Mine too. It was the very first "new Renaissance album" back at that time I bought on release day. Still is my favourite, but all those 70's ones are keepers.
Scott that was amazing, it's great that you made a ranking video for such a criminally under-rated band. Turn of the Cards is my favourite, every track's a winner and I think it's their best LP cover, Hipgnosis were a bit hit and miss, but this is a hit - it's got a real spooky Amicus vibe. But, like you say Scott, any of those top five albums could be number one. Thanks for the video.
Annie Haslam is the greatest female vocalist and anything with the “classic lineup” is worth checking out. I’ve seen them twice, but unfortunately in the 2000s and not in their 70s heyday.
Great ranking! Strange history this band has. Never knew of a Prog band formed by members of a Classic Rock band . Keith and Jane Relf were great together... The Classical /Folk approach of this band during a period in time when folks were still calling it Art Rock. Alongside Procol Harum, Moody Blues , King Crimson, Gentle Giant, and Jethro Tull....Renaissance were possibly the first to have female vocals and a complex style...more so than Mellow Candle ... Then to reform again with Binky on vocals was unusual and yet again with Annie Haslam. It seemed unusual to me. Perhaps it really wasnt...and the band having three line ups somehow left an impression on me...but anyway thank you for making this video! It was great!!!
Never heard of the band before. I just found some one selling Novella online last week. So i looked up the album on you tube and was blown away by Can you hear me?. I bought the LP. Thanks for this video! I get it now!
Wonderful ranking. Annie is on my Mt. Rushmore of female vocalists. We saw Renaissance many years ago at Front Row Theatre in Cleveland. The stage was in the middle of the venue and slowly rotated 350* clockwise, then reversed course. It was a great concert
1. Scheherazade 2. Turn of the Cards 3. A Song for All Seasons 4. Prologue 5. Novella 6. Ashes are Burning 7. Azure d'or 8. Tuscany 9. Grandine Il Vento 10. Camera camera 11. Time Line
Hey Scot. Great vid of a great band. Live At Carnegie Hall, was the first album by Renaissance that I bought. Saw them on The Old Grey Whistle Test and next day bought the album.
Your new interview with Annie Haslam brought me back here, and I must say I find it so hard to rank their albums simply because most of them are so similar in quality to me! My personal favorites, though, would have to be Prologue and A Song For All Seasons, but between the two of those I really can't say. Regardless, I think that altogether they're a solid, unique band that doesn't deserve enough recognition for what they were able to come up with 🤍
1. A Song for All Seasons 2. Scheherazade 3. Prologue 4. Turn of the Cards 5. Grandine Il Vento 6. Novella 7. Ashes are Burning 8. Azure d'or 9. Tuscany 10. Camera camera 11. Illusion 12. Renaissance 13. Time Line
Great video Scot. Scheherazade was really Renaissance's master piece and a true progressive music opus. From the sohpistication of its musical architecture thanks to the involvement of Jon Camp, John Tout and Michael Dunford in the writing process, to the suberb orchestration with "orientalising" musical color by Tony Cox, into Annie Haslam's outstanding vocal performance, everything was in place for a great album. Cheers
Renaissance holds a very special place for me, I have more albums by them than any other band. I wouldn't argue with the ranking although in most rankings Turn Of The Cards is usually in the top 2. I really enjoyed this so a big thanks!
Turn of the Cards is superb - no dud tracks. Annie Haslam's pristine vocals are gorgeous on both ballads and 'rockers' on the 70's albums. All the Renaissance albums from Prologue to Azure d'Or are pretty good, some of them classics. Haven't dated in the same way some other 70's bands have.
Great ranking! That four album run from Ashes to Novella is perfection. Can someone please explain to me how Carpet of the Sun was not an international number one hit single? One of the great mysteries of the universe...
Ive been watching your channel for a while. You are relentlessly enthusiastic! And, you know plenty about the prog i care about most. I never got into Renaissance too much. I had the vinyl, Sire issue of Carnegie Hall. I really liked it. How could you not like Annie Haslam? Anyway, i think it't high time that i subscribed. Thanks Scott!
