Another one of *those* lists, this one from Cheat Sheet:
http://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainm...tml/?a=viewall
Another one of *those* lists, this one from Cheat Sheet:
http://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainm...tml/?a=viewall
That's not too bad a list, for a list. Note that:
- He says, "8 of the Best...", not "The 8 Best..." I think that's an important distinction.
- It includes several not-quite-standard choices.
If I were trying to show someone what Seventies prog was about, I could think of much worse lists to do it with.
Agreed - a solid list.
The Crimson video isn't of ITCOTCK but of Discipline instead. Weird. Its nice to see Pawn Hearts and One Size Fits All on a top 8 list.
Why the ballad-makers Pink Floyd considered 'prog"? What risks of development they have taken, after Atom Heart Mother? Financially progressive maybe?..
Meh...
"Always ready with the ray of sunshine"
"Ballad-makers"? Just how many ballads from Floyd can you rattle off? As far as why they are considered prog, I would like you to count off the reasons why they are not.Originally Posted by grego
It's a rather silly to make the statement, particularly with an album like the sonically perfect Dark Side of the Moon (perhaps one of two or three greatest studio albums ever produced), or Wish You Were Here with the frigid and heavily processed synths and tape effects on 'Welcome to the Machine' and the blues-inflected prog masterpiece "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" (that includes a funeral march, funk in 4/4, and various other time signatures from 6/4 all the way up to 12/8), or the bitter and brutal album that followed it, Animals.
If you listened to Yes, Tull, ELP and Genesis in the 70s, you also listened to Floyd. One right after the other. Vice-versa. Without a second thought.
"And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision."
Occasional musical musings on https://darkelffile.blogspot.com/
So silly as to not even warrant a response, imo.
As said before, a solid list. Could you switch out x for y? Yeah, but really some cardinal points are covered, and that's all one can expect.
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.
Surprisingly good choices.
I agree with most of those. I am not familiar with those Can or Frank Zappa albums though. Also, I would replace Fragile with CTTE(although I do like Fragile a lot).
Do not suffer through the game of chance that plays....always doors to lock away your dreams (To Be Over)
Actually the cover is of Discipline but the actual song is "epitaph."
Do not suffer through the game of chance that plays....always doors to lock away your dreams (To Be Over)
Can is one of my favorite bands and the writer here seems to think "Where else do we put Can, but in the progressive rock category" for lack of a suitable genre designation... And I agree with that for the most part, but can is more of an art rock, experimental, and even a primitive roots psych band. Prog or progressive purists might consider CAN to not be progressive rock at all. Very hard to pin a label on Can, and thats what makes them pretty special.
Still alive and well...
Who needs "prog purists", and what do they know about anything outside of their own tiny turf? As for being 'primitive', Can possessed among their ranks more formal musical training and theoretical prowess than any of the others featured here except for Zappa, and a piece like "Bel Air" (the 20-minute epic on Future Days) has parts going way beyond the other long-form attempts implicated. Not to mention the fact that their general recording M.O. was advanced even above the achievements of much of Zappa's stuff.
These eight suggestions are interesting in that they basically seek to embrace the stylistic lot of what has come to be known as 'progressive rock', arguably leaving out the most obvious ledweight wing of it (which primarily emannated from another genre altogether, namely that of Heavy Metal). Meaning that if you took in these eight titles as an introduction to the genre subject, very little would actually be able to surprise or shake you about it afterwards.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
Sound effects they love to incoroporate into their balladier's, singer-songwriters music, is derivation from psychedelic era, that's their views on arrangement, nothing wrong with it. Tempo changes? They have quite a bit. That doesn't distract me from the main character of their music. Convenient rock, masterfully designed as something bigger, than it is. Only my opinion, of course. In the early years they recorded some very interesting experimental things, since Meddle they changed the direction. PS I have never seen any statements of Pink Floyd musicians, about them belonging to prog category.
Nor will you find adherences to "prog category" with either Jon or Ian Anderson, Phil Collins, Fripp or many others of that ilk. It doesn't matter whether they submit to classifications or not, any more than it matters what an author designates about the theoretical connotations in his/her literary work; in the latter case it is the text itself which speaks, in the former it's the sound. If I make a 22-minute mellotron-ridden brawl of syncopations and general dissnonant "rock" with fairy fantasy lyrics and then decide in the open that it isn't "prog" but rather bluegrass or gamelan jazz - well, then I lose. A piece of music doesn't attain its specific adherence simply because I *want* it to when creating it; it's up for dissections and definitions.
