Awkward Qs sometimes beg awkward As, so here it goes - rather ironically, considering my usual fad tangle that 'academics, arts and knowledge are global' - but I believe it should be done by someone from the Angloamerican sphere of culture, and with adequate financial and institutional means and backing. Neither of which I live up to now. Secondly, in contrast to what some may want to believe, I'm actually not that embraced in music anymore; I no longer write on it, I've pretty much stopped collecting and searching, I've long since ceased to make or play it myself and I listen far less often than before - although I do buy some new music still and sometimes even enthuse about it. I suppose I've simply arrived at a point in life where I need to concentrate on core work (dayjob and "leisure" literature), being with my sons and upholding a reasonable sense of health and sanity.
"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
It may have already been done.
Which is to say, I wouldn't be surprised if there were academic studies of "progressivity" in late-Sixties rock. Or in pop music in general. But that's a very large subject, so I suspect those studies would be quite focused and specific, so as to deal with their subject in acceptable depth while keeping to a reasonable length. Thus, there might be treatises on "Aleatoric Techniques in Popular Music" (as in the orchestral crescendi in "A Day in the Life"), or "Musique Concrete Techniques in Popular Music" (as in the middle section of "Mr. Kite"), or "Polytonal Backing Tracks in Hip-Hop" (as in any number of tracks). These would have appeared in small journals and be entirely unknown to the general non-academic public. However, even were they compiled as a whole, they wouldn't come close to being a complete work on the subject.
Indeed, that subject may be too big for any imaginable complete work. Just for starters, what criteria do you use for inclusion in the discussion? Do you concentrate on (relatively) big sellers like Tarkus, Selling England..., and Close to the Edge? Or on people like Henry Cow who took it further, to the point of creating a sort of home-made musical avant-garde? Do you include Krautrock, or is that its own separate musical movement? Do you include the Velvets, who had influences from and connections with the Sixties formal avant-garde, whose later influence was huge, but who were stylistically 180 degrees from what is usually called "prog"? How important is a lasting artistic legacy? Bear in mind that part of Krautrock's and the Velvets' wide influence may have come from their relatively simple music being easy for garage bands to copy. Whereas prog - whether "Big-P Prog" or "small-p progressive" - may be something of an isolated, outlier music partly because it isn't.
Last edited by Baribrotzer; 08-05-2017 at 07:22 AM.
^I'll be waiting for the Steve Nils remix.
"...whether one’s a Prog purist, a Prog denier or simply a rock historian. (For the record, I am all three.)..."
No you're not. Who knew writing about Prog (or writing about writing about Prog) could be so hard?
I have hope that The Whitest Music Ever has yet to be played.
What's the least white music made only by white people? Maybe early Red Hot Chili Peppers.
"...a floating orgy of some of the most despised music ever produced by long-haired white men".
But it's not though, is it ? It is merely `despised' by two-bit critics somehow offended by the concept that music can be clever and groundbreaking and still shift units and sell out concert halls. It's anti-intellectualism, in this case obviously the giveaway in his article being The Ramones...a band who let's not forget, based themselves on the Bay City Rollers and who I thought were laughable even from the perspective of the 13 year old I was when I first heard them.
"....prog rock, the extravagantly conceptual and wildly technical post-psychedelic sub-genre that ruled the world for about 30 seconds in the early 1970s".
This proves the guy's an idiot. Even the LEAST generous estimate would give it five years at least, some would give it up to a decade.
Something else to make Mr. Whitest Music Ever's head explode:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...to-the-heavens
Making broad brush statements about music and race is a complete fallacy.
Yes, he is an idiot, because the same thing could be said about punk rock, which had an even shorter shelf span in the mid-70s, and had far less big selling albums as a genre (particularly if one is to divorce artists like Elvis Costello and Talking Heads who were not "punk" by definition). But to this day, certain rock critics get sexually aroused talking about that one year where Joey Ramone popped pimples on Debbie Harry's shoulders and safety pins became a fashion accessory. Whatever. The list of black punks in the 70s is about as short as black Country-Western artists in the same time span (I can think of only Charlie Pride singing "Kiss an Angel Good Morning" on Johnny Carson).
"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/
It's important to not fall into the same trap of broad-brush statements as the more lazy hacks do.
There were punk/New Wave acts who were very influenced by reggae- The Clash, PiL, The Police, The Slits etc.
I don't usually react to this kind of self-serving nonsense "journalism," but apart from the ridiculousness of Prog-Rock as "whitest music ever," which has already been well skewered by other posters, I have to ask "If that were true, so fucking what?" How does the race of the artists or listeners impact the quality of the music? Is this fool a closet Eugenics freak? Race is so irrelevant to quality, I could name 100 things that are more important. If you give any thought at all to this imbecile's screed, you can't help but dismiss it upon contact. I'd be embarrassed to write such tripe, and then champion the Ramones as the cherry on the turd pile. JFC. What he's really saying is "This isn't part of our culture or tribe." Which begs the question, "What is his culture/tribe?" Hipsterism? I doubt that's it, but it has to be something.
Mostly not at all, seeing how both of those are somehow perceived and portrayed as harbouring a set of ideal and noble virtues of creative human authenticity - while progressive rock is "false" due to not complying with the standards of rock music as token to such an authenticity.
Progressive rock as very concept is despised for its esoteric and exclusivist sense of communicating "authenticity feats" - emotion, anger, aggression, vision, you name it; these sentiments are allegedly all artificial when channelled through the maze of a "rock" work emphasising form above or next to substance. This is how the story goes, except for the obvious logical omission that substance actually emanates from form. Which of course brings us to the main point; most people who genuinely detest progressive rock are factually unversed in the music itself, merely relating to the concept it is thought to be a harbinger of.
"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
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