cares more about music theory than it does about actual human emotion.

Being a big fan of Robert Wyatt I had high hopes for this album but those hopes were destroyed when I heard the first song. It sounds like the soundtrack to your worst nightmares.

What are we doing here guys?

Not my style

tired spongebob phew meme

To get away with this nonsense it's got to sound like everyone is an absolute virtuoso. There are moments in track 2 when they manage it, when it's just drums, a bit of organ and the sax isn't trying too hard, but I don't think it's possible to be a stylophone virtuoso. Track 1 is truly awful. Track 2 is mostly ok, like a 70s soundtrack and occasionally quite listenable. Track 3... The singing and lyrics make me wish it was another 18 minute instrumental. Oh my god it's horrible. It's actually painful to listen to. I'm determined to make it to the end, because how can this go on for 19 minutes??? Oh great, more stylophone. I don't care if it isn't actually a stylophone, it's probably not because there's too many notes. Finally it's (genuinely) good to get to some speeded up and slowed down violin that sounds like The Clangers. That's what the song was missing. Holy fuck this is terrible. Track 4 starts more interesting with a bit of electronic drone, but then goes into average jazz rock plus more stylophone again. This one is ok or maybe it's all relative at this point. I'm not a fan.

I knew when I saw a four-song album ran 75 minutes that I was gonna be annoyed listening to this, and sure enough, this was truly awful. Just noise and precious few melodies. The track with vocals had a few interesting moments that kind of reminded me of Mars Volta (I'll bet those dudes LOVE this band), but overall this was not for me at all. Yeet this shit into the sea.

Long, boring, repetitive, and straight up sounds bad. I despised listening to this, it drags on. I knew it was going to suck when I saw that it was more than an hour long and only had 4 songs. I wish I never had to listen to albums like this again.

Oh boy, when you open an album up and see 4 tracks with over an hour long runtime, you're either in for a great time or a miserable one. My experience was mostly the latter. This album lies somewhere between prog rock, psychadelic rock, and jazz. It's a lot, and it's a slog if you're not into it. I hope these guys stuck to instrumental work though, the lyrics and vocals on "Moon In June" were... pretty bad. That whole song rubbed me the wrong way to be honest. I really liked the beginning of "Out-Bloody-Rageous" but then the horns came in and killed the whole vibe. There are some good instrumentals in parts, and sometimes that guitar comes chugging in with some nice distortion and I have hope but then nothing truly epic ever pans out. I have to give this 1 star. Its just not good enough in my opinion. There are just so many jarring sounds. It's way too much. I heard this before I died and wish I had that time back.

I just didn’t get it

A pretty exhausting listen. Found myself checking how far along I was before the second song even finished. Just way too long Favorite Song: Moon in June

Too long. Won’t listen again

I really couldn't wait for this to be over.

Do you like random sounds that go nowhere for over an hour? Then Soft Machine have the album for you. The only thing that’s Out-Bloody-Rageous about this album is that I had to waste my time listening to it. As clear a 1* as you’ll find.

I’m no prog or jazz-rock hater, but Jesus was this album hard work. It’s so meandering, shapeless and self-indulgent, painful and hideously dull. The pattern is set with ‘Facelift’, the opening track, as we get five minutes of ambient noise before anything vaguely musical comes in. It improves later on, but never becomes more than okay even in its best moments. This applies to the whole album really. I liked ‘Moon in June’, the only track with vocals, even less, due to the terrible singing and lyrics. The album also suffers from weird edits, and poor sound quality and production.

tom for ord

Some real jazz fusion, not that Steely Dan stuff. Absolutely terrible tho.

Bloody hell, utter tripe.

My only solace is that Spotify had grayed out the 4th side of the double album so I couldn't listen to it. Drudgery.

I liked parts and can appreciate some of the weird sounds but come on.

Oh for fuck's sake...

I tried, with this I really did but no matter how good a song might sound, 18 mins of instrumental won't do it for me so it came to an early end. Some things just aren't made fro everyone.

Kind of excited for this one after reading GPTs breakdown. It is described as Jazz Rock. There are only 3 tracks on Spotify though. But that's a combined total of 56 min. This first track is a little anxiety ridden, like nails on a chalkboard. that whole first track is just noise man, couldn't even finish it. The second track was a little more enjoyable but damn this is brutal. 2 stars.

Baustelle, Gerstetten, Deutschland. Weird shit.

