Artist · chart history · #452 in indie & aaa artist polls
Gentle Giant
Band London United Kingdom Active 1970–1980
Gentle Giant formed in 1970 in London, United Kingdom and was active until 1980. Gentle Giant has 2 chart appearances on 2 radio countdowns from 1 station on RockLists, spanning 2006–2012. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Time To Kill”, which appears on 1 list with a best position of #329. The station that charted Gentle Giant most often is WXPN (Philadelphia, PA), with 2 appearances.
Gentle Giant rose from the ashes of Simon Dupree and the Big Sound in London in 1970, and they set out to make music nobody could call simple. Derek, Ray and Phil Shulman, Kerry Minnear and Gary Green formed the core, with Martin Smith and then Malcolm Mortimore passing through before John Weathers settled in, and every one of them could play more than one instrument, which they proved constantly.
Even by prog's standards the music is dizzying. They pulled in folk, soul, jazz and classical music, but their classical reach went past the Romantic era into medieval, baroque and modernist chamber music, all knotty counterpoint and shifting time signatures. The lyrics went just as far afield, drawing on personal experience, philosophy, Rabelais and R. D. Laing. They once declared that they were willing to risk unpopularity to push popular music forward, though that stance softened as the years went by.
Free Hand, in 1975, is one of the more approachable records they made, and "Time to Kill" shows the balance: intricate, quick-footed interplay that still manages to groove. Big sales never came, but a devoted cult did, and they called it a day in 1980. In 2015 the Progressive Music Awards gave them a lifetime achievement award.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Gentle Giant on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Time To Kill | 1 | #329 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 329 | Time To Kill | WXPN 885 Greatest Rock Songs (2012) |
| 2006 | 455 | Artist ranking | WXPN 885 All-Time Greatest Artists (2006) |
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