 Essential Focus, 2009-06-11
If you are only going to buy one Focus album this is the one.
From the virtuoso brilliance of Sylvia to the shimmering beauty of Focus 3 and Love Remembered this album is never less than superb, also best value as it was a double album and costs no more than many single albums.
The best album of all time?, 2009-09-02
Well I think so anyway - opinions will obviously vary a great deal. From being spellbound when hearing them on "The Old Grey Whistle Test" I have never stopped listening to Focus. This line up was their best and there's such a wonderful "live" feel about the album.
Perhaps a little too eclectic for some, but for me it was an introduction to a number of different styles.
I've purchased this album on vinyl, cassette twice and now CD - I wore the first three out.
Wait till the family go out, pour yourself a glass of your favourite poison, turn the lights down really low and luxuriate in every luscious note (apart I suppose from the tedious drum solo anyway!).
Four wonderful musicians interacting with each other superbly on the longer improvisational pieces. The shorter set pieces are in turn wonderfully lively and beautiful.
Such variety on one album!
Probably their best, 2008-12-21
I always enjoyed their music in the 70's (whilst still at school), but because of their commercial successes I didnt buy their albums, preferring to indulge in darker areas of prog like Crimson & Van der Graaf and more unconventional like Gong, Hatfields, Groundhogs, Soft Machine etc that none of my mates were familiar with.
However, I did follow Jan Akkerman & have a collection of his subsequent vinyls & cd's, & still listen avidly to anything he plays.
As a result of listening to a feature by Stuart Maconie on 6 radio, featuring Hamburger Concerto, I decided to check out some of the older Focus music. Brilliant!
The musicianship throughout the group is top notch, & there is a great variety & actual humour in what they play. Classical, baroque (Akkerman is a fantastic Lute player), bit of folk & obviously rock.
This was a double album of the day (each vinyl side in those days was approx 35-40 minutes).
To me this is still an interesting and exciting album. Presumably because the tracks were so good, Akkerman still plays some of these, notably on his outstanding 10000 Clowns... album.
Focus were extremely popular in their day but sadly forgotten as a brilliant prog band.
Give this album a try, its a great starting point.
A different kind of prog from the Netherlands., 2009-10-21
Progressive Rock is often described as the most English of rock, but then when hear a band like Focus, who are from the Netherlands, you will realise that's a load of nonsense. Like so many here in Britain, I was blown by Focus's performance on the brilliant 'Old Grey Whistle Test" where they performed the outrageously brilliant "Hocus Pocus" from their "Moving Waves" album and "Sylvia" from this album right here, "Focus III".
With tracks like "Sylvia", "Round Goes The Gossip", you get weird sounding, but wonderfully performed songs with, Thijs Van Leer, giving his trademark style of howling instead of singing, that's one of the things that makes Focus differ from their British counterparts, they don't mess about with writing songs, they, like true prog performers, concentrate on their musical skills and they definitely show up on 'Answers Questions" and the 25 plus, "Anonymous II".
If you want to listen to a prog group or a rock group for that matter outside the usual rock countries then 'Focus" are best band to start with, it converted me to all european rock.
 Form is temporary, class is permanent, 2007-03-02
I was loking through the track listings of the Focus albums, trying to decide which was the best - I have not heard some of the albums in decades, as I wore out the cassettes upon which I copied them from the local record library. recording albums from the local library was the only way to get some artists. Boney M or Abba were freely available, but try to get something by Focus and you were out of luck. by the time I discovered them, they were already a minority interest as musical culture had 'moved on' by the late 1970s. the public appreciation of musicianship had temporarily given way to punk-inspired iconoclasm and bands who could really play were mocked as 'dinosaurs' for a while.
I did not forget them though. A few years ago, I went looking for Focus albums in Amsterdam - "Focus? sorry, vee do not af dat" was the general response in record shops. It pained me that there was a whole generation who would not know who the tune "Sylvia" was by - they might vaguely recognise it, but little chance of spotting the flying Dutchmen who recorded it. Even worse, if they heard the name Focus, they were unable to hear more. Even in Holland. Focus had become only a DIY superstore.
All is mended now though. these CD re-issues offer hope that good things don't need to be lost.
I had the pleasure of meeting Thijs Van Leer a while ago - playing jazz with an astonishingly good quartet - he was still a character - anybody who can still yodel and use his voice as an instrument like he can at his advanced years AND be a master of all things flute-like - deserves serious respect. the guy is so good that when you get wrapped up in his aural gymnastics, you can forget to breathe. On careful reflection, "Focus 3" probably has some of the best examples of the Van Leer/Jan Ackerman interplay - guitar and flute in dynamic synergy and in subtlety too.
"Round goes the gossip" is typical quirky Focus, but it is "Sylvia", "Love Remembered" and "Elspeth of Nottingham" that stand out for me.
Some people find Focus "challenging" as they are not easily categorised - I think of them as a 'fusion' band rather than try to pigeon-hole them, but however you see them - they were a virtuoso band and this is a virtuoso album.
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