I don't know, Yes spoke loud and clear with "That, That Is".
I don't know, Yes spoke loud and clear with "That, That Is".
The older I get, the better I was.
I don't think all prog lyrics were detached from the topical events of their time, but they are more often detached from the topical events of our time because how can a song written 40 years ago comment on yesterday's news? That said, many themes in prog lyrics (war, religion, economic inequality) still persist today and feel relevant to me.Originally Posted by StevegSr
Different prog bands wrote different lyrics: some more political, some more detached. Prog grew out of the counter-culture and inherited the counter-culture's politics. Indeed, prog, as per Macan, always sought to say more in its Apollonian lyrics than, say, hard rock did in its Dionysian lyrics. I can think of many topical prog songs. Yes have a strong anti-war streak, (e.g., "Harold Land", "Yours is No Disgrace" and "Long Distance Runaround" are all anti-Vietnam, "Shoot High Aim Low" is about Nicaragua, "Birthright" is about atomic bomb tests in Australia), as well as the likes of "Don't Kill the Whale". Of course, Anderson's lyrical style often makes the meaning unclear and, perhaps more than that, our distance from the particular events Yes were writing about means we often miss the message.
ELP again clouded an anti-war message, this time with sci-fi imagery, on "Tarkus". It's clearer on "Lucky Man". They also had "The Only Way (Hymn)" and "I Believe in Father Christmas", which are pretty political messages. Henry Cow and the Art Bears have very clear politics, as does Robert Wyatt at times ("Shipbuilding"). Gong took a stance, perhaps more clearly on later albums like 2032. And so on.
Henry
Where Are They Now? Yes news: http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/wh_now.htm
Blogdegezou, the accompanying blog: http://bondegezou.blogspot.com/
I thought the title of this thread was very interesting but not what I was expecting. A Prog Concept album about the Iraq war and the rise of so called IS? No thanks.
^ I love Nitin Sawhney's Beyond Skin, an album about nuclear proliferation and India testing a nuclear weapon. Towering Inferno's Kaddish, about the Holocaust, is one of my favourite albums. It seems to me possible (albeit not easy) to do a prog concept album about the rise of IS.
Henry
Where Are They Now? Yes news: http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/wh_now.htm
Blogdegezou, the accompanying blog: http://bondegezou.blogspot.com/
And if, Amused to Death, isn't enough for you.
The older I get, the better I was.
Headspace's "I am Anonymous" is one of the best anti-war discs I've heard.
I agree, there are enough outlets in the world that are happy to bath us in the worlds' tragedies. Sometimes, I just want to hear music.
The older I get, the better I was.
As the World gets smaller, Prog seems to get further away.
And Prog is gonna get even furthest away as far as more people want the music to be a parody of their daily realities. The real world sucks.
I don't come to music site to talk about politics nor do I listen to musicians for their political opinion .
That thinly veiled racist " in honor of Belgium" thread is pure "White Power" garbage . Embarrassing.
Because I know you guys will never post anything about Nigerian or West African High Life music.
Not even as a thinly veiled pretext. Nope. No King Sunny Ade, No Fela Kute. Never. Ever.
Or Arabic classical music. Not even Rabih-Abou Khalil, who even played progressive fusion with the Ralph Moore.
If you don't come here to talk about politics, then why post this "political" post which is completely inaccurate, and seems designed to inflame? If you want to start a thread about one of those artists or strains of music go ahead - no one is stopping you. I've never heard of West African High Life Music, that's why I've never posted anything about it. Come on.
Because this is a thread about politics and musicians. 99% of musicians have no clue what's going on in the world.
And as an excellent trombone player I know once said, " ideology kills music". He wasn't even talking about lyrics, but the idea that music should fit a certain ideological straitjacket.
As for the other thread: we've had large numbers of innocent people killed in terrorist attacks this month Iraq, Pakistan, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Mali, and Belgum.