“There’s no option to give you a zero so I give you a one”. Dissonant, unsettling, lost the plot Playlist add: "Moon In June" because I had to put something there

Talvez se eu peidar em um microfone por 1h54 min e publicar, eu entre nessa lista.

I should have taken the advice from the person who said not to listen to track 1 first. It didn't get better for me, just a slog of a listen. Not for me at all.

Awful I hated this so much

the hell

At first I was disappointed that Spotify didn't have the 2nd disc of this release, but quite soon after starting playing the 1st disc I was very happy about that. Awful.

Another prog-rock "classic" from an English band is in this book. I was already on edge because Robert Wyatt is involved with this band and I have not totally enjoyed the two albums he has in this book. The first track sounds like a song that Chicago (whose debut album is in this book) would have written, except I didn't like it quite as much as I like Chicago's jazzy horn sounds. I had a difficult time determining where the first song ended and the second song began. The last song, Out-Bloody-Rageous, has less than 100,000 plays on Spotify which seems bizarre to me considering that's about 20% of the plays the 3rd least popular track has on this album. These are all four really long songs and I don't see the purpose of this album's inclusion in this book. Facelift takes about 7 minutes to actually get moving in a direction that doesn't sound like just jazz-ish noise. Other groups do prog-rock, and even jazz prog-rock, better and they are already represented.

Some of the most self-indulgent bullshit I've ever listened to. There is some prog I absolutely love, but this ain't it.

i will have to revist i think i could like it but this is just too much for me.

1,5 Highlights: Slightly All The Time, Moon in June

Imagine members of Soft Machine had to give up being freeform musicians and applied their undoubted randomness skills to other occupations... Imagine one of them performing surgery on you and you wake up after an operation to find your knee bone is connected to your head bone, your head bone is connected to your finger bone, etc. You'd have similar feelings of discombobulation as listening to their cats-on-piano "music" for over an hour. Physically and mentally scarred I am after an hour of this bollocks in my ears... Bollocks in my ears? Sounds like one of their surgical manoeuvres 😬

If your opening track is 18 mins long at least make it interesting from the get go… Haha, turns out they love a 18-19 min track and all of them are a yawnfest! To much noodling and a doodling for my taste.

some songs i had to skip entirely, and others part of... it felt like pure noise at times rather than a flow of music that was enjoyable

This was an extremely long album, with two discs, but luckily the second one was unavailable on Spotify, so I got away with listening to only around an hour and 20 minutes of noise. This is possibly worse than the out-of-tune jazz that some people like listening to, but the general idea is that it's not really something enjoyable, but it is something that I would listen to in the background of a very intense chase scene in an old movie.

What a start on track 1, nearly ten minutes of rather unpleasant noise. After that it becomes actual music for a while. Some of the music is fine in a vacuum I guess, but this presentation is probably not for me. A double album of long (18+ minutes EACH TRACK), meandering jazz tracks. When there are vocals, they feel half-hearted and they're nearly drowned out by the instruments. I'd much prefer shorter self-contained tracks. I can see it working for someone, but I can't get into it.

Neljän monsterimitallisen Pehmytmasiina. En ole näin ristiriitaista levyä kuunnellut vielä tähänmennessä. Noi jazzisaxot yms erikoisuudet pistää irvistämään tosi pahasti, mutta sitte taas välillä basso, urut ja rummut laitto höristämään korvia että ompa ihan kivan kuulosta. Mutta ei niin kivoilta että olisin päässy yli jazzeilusta. Levyllä vedetään niin yli genrerajojen että en ihmettele ollenkaan että on ollut jotain todella jännää tullessaan. On kyllä vieläkin.

could not get behind this

Neprišiel som tomu na chuť

How intense of a fever dream should I risk before practising self-care xo. (Read: Gave up towards the end of the first one).

I tried with this one but this is probably for musicians more knowledgeable than I to enjoy. It feels like a noise project with jam band and jazz influences. Couldn't make it past the first track, although I did listen to it's entirety

Third?? Wouldn't even put this last!

Haha va. Näe. Även om tredje låten hade bra bitar!

This is just noise?

I don't enjoy jam bands and this was way too jazzy for my tastes

I thought I would never have to hear Robert Wyatt again- I was unfortunately wrong. Specific rating- 1.3 Fav song - out bloody rageous Least fav- moon in june

These guys were just having a fun little (long) jam together- absolutely no need for it to be recorded or sold though. Felt like a lot of effort to get through it all. Favourite song: Out Bloody Rageous Least: Facelift

i just didn’t like it at all and had no interest to keep listening.

