Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Gentle Giant’s "Octopus"

Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Gentle Giant’s “Octopus“ Released on Dec. 1, 1972, Octopus is an absolutely perfect title for an album that branches off in so many strange, thrilling directions: No bones about it, Octopus is one of the most complex and technically dazzling in the history of progressive rock. This music is so dense, so challenging, so utterly bizarre (and was so, even during the band’s ’70s heyday) that it’s often overlooked, even by prog obsessives. It takes a special kind of listener to digest a song like “Knots,“ a dizzying whirlwind of overlapping, madrigal-tinged vocal harmonies, discordant glockenspiel, and jaunty piano breaks. But for the dedicated, open-minded (and, let’s face it, weird) listener, it’s transcendent, totally unique music that sounds like no other band on the planet. Phil Shulman stated, “The eight pieces (on the album) were originally intended as musical portraits of the band and roadies but found t