Marillion A Singles Collection 1982 - 1992 (CD, EMI Records, 1992) **** Marillion The Singles Vol 2 '89 - '95 (4CD, EMI Records, 2013) ***
Marillion Season's End (2CD, EMI Records, 1989) ***
Marillion Holidays In Eden (CD, EMI Records, 1991) ****
Marillion Brave (CD, EMI Records, 1994) *****
Marillion Afraid Of Sunlight (CD, EMI Records, 1995) ***
Marillion Made Again (CD, EMI Records, 1996) ***
Marillion and The Positive Light Tales From The Engine Room (CD, Eagle Records, 1998) ***
Marillion Radiation 2013 (Vinyl, EMI Records, original album 1998, remix version 2013) ***
Marillion Marillion.com (CD, EMI Records, 1996) ***
Marillion Anoraknophobia (CD, Liberty Records, 2001) ****
Marillion Marbles Live (CD, Intact Records, 2005) ****
Marillion Less Is More (CD, Liberty Records, 2009) **
Marillion All One Tonight (2CD, Racket Records, 2018) ****
Genre: Prog rock
Places I remember: JB Hi Fi, Fopp, Real Groovy Records, HMV
Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Easter (Season's End)
Gear costume: No One Can (Holidays In Eden)
They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5
Active compensatory factors: This particular story starts with the singles collections because I am far more predisposed to the material after Fish left, but Fish is important.
Okay - some back story is required. Fish (real name - Derek Dick) was the band's first lead vocalist. A huge geezer who sounded like Peter Gabriel's long lost Scottish brother. He left the band in 1988 and was replaced by Steve Hogarth (who is still their lead vocalist), at which point all the Genesis comparisons withered away.
I've chosen to start with these singles collections because Fish appears on them, so it seems only right. He's a big presence and a good guy, so he needs to be included. It's also an excellent selection of their singles and not in chronological order - so it alternates between Fish and Hogarth singles well.
Don't take my word for it, though - the AllMusic critic says: It's not too often that a group's songs can be isolated from their place in an album's conceptual framework and still be effective, but Marillion's work is definitely the exception.
The Singles Vol 2 collection is a monster 4 CD set (with a crappy cover). It takes an exhaustive approach which I'm thankful for ultimately, but it makes for uneasy listening. For instance, CD 1 has three versions of The Uninvited Guest (not one of my favourites) - the 7 inch, the 12 inch and a live version. Get the idea?
That said, if, like me, you love Easter - then you won't mind this approach (3 versions of that one too).
Onwards to the first studio I own - Season's End (the first with Hogarth). It still has the whiff of Fish about it (sorry - couldn't resist) as they'd completed demos with him. He had taken his lyrics away though so Steve Hogarth was thrown into the deep end. Sometimes you get what you need! Easter is a career highlight!
For this fifth album, the band was off and running with a new look and feel, although the cover was terrible and the old Marillion typography was yet to be abandoned. That would happen with their next album - Holidays In Eden.
That album took a more poppy direction, with Steve Hogarth's vocals much more prominent in the mix. It's one of my favourites, even if they did retreat a bit from that position with the return of a concept album next with Brave.
Holidays In Eden has become a little under-valued as a result, I feel. It has some great songs on it: Cover My Eyes; No One Can; and Dry Land were all catchy songs.
Brave was my initial introduction to the band. I had read a review of it and the idea of a band in the nineties attempting a prog rock concept album appealed to me, as did the cover - very enigmatic. I was not disappointed.
Based on a news story, Brave takes on the fictional tale of a girl who is overcome by various events and runs away from home. Brave also sums up Marillion in doing an album length story like this. I loved it from the off, and I still do.
It seems the perfect distillation of all that is good about Marillion: Steve Hogarth's vocals, Steve Rothery's guitars, commercial songs and prog rock experimentation and depth. The songs take their time to unfold but it captures me everytime I listen to it.
They reverted to separate songs on Afraid Of Sunlight. I love the first side but I think it's unbalanced as an album and runs out of steam on side 2. It still contains the wonderful Beautiful (and Cannibal Surf Babe is fun).
Made Again is a two CD live set which includes concerts from London (1991 tour), Rotterdam (1995), and Paris (1994).
The London/Rotterdam CD should be subtitled 'Greatest Hits Live' - it's a home run! The Paris one should be subtitled 'Brave Live in Paris'. Note perfect to the studio album to my ears - begs the question - what's the point? It's a bit like owning Pink Floyd's live versions of Dark Side of the Moon. It's still great to have them though.
Marillion joined forces with The Positive Light (two Marillion fans) for a remix of their This Strange Engine album, and called it Tales from the Engine Room.
I'm not a huge fan of remix albums. This one I spotted in a bin at The Warehouse and took a punt. I don't have the parent album and this one didn't induce me to go out and grab it.
Radiation 13 is next. I didn't buy the original version of Radiation in 1998 but grabbed the remixed version from JB Hi Fi on vinyl a few years ago.
The cover hooked me in. This signaled a new look for Marillion. Sure enough, the band decided to be really experimental for this one, but it still sounded like Marillion circa Afraid Of Sunlight to me.
Marillion.com continued the Radiation vibe (a few of the songs were carry overs). One reviewer cited the band's influences - 'Among the influences that appear on this disc are such diverse artists as Jellyfish, Yes, Pink Floyd, the Beatles, and ELP. It is a very entertaining album that really grows on you'.
Yes, all those influences can be heard which means it's at the poppy end of the prog continuum. And, yes, I agree, it's an entertaining album. It's also very long, even though there are only 9 songs on it.
The horribly titled Anoraknophobia is a step forward. Only 8 songs, but a tighter, poppier eight this time out, with songs that had a mixture of blues, country, and even trip-hop. It also ends strongly, with This Is The 21st Century (the second to last song) having a great hook. Steve Hogarth sounds more committed and heartfelt singing this song. It's one of my favourites!
For some reason I didn't buy Marbles, their next studio album, but I did pick up a copy of Marbles Live from Fopp while living in the UK in 2005.
Generally, I like live albums, and I guess, based on Made Again, my thinking was that Marillion tend to replicate their songs faithfully in a live setting. Maybe it's warmer than the studio version but I can't compare them.
The songs on Marble Live are good and all and it's played brilliantly, but they just don't leave much of an impression, even on the U2ish sounding You're Gone.
Less Is More is a studio album of older songs covering the twenty years that Hogarth has been their lead vocalist, done acoustically.
I took a punt on it and I'm not much of a fan as it happens. I find myself missing the full sonic splendour of Marillion. So, give me Brave and Anoraknophobia instead, please.
Final album from my list is a double CD live album, recorded at The Royal Albert Hall, called All One Tonight (CD 1 is subtitled FEAR Live). The second CD includes a range of songs from the Hogarth years (Easter goes way back to his first album with the band).
This looked like a spectacular event if the booklet is anything to go by. The cover image is impressive. As with Marbles Live, I don't have the FEAR album itself, and that doesn't matter so much. I'm sure the live version on this album is a faithful representation of it.
FEAR is a return to the lengthy song suite style the band used so successfully on Brave, and I like this side to Marillion. I haven't played this album much, so it's nowhere near as familiar to me as Brave, but it will be one I return to over time.
Where do they all belong? Bottom line - Marillion are a key part of prog rock's development into the new millennium.
Active compensatory factors: I first became aware of Bruno thanks to his appearance on The Graham Norton Show doing Grenade. O for awesome!