Of course Pink Floyd were "prog", at least up until (and probably including bits of) The Wall. Of course Jethro Tull were. Of course several krautrock groups were, with or without the "rockin' up Beethoven" antics.
Last edited by Scrotum Scissor; 03-23-2016 at 07:01 AM.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
Pretty commercial psychedelic rock song (i.e. non-prog; at least not considered as progressive rock back in the day) Shine On Your Crazy Diamond is better "prog song" than Close to the Edge, Gates of Delirium, Tarkus and Supper's Ready? Really?
Well, I can understand that revisionism, i.e. that need of (mostly) new fans of Pink Floyd to the subsequent classification of their favourite band in progressive rock. But I can't understand that revisionism go as far as to declare Shine On Your Crazy Diamond for the best progressive rock song ever. This is nonsense.
SOYCD is not even the best one of Pink Floyd songs, and btw, it sounds too similiar to Song For Our Ancestors (1968) by Steve Miller Band.
Last edited by Svetonio; 03-23-2016 at 07:52 AM.
Yes, that would be nonsense - but this assumption omits the fact that Pink Floyd's status as 'progressive rock' band actually stems from their general early influence on all music emannating from beginnings in the UK underground; they are not considered 'progressive rock' simply because of some explorations of epic form or an extensive instrumentation or sonic experimentation. 'Progressive rock' was not only music but an affiliation and manifestation of a certain cultural movement to which PF (and the Soft Machine) provided pretty much of a soundtrack from the very start. As for their music as such, PF's creative zenith and 'progressive' highpoint was Piper at the Gates of Dawn. I could point to countless 70s acts that were more musically advanced and supposedly therefore - according to your logic - more 'progressive' than Yes or Genesis. Does that mean that the latter two don't belong here?
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
AHM is kinda 'black sheep' on their discography, so I'm curious about your mentioning of it in a statement that I would agree with if it was really possible to consider just their music 'per se'.
What's your point? That Shine On Your Crazy Diamond could be compared in progressivness with e.g. Tarkus?
If we put aside the term *krautrock*, and re their stuff like Tago Mago, Can was avant-rock, a subgenre (or *style*) of prog.
I've never heard the Zappa or the Can album. A solid list indeed, I'm well impressed with the inclusion of Fragile rather than CTTE. But totally bemused by the inclusion of WYWH rather than Meddle, DSOTM or Animals.
Avant-rock is an abbreviation for avant-garde rock, which designates a spectrum of qualities and adherences inherent in the broader connotations of the music itself, it's not a style - and it *certainly* is not a "subgenre of prog". Sonic Youth qualify as avant-rock, as does The Royal Trux, The Dead C, Swans and hundreds of other artists whose relation to anything "prog" is faint at the very best.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
No, that was not my point, seeing how you cannot evaluate "progressiveness" by degree - and if you could, bands like Vortex and Henry Cow or Univers Zero and Magma would arguably be the only artists qualifying as "prog" from the 70s. My point was what I wrote in the paragraph you referenced.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
Well, I am not a prog purist... But it's hard to deny the primitiveness of songs like "father cannot yell" "Vitamin C" and many others... Especially bass line and vocal stylings.... Obviously avant garde as you say as well. I love their style and am happy they made someones list. And I disagree that CAN would not shake or surprise many prog lovers. Especially if they were not familiar with them... As Many are not. I also agree that their "theoretical prowess" as you say, is certainly top cabin, especially when they veer off into an abstract jam. Sure, they are progressive and deserve a lot more attention from the thinking listener. But even today I hear them as being quite new and different. The primitive and strange sounds of Can are solid gold IMO as opposed to the fine polish of genesis or yes. I can hear the train whistle. Thats not to say I don't like genesis or yes, They all belong on this list.
Last edited by Nijinsky Hind; 03-23-2016 at 09:10 AM.
Still alive and well...
Back in the 70s we were considering Can as one of the progressive bands. I filed them in the "progressive" section of my shelves next to Genesis, Gentle Giant, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Yes, Procol Harum, Amon Duul 2. It's Rush, Be Bop Deluxe, Cockney Rebel, Roxy Music and 10CC that weren't there.
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