Bands that sound the same as other bands

[sonic]

This is not prog specific but I put it in the main board for discussion anyway.

I've recently been getting compilations of recent unknown bands — one comp was for Gothic and another was for Post Rock ... Anyway I couldn't believe how much alike all the bands sounded under their particular genre. They were so alike that you'd swear it was the same band. All the bands in the Goth collection sounded like Joy Division wannabes and all the Post Rock tunes seemed to have exactly the same chord progression, guitar tone etc...

I know copying other bands has always been done, that's how genres come about, but has it gone too far these days?

This is not intended to be a list thread, but a discussion thread.

[80s were ok]

This could be the longest thread ever.

[NogbadTheBad]

I tend to find a lot of the electronic bands fall into the same trap of sounding like vintage Tangerine Dream. Not that I have anything against vintage TD but I'm often double checking to see if it's really them.

Agree on the post rock, often indistinguishable.

[SteveSly]

Agree on the post rock, often indistinguishable.[/QUOTE]

I am not an expert on post rock, but I have explored some of the bands and agree that there seems to be a lot of sameness between some of them.

Steve Sl

[Henry Krinkle]

Marillion tried to sound like Genesis.

Starcastle====>Yes

numerous Italian prog keyboard bands====>ELP

tip of the iceberg......

[sonic]

Marillion tried to sound like Genesis.

Starcastle====>Yes

numerous Italian prog keyboard bands====>ELP
.

While there are plenty of older bands heavily influenced by other bands, they don't sound exactly the same, although Starcastle is pretty close to a clone band. I think, these days with a lot of people using the same technology to create music it has made it very easy to get the exact sounds right down to guitar tones and synth patches than ever before. In the past different equipment and approach to instruments and ability meant no band was a perfect clone, but in the computer age, now that everyone has access to similar equipment, now that everything is 'midi perfect', cloning has become epidemic masking individuality completely in a lot of cases.

[progeezer]

Starcastle does indeed win the clone band battle, followed closely by both The Watch/Citizen Cain combo imo.

[Henry Krinkle]

Agree on the post rock, often indistinguishable.

I am not an expert on post rock, but I have explored some of the bands and agree that there seems to be a lot of sameness between some of them.

Steve Sly[/QUOTE]


Post rock is such a broad category. For instance, Stereolab is considered a 'post rock' band, yet to me they are completely unique and I can't pinpoint any one band they sound like. They certainly drew from a variety of influences, but sound like no one, and I have yet to hear a band that sounds like them. Tortoise might be the closest, or the Olivia Tremor Control.

[progeezer]

Also Gazpacho (no matter what Jan-Henrik says) = Hogarth Marillion

[80s were ok]

Also Gazpacho (no matter what Jan-Henrik says) = Hogarth Marillion

isn't Gazpacho the opening track on Marillions "Afraid of Sunlight"?

[Scott Bails]

Also Gazpacho (no matter what Jan-Henrik says) = Hogarth Marillion

From what I understand from the thread on the band, Gazpacho = Hogarth Marillion - Rothery.

[Scott Bails]

isn't Gazpacho the opening track on Marillions "Afraid of Sunlight"?

Indeed it is. I've always wondered if that was by design, or if they named themselves after that track.

[No Pride]

I know copying other bands has always been done, that's how genres come about, but has it gone too far these days?

It went too far a long time ago. Remember the late '60s/early '70s? Bands were actually encouraged by record labels to be unique. Gosh, The Doors, Cream, LZ, Buffalo Springfield, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Jefferson Airplane... You'd never mistake one for the other. At some point in the mid to late '70s, that all changed as the music biz got, well... more business like. The '80s hair bands and the '90s alterna/grunge bands were so similiar in sound to each other because that was what was HAPPENING at the time and the big labels grew to hate risk taking. There were always times when a little of window of opportunity was open; you know; everybody got burned out by the shit the Industry was shoving down our throats and were ready for something different. Then when somebody (like Nirvana, for example) slipped through that window and brought something a little different to the table, the Industry would jump on THAT bandwagon and want everybody to sound like THAT band, ya know, because they SELL!

But we can't blame it all on the suits. Too many bands/musicians get so enthralled with a particular style that copying it is all they want to do. Which has no choice but to water down whatever genre they're participating in.

[Scott Bails]

It went too far a long time ago. Remember the late '60s/early '70s? Bands were actually encouraged by record labels to be unique. Gosh, The Doors, Cream, LZ, Buffalo Springfield, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Jefferson Airplane... You'd never mistake one for the other. At some point in the mid to late '70s, that all changed as the music biz got, well... more business like.

Completely disagree.

Success has been copied for as long as time.

Elvis was copied, the Beatles were copied - it's been a business model as long as business has existed.

[Andre C]

Lots of the bands raved about today by some (but not all) Prog nerds====>Yes, Tull, Kansas, Genesis, ELP

Porcupine TRee/Wilson solo stuff -- awesome and still interesting b/c it didn't/doesn't try to re-create Tony Banks/Wakeman/et al

[progeezer]

They were open about the h Marillion adoration initially out of the gate, but their vocalist (who I spoke with when they played Rosfest) took umbrage when I innocently posed the question. Marillion in the past has publicly expressed their liking Gazpacho, they DID indeed get their name from the AOS track, and for a time the Norwegians were signed to Racket Records, so I figured it was a fair question.