Lovely to see Renaissance being covered, Happy to disagree on Timeline & Camera, Camera, though. They sound different to the earlier records but the songwriting & playing are as strong as ever, I reckon, and Annie sings like a dream, obviously. My ranking: 13. Prologue - 3/5 12. Illusion - 3/5 11. Tuscany - 3/5 10. Ashes Are Burning - 3.5/5 9. Debut - 3.5/5 8. Camera, Camera - 3.5/5 7. Azure d'Or - 4/5 6. Timeline - 5/5 5. Grandine Il Vento - 5/5 4. Turn Of The Cards - 5/5 3. Scheherazade & Other Stories - 5/5 2. A Song For All Seasons - 5/5 1. Novella - 5/5
Great rating. My favorite is A Song for all Seasons. The 7 70s albums with Annie are all treasures. I even like Camera Camera (saw that tour), and Time-Line, even though there is a big drop in quality.
It was actually Blackmores Nights version of Ocean Gypsy on their debut album that got me interested in Rennaisance. I had a LP with them in the seventies but it was was all piano music to me. Well, my music taste is more mature now and I love most of their albums from the seventies. I mostly agree to the ratings.
Firstly, thanks for taking the time to give some attention to this wonderful band. Don't know if I would call any album bad . The two eighties albums have a certain period charm, and as weird as they were, they didn't really sound like anyone else.
What is so sad is Gen Z has no idea who this band is. And since no radio would play their classic stuff, I wonder how to keep their incredible music alive and make sure it's not forgotten
Great Ranking !! Strangely i have a soft spot for "Camera Camera" but its nowhere near anything 1970-1979, where everything is stellar more or less ! Peace
@@TheProgCorner heheheheh, indeed. i never bothered getting Time Line, but i have 2 songs on a best of (Da Capo) - Im gonna order the 3cd/dvd BBC soon, superb audio quality on that one ;)
Turn of the Cards was the first one I heard and is still my favorite, but you can't go wrong with any of those six beginning with Prologue, seven if you include the live album. That stretch of Renaissance makes them one of my absolute favorite prog bands. What a run! Their sound was very much my idea of what prog could be back in the day. Would have been cool if Andy Powell had kept dropping by to lay down one electric guitar lead per album like the one on Ashes Are Burning. Great stuff.
Anyone remember The Paper Lads, a kids TV series of the late 70's set in Newcastle? Renaissance did the lovely theme to it 'Back Home Once Again' which is on A Song For All Seasons. Less relevantly, my cousin played one of the child leads on The Paper Lads. Way aye, man!
@@TheProgCorner It was only a regional show, Scot, like a North Dakota TV show or similar. He earned just enough from it to buy a used car a couple of years later. Fun show though.
@@dougreed2257 Aye, canny lad! I was born in Gateshead but Dad moved me down south so I missed the geordie accent. Last memory of Newcastle is watching the Magpies on my Dad's shoulders at 6. Wish I'd stayed in the toon, it's crap down here! Cheers.
I only own Scherezade and a Turn of the Cards and love them both. Your ranking gives me others to search for while on my used vinyl journeys. Thanks for this, is is timely as I have been listening to Renaissance quite a bit lately and want more from them but I was not too sure of which others to pursue.
The live album is insanely good, but of the studio albums, I like: 3. Scheherazade, 2. Turn of the Cards, 1. Ashes are Burning. But, like you, I think Prologue, Novella, and Song for all Seasons are also super strong albums. Thank goodness for the internet for keeping them in our memories.
Great list, Scott. I would really have to try hard to disagree with any of these rankings, although I admittedly can't say much about the lower ranked albums because I never bothered to listen to them. As far as the top of the list goes, I would be hard pressed to find any difference between our respective opinions. Off-topic question - are you ever going to do anything on the Canterbury scene? That's something I overlooked in my initial foray into prog decades back but have been exploring more recently and would love to hear your opinion. Thanks!