Blind album and artist. This album no from me jazz dog.

juste un méli mélo de sons, comme si ils pensaient que ça allait être intéressant à écouter, nul..

Absolutely everything wrong with 70s/80s prog rock summed up: stupidly long pretentious crap without form or function that exists solely because some people wanted to record themselves noodling on a guitar. The jazz parts were okay but nothing special or standout and then it went back to more mind-numbingly boring and dull prog. Compare to something like Yes, where it's stupidly long guitar noodling but it's great fun to listen to.

1/5 - Would rate very highly on my list of 1,001 albums to listen to after I die.

Wtf was this?! I just can't with these types of albums, sooooo fucking weird

There were a few moments in Moon In June that I enjoyed, but overall I'm hoping never to listen to this album again.

01) Facelift - 1,5 02) Slightly All the Time - 2,0 03) Moon in June - 3,0 04) Out-Bloody-Rageous - 2,5 TOTAL: 2,25 (23/100) Current ranking:

What was that hot garbage? Ok, maybe hot garbage is a little harsh. In the right mood that might work… but I was not in the mood to go all experimental prog jazz today. Only a 1 😬

This sounds like four people tuning up at once and just agreeing not to stop.

What did I just listen to?? It sounded like two whales f*cking. That was an assault of my senses. I’m seriously considering bringing up charges. I have no doubt that this is the album they play in Git-mo when the terrorists are being water-boarded. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Not for me. 1/5

Malort is also complex and challenging. That doesn't mean it's tasty.

Seriously? Another English prog rock band? And its a fucking double album? I'm done with these man, and I love prog rock. There are entire countries that aren't represented on this list that have probably centuries of music better than this album

Any Album that has you listen to over 5 minutes of screeching is a 1 star album I do not care what the rest is or could be its an awful album.

Horrible. Hated every second of it. Listened to it right before bed and it gave me such nightmares I think I might have chipped a tooth from clenching.

Absolutely unbearable

Just because you can produce a double album with only 4 tracks it doesn’t mean you should.

NOPE...Hated it!

Someone needs to find these master tapes and burn them. Nothing about this was worth hearing. But I am committed to listening to entire albums hoping to find another red great music I've never heard, so I keep an opened mind to the extent of being patient when an album opens up with no apparent direction in hopes it'll get better. Again, another selection did not. I'm only around 25 days in and the majority of choices given to me have been absolute failures....as this had. How any record company could invest money in manufacturing a product not worth wiping your ass with is beyond me. I would give this negative stars id I had the opportunity.

I'm a big prog guy and enjoy soft machine but having this as an album you just listen to before you die? Nah. Starting with an 18 min live jam then the following 3 tracks are jams too is just a lot to take in. I do enjoy parts of it but it just feels like recorded jams than planned and thought out songs, plus not much thought put into this as a coherent piece of art. I mean on this list comparing it to Marvin Gaye's what's going on, which really thinks about song transitions is just incomparable. Can't rate this high in the context of this list, its just repetitive and the jams get dull. Maybe if you smoke a joint or have the album on in the background of a party you're throwing while drinking wine and eating your fancy canapés. Sorry prog fans but this is not an album you must hear before you die, I'd say most should avoid it.

Get the fuck out of here with four nearly 20 minute long songs of poorly arranged and mastered noodling.

insufrible, 16 minutos cancion por cancion

Reminds me of sitting through a av exhibit at a modern art museum.

Yeah this one definitely wasn’t for me. I’m not having a good run of albums at the moment.

unbelievably badly

Unpleasant

If you can make it through Track 1, it barely improves.

Me siento mal. Me obligué a mi misma a escuchar hasta el final todo, incluso lo que no me gustaba pero con este album la tuve re difícil.

too experimental for me - didn't get it

Too long

Horrible!

To say that this album was a chore is to do a disservice to chores. It was long an laborious without any sense of cohesive musicality. At time it sounded like a cat walking over a keyboard but somehow even worse than that. Do not listen

unlistenable prog jazz crap.

really long

Terrible prog

This is like an album made of only the bad parts of pink floyd. Also making it four 20 minute tracks somehow makes it less accessible than it already was. Feels like a band only pretentious people would admit to liking, now and when they were contemporary.