I guess one can make the point that only one of those countries has musicians worth a damn, if we just interpret the threads on this board . But really what it's really about is that most people's lives are worthless and irrelevant , only some people matter .
And how could you not know about highlife music ? That needs to be rectified posthaste.I recommend Africa 70 or Egypt 80 at once .
"Arabic classical music. Not even Rabih-Abou Khalil, who even played progressive fusion with the Ralph Moore."
I've heard people talking about Arabic Classical music on one of a couple of classical forums I've stumbled upon, and remember also some point about that guy, incidentally. But yeah sure, this would make an interesting thread, never really looked for something about these subjects.
BTW, the few occasions I've been visiting classical forums I noticed different forum members' approaches and behaviors music wise, generally speaking of course. Anyway, these days thinly veiled racist threads pretty likely occurs on literally any music forum, alas.
I listen to music, in part, to get away from the bullshit and inhabit a better world in my mind.
Let me turn this around on the OP. The fact is, due to our heavily 'connected' modern world, we are INUNDATED with instantaneous news, political opinion and cultural warfare. You certainly don't need music--of any kind--to get that sort of thing if that's what you're looking for.
Music doesn't need topicality to be relevant to my life. It should stand on its own.
????? Say whaaaaat?
Tempted to go on a rant... Will not.
Still alive and well...
You're not reading the board very closely. I just posted an Ethiopian musician's music three days ago. As far as racism,
it's in every race, not just the white race.
I've posted about Fela Kuti here. The dude is an icon, and his music stands up to this very day, and will continue to stand. But we don't have a lot of talk about Bob Marley here either, because this is neither an Afro-Beat, nor a Reggae forum. So other genres do get some incidental chatter, but not a whole lot.
(That being said, you should all check out Fela Kuti, I suggest Original Sufferhead/Sorrow, Tears, & Blood, but your mileage may vary.)
As far as music an ideology goes, I can understand that ideology can be a straightjacket for music, but some musicians and composers draw their inspiration from ideology. So music can't really be pinned down in any way.
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.
How is someone posting a tribute thread to Belgium "thinly veiled racism?" Utter bullshit. Because he didn't post one for other countries? As if every time you post on anything, you have to make sure that all aspects of the subject are covered? Every OP must now be a doctoral dissertation? PC run amok. No wonder people are sick of it.
Wow. I don't know where to begin with this, but you are really out of line here.
Some of the more ignorant sentiments aside, this board's content (like most others) is based on the experiences of its membership. The membership does happen to be majority Caucasian as well as hailing from the US, Canada, UK, and mainland Europe. As such, it's totally understandable if people here would post more often about the music that have grown up with an been exposed to.
You can't chastise a fan of Genesis and Yes who either has not heard or doesn't care for King Sunny Ade. It's a myth here in general that progressive music fans are open minded because they like a "better class" of music. Like those who grew up on classic rock or country music, they are often rather set in their ways about what they like and aren't particularly open to music that strays too far from that.
In fact, the music on this site is overwhelmingly UK/US and English language-centric. Most music from mainland European countries struggle to gain an audience here. The Belgian thread is the most anyone's discussed the music from that country in as long as I can remember. In fact, that's usually how it is digested. And the reality is that most people who post here haven't heard or would even be able to identify music from Belgium.
If you think Arab, African, Indian, and Asian culture has a hard time breaking through in the prog world, fine. But don't imply those who aren't familiar are racists because they either don't know for the music or maybe don't prefer it. That's not only ignorant, but inflammatory.
It's not unique to progressive rock/music either. I have a rather substantial jazz collection - much of it from musicians that aren't American, but go to a jazz site and try to get people to substantively discuss jazz from Belgium or France, or even jazz that was made after the 60s for that matter. (People will discuss ECM's European musicians - that is if that site can acknowledge that it's jazz - but that's another story...)
In other words, a progressive rock site will first and foremost be about the 70s, the most primarily identified artists, and those that carry on that tradition. Making a racial argument out of that is misplaced and serves only to divide.