I was late to the Canterbury stuff too!!! But I’m planning on covering more of it: Soft Machine and Caravan will be getting their own ranking episodes but a whole show about Canterbury is a great idea!!!!
Renaissance appeared on "the Midnight Special" in the spring of 1977. They performed "carpet Of The Sun" and "Midas man" I think that might have been the reason for the high chart appearance on "Billboard Magazine". It certainly was the reason I bought "Novella". I was hooked ever since. I got my first job in 1977, I was 15. I had all their LPs by 1978 and had all the newer ones on the day they were released. Great Video! And yes, "Time Line" Sucks!! I have tried so many times to get into that LP, failed every time. "Camera, Camera" however, I do like. It took me awhile to get on board with it but, I did eventually. "Ashes are burning" and Prologe were on "Capitol" in the US, originally, bytheway.
Well done! I would have to concur, at least on the top 6 or 7. The others I have yet to hear. I pretty well know the top 5 or 6 by heart. "Gold said the man to the many..." Probably got the lyrics all mangled though. Hey Annie! Pop by and give us a shout out. You know we love you here.
Absolutely nailed the Top 4! I'll give a shout out to "Pearls of Wisdom" from Tuscany. Love that song. (There is a part in the middle that 10 years later Steven Wilson would do in Postcard, not intentionally I'm sure, but they always make me think of the other.) Hmmm....Cyan perhaps? And lastly, COOL CAP!
Cyan is the correct answer but I’m delaying it a week as the release is November 17 and that’s too early. So I called an audible for today’s review. Another Norwegian band…
Renaissance is a very cool group but I wouldn’t even know where to begin on ranking their albums since Ive only ever owned one of them 😆. However I love the one I do have “ Prologue. “ I’m very encouraged by your #1 through 4 ranked albums. Annie truly does possess one of the most powerful female voices of all time in rock and roll. I definitely need to upgrade my collection from this band. Thanks dude !
The best concert I ever attended was Renaissance at a small club in Rochester called "The Casablanca". It was a down step for the band, however, to play at such a small venue. But it was the "Camera, Camera" tour and that album wasn't terribly exciting. On the other hand, we sat 8 feet away from Annie. I kept swooning. Watching your "Women in Prog" ratings, I kept thinking "Oh, Scott's lost it." But, then Annie Haslam was #1! You dah man, Scott! Most prog is rock music with a classical influence. But Renaissance is a different kind of prog. They essentially play classical music with a rock influence. Just a suggestion - you could rank cover bands! You could pick one band and rank the bands that cover that group, or rank many cover bands based on how well they cover the bands they represent. Genesis has a lot of cover bands. So does Led Zeppelin. Peace and Love, Robert
I'm sorry. The respectful term is "Tribute Band". But "Awaken" does a bang-up version of "The Gates of Delirium". I'm not a musician, but I imagine GoD is next to impossible to play well. For Genesis, there's Hackett's "Genesis Revisited", of course, but "The Musical Box" gets all the praise, including from Genesis itself. "The Watch" rivals the aforementioned and "Gabble Ratchet" has gotten tons better over the years. Best O'Luck, Robert
One Way records didn't even exist when Ashes came out; it is primarily a re-issue label. Their UK label (Sovereign) was an offshoot of EMI UK and their albums therefore came out on Capitol in North America.
I'd completely forgotten about that Camera Camera album Scot , it isn't my cup of tea ( not for them anyway ) , the live Carnegie Hall IS probably my favourite album of theirs , most of my friends older siblings had ' A song for all seasons ' , I've heard it to death. Love it though. But my favourite studio album is Ashes are Burning... the most beautiful prog album for me. Brilliant Annie , brilliant ranking Scot ! 😍
Great work btwi love when they try to move with the times. 80's values in life ruined everything... The decline in music began in 1983... Waiting for Chicago ranking🎉
Pretty agree with your ranking except that i really love Tuscany and I don't understand why so many people hate that album. But anyway, Scheherazade is my favourite too and Turn of the Cards is the first that i heard from Renaissance. Great band
great list from a favorite of mine. As I mentioned on the Top 100 Women in Prog Stream, I really do split hairs with the classic lineup especially. Scherazade is also my #1 though. But the other 5? pull them out of a hat, lol.