Track 1: The cacophonous intro was not for me, but once the proper song started, it got even worse. The rest of the songs are somewhat less bad, but still sound like they were recorded inside an ashtray. Best left to the sands of time.

Absolutely not. You should have your guitar taken away for producing several 20 minute songs in a row.

Hell no, I'm not that dedicated.

I just don’t get this style of music!

are you fucking kidding me

Add this to the list of some of the most horrendous atrocities mankind has created. War, genocide, famine, slavery, torture, rape, murder, abuse, pedophilia, Captain Beefheart, and now Third by Soft Machine.

This is the kind of poop that gives jazz a bad name - way too freeform, laissez-faire, disjointed, whatever - it's poop and I didn't want to finish it. Leave it to some white brits to ruin jazz for me and waste 75min of my time.

This thing nearly put me to sleep while listening to it. If that was the artists' attempt, then I would give it a five star review. But I highly doubt that it was, so I'm giving it the one star it deserves.

Not good

I would like to give a shoutout to the youtuber 'gaypenis' for producing some of the 'best' micspam to grace the internet. Without that, I would have turned this album off immediately. It's boring. Yes, the band are talented and some parts of these very, very long tracks are good but frankly it is mixed in with so much dawdling shit that it's just not worth it. I don't care that it's a live album, if these guys spent some time in the studio and trimmed up this album it could be great. Instead it's a slog that I won't be listening to again. Highlights: Slightly All the Time (somewhat)

Absolutely awful. If I could give a lower rating than one star, I would.

Experimental jazz / rock. It sounded a bit too random and aimless upon first listen. The musicianship is impressive but I didn't enjoy listening to it.

I’m not sitting through 2 hours of psychedelic rock

Fav: Slightly All The Time Least Fav: Moon In June It’s almost cruel for them to have some nice snippets of good sounds sprinkled in between the terrible sounding melodies

Kind of a mess. These did not need to be 20 minute songs. In two of the tracks there are sections that are quite engaging and interesting. But there's a reason I hate jam bands. This is mostly directionless, disjointed and self-indulgent. I mean, the musicianship is fine, but does that matter if I tune out 2 minutes in?

p209. 1970. 1 star Oh dear. Four 18+ minute tracks of jazz-prog rock fusion. No.

Another spin of the Robert Wyatt roulette wheel. Unfortunately, this time the ball landed on 00. Sorry, mate - there was simply no recovering from that first track. Oof.

Haha, Third. I get it. It takes a third of your life to get through a third of this album. Fitting, but fuck no.

Third? Last.

Too soft

Confusing

2/10 - I get it, but it's not good, I can just imagine a bunch of stoners in the 70s listening to this

Couldn't stand it from the first minute, If I wanted to listen to a meat grinder and a car crash at the same time, I'd listen to this. Not for me.

Oh great, another album of obnoxious noise passing itself off as music. And, bonus, it lasts an hour and 15 minutes. Shite.

Nearly unlistenable. First track was just noise. I sat with it for a while thinking it was maybe a "Close to the Edge" type of intro, but no. Just noise. Later tracks the audio quality was so distorted to be unpleasant.

Not my vibe at all

Meh. Too long. The songs are sprawling, meandering, with no forward progress.

Started off very noisy and I was tempted to quit. I persevered and found myself liking it. Then it kept going. On and on and on. Finally I realized that no one was forcing me to listen so I stopped after about an hour. I would given it more stars if they hadn't insisted on this being 2 hours long.

This was never and will never be my kind of thing.

Of all the various kinds of nonsense in here I like the jazz nonsense the best, but the bar is very low.

If Canterbury had its own Cantanamo Bay then this album would be the most effective one for torturing prisoners. What the frick is the first 5 minutes of Facelift?! Please stop… I’ll tell you everything! [sobs uncontrollably] It does clear up in the same way that a 400 car pile up into a noisy construction site eventually gets cleared up but Robert Wyatt sings on some later sides so really the torture never stops.

they should take that organ away from that man

I... Didn't like it. And I almost fell guilty because it's not like I never enjoy free form jazz, this just never seemed to find any kind of groove I could enjoy. I often feel like free form isn't well served by listening to it pre-recorded, so maybe this works live but this is what I've got. The cover is cool though, 3/5.

