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Thread: This Wired Article is the Perfect Reason Why I'm an Arrogant Prog Rock Fan

  1. #1

    This Wired Article is the Perfect Reason Why I'm an Arrogant Prog Rock Fan

    https://www.wired.com/story/generati...ent-throwback/

    By arrogant I mean performatively arrogant. The reality is that I like all kinds of music. For me, music is just music and all the categories just an easy way to search for and talk about what I like. That's it. However, after a half-century, the snarky critics who use Prog Rock as a tired one-liner continue to worship at the altar of a booze infested drug fiend named Lester Bangs and something named Robert Christgau - a man who epitomizes someone who is trying to get laid by attaching himself to people others actually want to have sex with. Down to a person their devotees remind me of all the people who bullied me in school.

    So I do my act in places where people lazily think Punk was actually a response to Prog featuring all the slathered on nose-in-the-air opinions and chuckling dismissals of the troglodytes that have opinions that sounds like someone asked ChatGPT, "Write me an article that sounds like Lester Bangs wrote it right before he inevitably dropped dead."
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  2. #2
    It doesn't matter any more. Both Prog and Punk are relics of the past, music that the elderly people listen to.

    I believe among the few young people who are still interested in rock music and its history, these kind of discriminations hold less power.

  3. #3
    Can't see much wrong with the article. Those pictures look like made for some second-tier prog album.

  4. #4
    Member Sputnik's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rarebird View Post
    Can't see much wrong with the article. Those pictures look like made for some second-tier prog album.
    LOL, that was exactly what I thought! Those were awful!

    I also liked the article. I think it's especially interesting that someone would say, "This looks like a 1970s Prog Rock album cover," and people know exactly what they're talking about. To me, that's much more important that worrying about the whole Punk/Prog thing. I thought this article raised some interesting issues around AI art that have been sort of overlooked in the whole, "is it/isn't it art?" kerfuffle.

    Bill

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Rarebird View Post
    Can't see much wrong with the article. Those pictures look like made for some second-tier prog album.
    The author did some pretty pointed picking and choosing with that AI art. When I see AI art prompted by people who have more elaborate descriptions, it comes out looking a lot more like a Boris Vallejo cover to an SF/F novel of the 70s.
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  6. #6
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    I really like the first artwork they show. If that had been the inside gatefold of a 70s album I would have stared at it for hours as a teenager while listening to the no doubt great music it accompanied.

  7. #7
    The name of my new band: Blop Polayy


  8. #8
    Outraged bystander markwoll's Avatar
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    The chip fell off my shoulder long ago. It's just music.

    But to be honest, the phrase fits the generated content.
    "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
    -- Aristotle
    Nostalgia, you know, ain't what it used to be. Furthermore, they tells me, it never was.
    “A Man Who Does Not Read Has No Appreciable Advantage Over the Man Who Cannot Read” - Mark Twain

  9. #9
    Taker of Naps IncogNeato's Avatar
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    Was Punk a direct reaction to Prog, though? I feel like it was more a reaction to overly commercial, arena rock types. Some Prog bands fit that category at the time, I imagine.

    I think he brought that up to find a way to tie in his closing tag about how maybe AI art will cause real artists to revolt against it.

  10. #10
    Yes, some prog rock bands definitely filled arenas and put on pompous, self-indulgent shows in the mid 70's, among them Yes, Pink Floyd, Tull, and ELP. Genesis not quite yet, Crimson didn't even exist at the time, Camel and Magma have never known that level of commercial success...
    Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.

  11. #11
    I was doing my daily vocal exercises and reading PE, that "Blop Polayy" cover came up, and I burst out laughing so hard, I am afraid to look at it again lest I hurt myself laughing. Man I'll never finish my vocalizing today now!

    xx
    BD
    https.bdrak.com

  12. #12
    Parrots Ripped My Flesh Dave (in MA)'s Avatar
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    The Blop Polay picture looks like what you get if you ask the AI specifically for a progressive rock album cover, so it doesn't really support the article's premise that AI-generated art looks that way in general.

  13. #13
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by markwoll View Post
    The chip fell off my shoulder long ago. It's just music.
    Also, Wired is practically a free magazine these days.

  14. #14
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    I just went in to some site called NightCafe.com (I just googled AI artwork) and typed in "Progrock music album cover". This is what I got. You gotta admit its not bad...

    ai_progrock.jpg

  15. #15
    online from time to time Czyszy's Avatar
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    I'm glad I chose to continue doing the covers for my albums in that cartoony style. Not only do they stand out in terms of originality but they're also quite tricky to copy by AI generators. B)
    NG ~ BC ~ PA

  16. #16
    Parrots Ripped My Flesh Dave (in MA)'s Avatar
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    I asked for a Blop Polayy album after they sold out and went commercial.

    bloppolayy.jpg

  17. #17
    Member moecurlythanu's Avatar
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    ^ There's a thing of beauty.

  18. #18
    The prompt consisted solely of the words "progressive rock album cover":

    wonder_1674345704175.jpg
    Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...

  19. #19
    Parrots Ripped My Flesh Dave (in MA)'s Avatar
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    Then there was the year that Blop Polayy all did their own solo albums.

    Attached Images Attached Images

  20. #20
    Wow. You guys.

    But to finish 'er off, Blop Polayy needs an umlaut, preferrably over a consonant. Help me out, here.

  21. #21
    Steve You Like Be in Succotash is the best of those solo albums.
    Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...

  22. #22
    Parrots Ripped My Flesh Dave (in MA)'s Avatar
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    Pmog's Main Moan My M Rio Ya Ranino is pretty good if you can get past the vocals.

  23. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by markwoll View Post
    The chip fell off my shoulder long ago. It's just music.

    But to be honest, the phrase fits the generated content.
    It fits if that's what they're prompting which I suspect is what they did. If I typed, "A corn muffin in the shape of Tucker Carlson's head in the style of Picasso," that's what I'd get.
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  24. #24
    The AI program responsible for generating the new images was probably trained on images of "interesting" album covers and there are probably more prog album covers that fall into that category than non-prog (or maybe the people who trained the neural network used to generate the images are prog fans and used more prog artwork than non-prog).

  25. #25
    What they should have typed in is "prog record covers in the style of Roger Dean." That would be interesting (and sincerely troubling).
    I'm not lazy. I just work so fast I'm always done.

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