BTW, let me know if you want to learn something about the music of Fela Kuti and/or Rabih-Abou Khalil sometime.
WANTED: Sig-worthy quote.
I was thinking about this interesting point, because how much the music is composed in a purpose free/ideology free way, more it can result emotionally intense, and potentially capable of rendering much more tense/release oscillations. In short words, it's capable of arising much more my 'serotonine' levels.
Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.
Charlie Parker
Right on. Besides, information is not truth, although truth is information.I say this thread could turn ugly fast.
Seriously though, I find a bit of a contradiction in your sentiment - or maybe I'm not getting your point. I think music is a great escapism to trials of life and I'm not sure I want my musical escape to be riddled with lyrics on current events, political, and/or religious commentary. We have the rest of the media that is handling that in spades.
That said, I do think that there are a plethora of musicians that use today's current events as their muse.
Fela Kutti has been discussed here more than once, though he might not have a dedicated thread... I'd guess there are at least 20 PE'rs that are into his music, but yeah African music is not inside the core of the site's general musical contents and why people flock here. Dous it make PE a racist refuge??As for the other thread: we've had large numbers of innocent people killed in terrorist attacks this month Iraq, Pakistan, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Mali, and Belgum.
I guess one can make the point that only one of those countries has musicians worth a damn, if we just interpret the threads on this board . But really what it's really about is that most people's lives are worthless and irrelevant , only some people matter .
And how could you not know about highlife music ? That needs to be rectified posthaste.
Start a thread about Nigerian band Offege band, you'll have maybe two answers after two weeks
Start a thread about Gazpacho or Yes, it'll be ten or 15 pages long by the end of the day
I know where you're getting at, though... Kutti's music post you would find here would probably come from digression of an Osibisa thread or something of that effect.
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
Welcome to the human race my friend.
You are trying very hard to create an intent on this board that doesn't exist to fuel your anger about what is happening in the world. I suggest you write an open letter to the 24/7 media outlet of your choice to express your objection to the lack of coverage regarding terrorist attacks in other countries (you left Afghanistan off your list btw).
WANTED: Sig-worthy quote.
The only way a Gazpacho thread gets to be 15 pages long is if it got controversial and/or Jed bumped it every week to ask why the band named themselves after soup.
Seriously though, you don't have to use an extreme example like Ofege. The overwhelming majority of the music mentioned in the Belgium thread would get very few responses as well. There are only so many of us that would populate a Cos thread (for example). If two weeks later it was a Julverne thread, same situation - and the same small group of people would respond.
WANTED: Sig-worthy quote.
Music should always be a reflection of the life you have lived. The great classical guitarist Oscar Ghiglia posted a meme that someone should not practice more than four hours a day. My teacher is a longtime friend and colleague of Oscar's And agrees with that statement, generally. The point being, you have to get out there engage the world and life and not just practice Dorian scales for 10 hours a day .
I was talking to a friend of mine, now retired, who was a young Jazz musician (reed player-sax and clarinet)in the 1950s. One of his teachers was Harold Land. When Harold saw him play, he said, "don't play what I told you to practice. Play what you were thinking about as you came to the gig today as you saw the outside world". He also got to meet a young Ornette Coleman, Who wrote a blues for his band practice. Or not asked what they thought of his music: they responded, "it's confusing". Ornette retorted back: "well have you been out on the streets today ?
My friend would later live in Japan and Spain, where he would learn flamenco guitar as well and play with people like Paco de Lucia and Diego Del Gastor ( he actually got to play Royal Albert Hall with Paco.
He said that Paco became disillusioned with the fact that playing Music became like 'going to a job '. If only it was as simple as just playing music for the sake of playing music.
It should be so simple, but it becomes complicated because life is complicated. And if you want to play Music, you have to engage in life. So the famous Charlie Parker quote from above is right on target. .
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