This album broke my streak of knowing (and liking) the artists and the music selections. If I liked the music more I might spend time researching more of the "why?" Behind what is going here. But I gave it about half an hour of time and I was still more like "why the f--k??" Were they trying to be English cottage Frank Zappa?

Yeah, now this is what I thought this experience would be like. A band I've never heard of, making a long prog-ish, jazz-ish album. In all honesty. this was interminable at points. A bit too noodley, and free form for my tastes. Now, I can certainly appreciate how influential these guys are. The Canterbury Scene is cool, and I do like the boundaries that they pushed with technology and song form, and it's cool that Andy Summers went from this band to the Police. Also at points when the band fully comes together it's not a bad listen. Clearly, these are all fantastic musicians who were experimenting, and thats cool and worthy. But....as an album....it's not something that I am going to listen to again. The 1 star seems low, and it may be, but if I'm grading this on my opinions and predilections, that's where it's at. If I'm grading based on historical significance and coolness, it's probably a 4/5.

me da pereza

Is this album broken?

You would have to be completely stoned off your ass to listen to this with intent

I’d heard of this album before but never felt compelled to listen, mainly because it’s Soft Machine’s take on prog rock with a jazz twist—which already sounded like a bad idea. True to prog form, the record stretches to 75 minutes across just four songs, one per side. It was a slog to get through, and honestly, even giving it a 1 feels generous. This was not for me and I won’t be revisiting it. Favourite track: None worth picking out. Least favourite track: All four of them. Album artwork: Simple but effective.

I tapped out, came back and endured the rest

Nope, just no thank you very much. Listened before? N Saved to library? N Favorite track(s): N/A ⭐: Hated it.

The worst parts of jazz and prog rock mixed into one album.

Nah. Fuck off Canterbury. Some things are influential because people took elements and made them good. 1/5 JF

Arvoin pitkään että mitäs tälle nyt iskisi arvosanaksi. Välistä kuitenkin jopa ihan diggailin. Mutta aika lyhyitä hetkiä olivat ne. Yksi tähti, en varmasti palaa tämän pariin toistamiseen.

Piss off. 1 star.

An 18 minute avant garde opener. Well, what was I expecting? And it's live?! Wait, the closer is like that too?! This album is no good. I can see why it is something you might need to experience once. This is why I signed up for this. Normally, I pick a song I like to put on a playlist. Not this time. They're long, esoteric, and sporadic. I'm not saying there are odd bits which I admire or liked, but they are too far between randomness and weird sounds. I feel like it's a joke the band are in on but I am missing. They're currently touring by the way, I won't be going. Even as background noise (which I sometimes use some of these albums as - Looking at you Ryan Adams!), it's a tough listen. I just became angrier and angrier as this went on. There was a moment in the one song I remember with vocals where the singer left in a mistake and his reaction to it (professional choice?). It's too well thought out to be a jam session... but too random to be a series of well written songs. I once saw Yoko Ono, I left by the second song. I'd be leaving by the first song for this one. Otherwise, I'd stay and boo (or hiss!). 1 Star.

The 1st track sucked. Why relase a song that is 50% just random noise. Had to be some kind of inside joke. The rest is not much better. There is progressive, and then there is excessive. This is the latter.

Not actually as bad as I feared given it’s essentially 2 hours for 4 tracks. But still, I will never listen to this again.

Hard to imagine a more horrifying phrase than “pioneers of jazz-rock fusion”.

Hated this

Prog rock is for nerds! JK, nerds are cool. I still hate it though.

Oh, no. No, thank you. Listened before? N Saved to library? N Favorite track(s): N/A ⭐: Hated it.

I wanted to turn this off 20 seconds in. I'd even take more Honky Tonk. Ugh. 1.

I can’t even start to imagine who might reach for this and play it because they like it. All that music out there in the universe and somehow this makes the cut. Unbelievable Jeff.

Teacher scratching on a blackboard with her fingernails is more listenable than whatever the f*** this is.

4 songs; 1 hour and 15 minutes. Oh boy. 2:30 into the first "song" and I am not sure I have the patience for this. It's quite annoying. Oh wait...now there is actually music? Not just random noises? I hate this so much. Facelift? More like face meltingly bad, am I right? Even after the disaster of the first song, this is so not my thing. Maybe things improve when the singing starts? Nope. It doesn't. Annoying from start to finish. People actually like this?

I like prog rock. I like instrumental jazz. I don't like this album.