I do like the band.

[sonic]

I
But we can't blame it all on the suits. Too many bands/musicians get so enthralled with a particular style that copying it is all they want to do. Which has no choice but to water down whatever genre they're participating in.

Yep. These compilations I got were from this year,2012. They are DIY bands, not bands signed to any major label. So they're just copying for their own pleasure, not to sell millions of CDs.

[Henry Krinkle]

Porcupine TRee/Wilson solo stuff -- awesome and still interesting b/c it didn't/doesn't try to re-create Tony Banks/Wakeman/et al

Wilson and PT were accused early on of being Pink Floyd clones, especially after Sky Moves Sideways came out. So much so that Wilson bristled at the suggestion and wouldn't play that stuff for a long time.

[Henry Krinkle]

Completely disagree.

Success has been copied for as long as time.

Elvis was copied, the Beatles were copied - it's been a business model as long as business has existed.

I think his point, and a valid one, was that with the rise of FM radio formatting and the success of the arena rock concerts in the mid to late 70s, the pressure to 'corporatize' music was greater than ever, and suits started impeding in on the creative process to an unprecedented level to keep the cash registers going, which meant there was a loss of musical creativity and independence that had been enjoyed in that unique space of time between about 1964 through 1975-6 or so.

[Scrotum Scissor]

I am not an expert on post rock, but I have explored some of the bands and agree that there seems to be a lot of sameness between some of them.

Steve Sl

Post rock is such a broad category. For instance, Stereolab is considered a 'post rock' band, yet to me they are completely unique and I can't pinpoint any one band they sound like.[/QUOTE]
This is quite true, but there's another side to that coin; the point of definition tends to take on a most narrow angle when addressed externally, i.e. by people who perhaps wouldn't normally count themselves among the internal listening crew. This has been one of the main problems with the general discourse on "progressive rock" for ages; the allegation that "it all sounds the same, and if it doesn't - well, then it isn't really 'prog' in the first place" (check Soft Machine and much other Canterbury music, some Krautrock and so on). Furthermore, in the case of "progressive rock music", in many cases this seems to be the argument of some voices even from the "inside" crowd.

A thing which should be stated specifically of "post-rock" however, is that the term attains so intimately to a musical concept with a core aim of "deconstructing" and depersonalizing sound, structure, language etc. - thus rendering the end result "formulaic" by its very definition. And I suppose this is why the creative zenith of "post-rock" is usually seen as the period 1995-2001 or thereabout, when significant names (Tortoise, Stereolab, GY!BE, Mogwai, Sigur Ros et al.) were still developing internationally and pretty much also influencing the mainstream.

I'll have to admit I stopped trying to keep track of those meanderings almost a decade ago, although there are still some fine bands out there who are at least very good at what they do. I guess that equals my exact sentiments towards current/modern "symph" rock music, neo-psych, neo-folk, some alleged "RIO" and more.

[Scott Bails]

I think his point, and a valid one, was that with the rise of FM radio formatting and the success of the arena rock concerts in the mid to late 70s, the pressure to 'corporatize' music was greater than ever, and suits started impeding in on the creative process to an unprecedented level to keep the cash registers going, which meant there was a loss of musical creativity and independence that had been enjoyed in that unique space of time between about 1964 through 1975-6 or so.

Well, again, I disagree.

There's plenty of variety during any period you'd like to explore. Sometimes you just have to look a little harder.

[zravkapt]

another was for Post Rock ... Anyway I couldn't believe how much alike all the bands sounded under their particular genre... all the Post Rock tunes seemed to have exactly the same chord progression, guitar tone etc...

"Post-rock" was a term used by lazy journalists in the mid-90s for a bunch of unrelated bands who were too weird and experimental to be considered "alternative". Unfortunately, in the 2000s some bands based their sound on a fraction of what Mogwai and Godspeed You Black Emperor were doing in the late '90s. Oddly enough, there are few bands who sound like the most popular PR band...Sigur Ros. Early "post-rock" was much more diverse and experimental than what most people think of the style (if you want to call it that):

[Rufus]

Kiss - Destroyer era was close to Alice Cooper! Ezrin's production probably influenced that !

[Henry Krinkle]

To=>Scrotum Scissor

"Post rock is such a broad category. For instance, Stereolab is considered a 'post rock' band, yet to me they are completely unique and I can't pinpoint any one band they sound like."

that was actually my quote, and the "post rock sameness" statement was by Steve Sly. Looks like the quote thing is messed up

[PeterG]

Simple Minds - U2

Genesis - PFM

The Nice - ELP

Wizzard - Slade - Sweet

Mud- Showaddywaddy - Glitter Band

Free - Bad Company

Hawkwind - Ozric Tentacles

Soft Cell - Depeche Mood

Helloween - Hammerfall - Gamma Ray

De/Vision - Assemblage 23 - Covenant -Mesh - In Strict Confidence

Cathedral - Candlemas - Doomsword -Saint Vitus- Carcass

And so on through every genre and every decade.....such a thread could go on forever