Great list! I love Renaissance too! Ashes are Burning and Prologue are very easy and cheap to this day in Brazil. I think everyone has a copy. It's very sad what happened to most 70's bands in the 80's.
@@TheProgCorner You have a point there, sir. I was a kid into 70's rock/prog and the drum machines and awful synths ruined a lot of albums, with great exceptions like Hounds of Love and PG3. Prog-wise it was lousy, though I saw Marillion with Fish copying Gabriel & Genesis hugely and obscure bands like Pallas. A LOT better for prog now.
Hey Scot! Let's see if this one gets taken down. Tracking says Wednesday. Love Tom Brislin. Really good fingers. Liked his time not only with YES but Meatloaf also. He is writing most of the songs for Kansas.🎹🎹🎹☮️🦇👻😈👍🎃😎
Prologue was the start of the good stuff for me too. Curved air would be a good band to go through their discog. I play Scheherezade to turn people onto Renaissance.
Unfortunately I never got around to exploring much of Renaissance. I like their first album with Annie Haslam though (I almost called it their first album but it really wasn't). Definitely a band for me to explore more. I'll probably skip their 80s and later albums though.
I have to say that Novella is my 7th favorite album in all music history. Right behind Magnification, Novella is as perfect an album as any of my top 10 starting with Tales From Topographic Oceans through to Abbey Road at 10. Novella belongs in there somewhere, and I fit it in at 7th.
I'm not online a lot. Once or twice a day. Today I spent about 4 hours online. Over half of them with you ranking Renaissance albums, and the Wheel Of Prog Yes episode you were on. I just now saw your replies requesting the rest of my top 10. Well, I have to be on a bus to work at 5:35 AM and I got to sleep. I'll do this quick. 1 Tales. 2 Hold Your Fire. 3 In This Skin. 4 Lamb Lies Down. 5 Incantations. 6 Magnification. 7 Novella. 8 Wind And Wuthering. 9 Counterparts. 10 Abbey Road. 11 Tubular Bells 2. 12 Big Generator. 13 The Final Cut. 14 Spectral Mornings. 15 The Ladder.
For me, Illusion is the better of the two Relf-era albums. Jane's voice in particular sounds much better; on the debut she sounds pinched and strained. So far I have all their albums up through Novella but nothing after that. Prologue is probably my favorite, with Ashes and Scheherazade close behind. (Turn of the Cards never did much for me for some reason.)
Interesting how you have Novella so highly. I'm not so sure that it would be in the top 5 in most UK viewers' lists - TotC, Prologue and SfaS (Northern Lights was a UK hit single) would likely be higher. Live at Carnegie Hall might be number 1 if you were to count it and I think that Grandine il Vento might be their best since the 70s.
There’s the Four Horsemen of the Aprogcalypse(Crimson,Floyd,Yes,Genesis. And then there is Rush,Jethro,and Renaissance. 2-6 are extremely difficult to rank. It would take me a while to figure it out. They are all so close in quality and personal preference. Scherazade a no brainer at #1! Scherazade is very interesting because it sounds like it came out 2-3 years late. Technology sprang such a massive leap in this time period. The album reminds me of the albums of Genesis that made them the greatest band in Prog. The album is flawless to say the least. The atmospheric elements and piano solos of A Trip to the Fair and the beautiful vocals of Anne Haslim make it one of the greatest starting tracks of all time on a Prog album. The Vultures Fly High is one of the coolest shorter songs in Prog history. It has an interesting concept and the music matches it perfectly. An album that is a must listen from start to finish. One of the very best Prog albums of all time. Criminally overlooked… There is no reason this album should be the hidden gem that it is. An absolute essential!
Music moves of relevancy chasing is always a mistake. Either you understand a trend or you don't. Some artists adapt and remain songwriters first (Kinks), some don't (Genesis). This band should had doubled down on their roots.