I admire the ambition behind Soft Machine's "Third" and the passion of those who love it, but I find it to be a challenging listen. The album, for the most part, is devoid of structure and meanders its way through four lengthy tracks. It's a one-star album in my book, but I can respect its legacy. 1- "Facelift" - 1 2- "Slightly All the Time" - 1 3- "Moon in June" - 2 4- "Out-Bloody-Rageous" - 1 Total - 5 Average - 1.25 80/1001

Pure torture.

Oh great. 4 songs and over an hour long. I knew it was going to be shit. DNF. 1/5

Possibly a zero

I fucking hate prog rock. don't waste my time with this being one of the top 1001 albums of all time. I don't think this is in the top 1 million albums of all time

Prog I usually like. Jazz I'm not a great fan. But this seems to have fused the worst of both together. Some interesting bits of time signatures. Some interesting bits of music. A lot of nurdling.

Ugh. Cease that infernal tootling.

Not something I could get into. This really went past my tolerance for jams, psychedelic vibes, and jazz flutes.

I like jazz, I like prog, this didn’t feel like either. I can appreciate the talent but I just did not enjoy this. I started this to discover new music but unfortunately I don’t think this one will be joining the collection. I’ve seen reviews that suggest the first two albums are the gateway to Third, but as a stand alone without that context, this is not it.

What the hell? What the helly?

Enough!

SMH. What a cruel joke. There is no excuse for this sort of noise. This isn't Prog. It's not Jazz. This is just TWO HOURS of fucking around.

Approximately 9 minutes transpired before I heard anything even remotely resembling music

i didn't like this one TBH

J - 1/5 Best Track - N/A F - DNL

Even John Thomson’s character in the Fast Show Jazz Club sketches would struggle to put a positive spin on this incoherent, self-important, prog-rocky jazz nonsense.

Managed 2 tracks. As obvious a 1 star as you're likely to get.

I’m pretty sure my primary school music class sounded better

Someone tell them to stop

Aimless, meandering saxophone playing that goes on nearly 80 minutes. Might have given this a 2 if it was a single LP but i was fed up after the 1st side, let alone the 4th

Had high hopes for this album, after stumbling upon a reddit post claiming this to be a remarkable album, with multiple people agreeing...only to find it was just a sonic mess. Started out as a 1 Star album, then tracks 2-3 showed some flashes of musical talent, only to wash back down to a 1 in the end. This is the worst side of Prog Rock in my mind. Should call it Regressive Rock.

Not for me

< The Beatles Calling this rock is a fucking stretch. Track 1 is abysmal. The rest has something going for it but... not enough

OMG...this is horrible. I think we should play this on repeat for at least 24 hours to a certain shackled world leader and hope for the best. There is no way that world leader would survive and we'd all go back to being somewhat better Americans. No other word can describe this: torturous.

Garbage

didnt like it, like a concert of weird sounds like eventually get harmonic and rhythmic but it was more nonsense than anything understandable

May be live they were a wild experience, but on Vinyl it´s just terror.

Ich sehe das Album, klicke auf den Wikipedia Link und sehe Rock. Ich drücke Play bei Youtube und aufeinmal fängt ein Gekratze und Gedudel an, als ob drei rollige Katzen durch ein Aufnahmestudio springen. Da schaue ich beim Wikipedia Artikel genauer hin und sehe "Jazz Rock", "Progressive Rock", etc........ Das ist doch nicht Jazz oder Progressiv.... das ist einfach nur Dreck

War doch insgesamt sehr schwach, auch wenn kleine Lichtblicke vorhanden waren.

Das war definitiv ein Album. Zwar scheiße, aber immerhin. Das ist doch keine Musik zwischendurch, einfach nur Geräusche. Wer sitzt 1970 zuhause sagt ich hab Lust auf gute Musik und legt diese Schallplatte ein?

https://share.google/DieqDaBBljfVFysv2

Listened to the full ~2 hour version on Youtube and I kinda regret it. This is a classic example of just because you are talented doesn't mean your music is good. This sounds difficult and complex, but was not a good listen....ugh. There is no melody here ever, barely any words, nothing to hum along to...nothing. It kinda just hurts my head to listen to. There are moments (like the end. The wrap up is really song) but overall this just feels like noise. I won't be returning to this album again. I almost NEVER wanna listen to 15-20 minute songs. They lose me. I didn't really "like" any of the songs, but these were the best ones.... Liked Songs: "Slightly All the Time" and "Moon in June"

This wasn't entirely bad, but it certainly wasn't good. 1.5

I am definitely not a prog rock fan and this album again confirms that. The whole thing comes across as self important, self indulgent, and masturbatory. The last may not be the most apt descriptor though as, with even a little proficiency, this is certainly not a 19:11 affair. You will also most certainly be arrested for performing in public something which probably would have best stayed in the bedroom......and these guys made a record of it. There are some pockets of really interesting music in here and I dig some some the left turns, but IMO, these moments are too few and far between to save this record from itself. Next.

Hated it

1. face - 1.5 2. time - 1.5 3. moon - 0 4. bloody - 1.5

What in the name of god is this

Oh boy, when you open an album up and see 4 tracks with over an hour long runtime, you're either in for a great time or a miserable one. My experience was mostly the latter. This album lives somewhere in between the areas of prog rock, psychadelic rock, and jazz. It's a lot, and it's a slog if you're not into it. I hope these guys stuck to instrumental work though, the lyrics and vocals on "Moon In June" were... pretty bad. That whole song rubbed me the wrong way to be honest. I really liked the beginning of "Out-Bloody-Rageous" but then the horns came in and killed the whole vibe. There are some good instrumentals in parts, and sometimes that guitar comes chugging in with some nice distortion and I have hope but then nothing truly epic ever pans out. I have to give this 1 star. Its just not good enough in my opinion. There are just so many jarring sounds, and these guys needed to learn how to self edit their stuff down a little. It's way too much. I heard this before I died and wish I had that time back.

Really tough listen for me, and a very rare 1 star. I'd like to think I'm open to enjoying a wide range of music, and there's plenty of music I enjoy that others might say is pretentious, and I would vigorously defend it. However, at least that music has a decent sound quality. If you get past the freeform, improvised (I assume), noodly style of this album, it's horribly produced. It's really muddy and flat sounding, which makes the most listenable moments sound like a high school jazz band.

Not my cup of tea

A random set of noises that occasionally form interesting music.

Nicht wirklich meins, packte mich an keiner Stelle, plätschertenur vor sich hin.

Jesus, what a slog. As a listener I felt completely unnecessary; this is music made for the people playing it and literally no one else. Self-indulgent rubbish

This was bloody awful, just a mash of sounds. Far too long…. I could have rewatched the original disney's jungle book instead of this rubbish, then I would have at least I would of heard some good songs

Man fuck prog rock and fuck the Canterbury scene. This is unbelievably pretentious and that's coming form a jazz lover.

Didn't finish. Not my cup of tea.

awful. Ill try again in 20 years maybe Rating: 1.2

Pointless, annoying, way too long noise being called progressive Rock.

Thanks generator, I hate it. When I listen to music I am not interested in ‘the tension between complicated harmonies, extended improvisation, and the sincere desire to write catchy pop songs’. Well, they certainly failed in the last one here. This is music for boring musos - those who would rather stand at the back of a gig analysing the music than really getting in to it. Robert Wyatt’s accent is irritating (although at least there is not a great deal of it here). And I can’t even imagine this being a blast live, unlike the likes of Throbbing Gristle, Einsturzende Neubaten etc where there is very much a performance element. I imagine them standing concentrating, noodling away. No thanks. Bonus, I was motivated to do my hoovering on the second listen through

FUCK. ROBERT. WYATT. Favourite song: Moon in June Least favorite songs: Facelift, Slightly All the Time, Out-Bloody-Rageous 1/5

18 dakikalık physchodelik şarkılar benlik değilmiş

Awful. Waste of time and space.

4x 18 minute prog jazz/ prog rock. Nope, not for me.

Slightly All the Time was okay, but listening to this after The Dave Brubeck Quartet has jaded my opinion.

I just couldn't get into it. It was good at times but each song was too long

No, just no. What even is this?

??? gave up by first song. 20 mins long no vocals is crazy

Dont have the patience for this right now

Pre-bloody-tentious

Turd 💩

wish I could give it negative stars

I was hoping this would be all weird glitchy stuff like the first 5 mins (because I like that kind of bollocks) but it's just jazz jams after that for two pissing hours. A bit like Heavy Weather, I feel like there's something here that you could get into, but I'm not so it's a 1

Starting off crappy