Someone posted this article on the Flash Facebook page today:
"A worthwhile article on progressive rock's decline (which is the sole responsibility of Flash to repair)."
http://http://www.oocities.org/sunsetstrip/8827/essay.html
Someone posted this article on the Flash Facebook page today:
"A worthwhile article on progressive rock's decline (which is the sole responsibility of Flash to repair)."
http://http://www.oocities.org/sunsetstrip/8827/essay.html
This is a provocative and stimulating piece. Two comments:Originally Posted by sherrynoland
Someone posted this article on the Flash Facebook page today:
"A worthwhile article on progressive rock's decline (which is the sole responsibility of Flash to repair)."
http://http://www.oocities.org/sunsetstrip/8827/essay.html
1.) The author is mistaken about IQ. IQ is not derivative of Marillion; indeed, IQ was at the forefront of the Neo-Prog movement in the 1980s with Marillion and a few others.
2.) I am curious to know what other PE posters think about his argument concerning the inherent conservatism of prog metal. I find it convincing, but I imagine others might be inclined to disagree. For example, Steven Wilson has stated that some of the most creative work in rock is being done in the realm of extreme metal. Thoughts?
"The golden age of progressive rock ended 25 years ago"
That is only true in my opinion if the article was written in 2002!
Show me a classic, good, prog album from the first wave of prog bands released after 77 and I'll change my mind.
Animals 77
Rain Dances 77
Relayer 74
Red 74
Wind & Wuthering 76
Brain Salad Surgery 73
Free Hand 75
Ommadawn 75
"Who in the last decade has even approached the artistic scope and vision of the classic early ‘70s albums by bands like Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, Gentle Giant, Magma, Banco, PFM and a host of others? In your humble editor’s opinion, almost no one"
I would say that the 'Stardust We Are' album by The Flower Kings blows this comment out of the water straight away. This incredible album has just as much, if not more, "artistic scope" as the early 70s albums.
The essay is interesting but it is purely subjective.
I'm not certain, but I think it WAS written in 2002.
He does say, "...despite all that has happened in progressive rock since then, the vast majority of the best progressive rock was recorded in the first half of the ‘70s."
The author is very careful to say several times throughout that there are exceptions to everything he's saying. He's talking about a preponderance in each case.
"Who in the last decade has even approached the artistic scope and vision of the classic early ‘70s albums by bands like Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, Gentle Giant, Magma, Banco, PFM and a host of others? In your humble editor’s opinion, almost no one"
Magma and King Crimson came back to make some of the most daring and challenging music in their catalog, way after their 70s "prime". I think the level of creativity and the amount of material in the past two decades exceeds the scope of the 70s. The mass support for it is what has diminished.
I have a problem with an article that says this is how it is and never asks why. He never takes into account that the bands in the 70's for the most part had major label support and studio time something not available or affordable for the up and coming musicians of the time. Also recordings (CDs) are much longer than LPs were/are and the amount of music required is so much more now. I wonder how much a Genesis or Yes album would have sounded if EVERYONE was a double album.
In my own experience the record companies stopped signing new purely progressive bands by the 1974 or 1975 (I know there are a couple of exceptions, mostly to already professional musicians like UK). He also seems to not realize that the musicians of the last 30 years while having cheaper recording and mastering options do not have access to mass distribution, advertising (radio) or ways to tour that were available in the 70's nor are they full time musicians. I find lots to like in bands like IZZ, Mars Hollow, District 97, mirthKon, Moetar that do not fit into the category of a major band. Really not sure what the guy is looking for. Some of it to me is your attitude towards the music.
You can still find music with artistic vision it's just not as broadly well know as in the 70's.
Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on progrock.com
https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-a...re-happy-hour/
Gordon Haskell - "You've got to keep the groove in your head and play a load of bollocks instead"
I blame Wynton, what was the question?
There are only 10 types of people in the World, those who understand binary and those that don't.
I agree for the most part but there were a few. There is still the question of "what is prog" but now also the question of "what is first wave". I think Rush made their best albums after 1977. Then King Crimson started doing really good stuff in 1981. Bruford's band was great as well. And arguable Jon and Vangelis were great (in my own opinion).
Lots of classics from the 2nd and 3rd waves of prog bands, that is for sure. If you don't think so, check out all three Anglagard albums and most of Kenso's output, just to name a couple off the top of my head. Another great example is the current Italian scene, whcih has had a bunch of monster releases over the past year or so, just exploding with great prog. And the avant fans here will point to a ton of current bands making impressive music. No use just being stuck in the 70's, no matter how great it was.
There are now approximately 10,563 progressive rock bands for every 1 progressive rock fan. Do the math.
Hired on to work for Mr. Bill Cox, a-fixin' lawn mowers and what-not, since 1964.
"Arguing with an idiot is like playing chess with a pigeon. It'll just knock over all the pieces, shit on the board, and strut about like it's won anyway." Anonymous
“Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.” George Carlin
Oh you terrible exaggerator! It's just that every prog fan is in a band and too broke to afford other's CDs or runs a review blog or internet radio show and wants their CDs for free.There are now approximately 10,563 progressive rock bands for every 1 progressive rock fan. Do the math.
The author is making the classic mistake of defining what exactly is Progressive/Prog."Who in the last decade has even approached the artistic scope and vision of the classic early ‘70s albums by bands like Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, Gentle Giant, Magma, Banco, PFM and a host of others? In your humble editor’s opinion, almost no one"
I will happily quote myself here:
Which is part of the problem as I see it.
"Progressive" and "Prog" are actually distinctive, at least to my way of thinking.
Progressive:The Big 5 (or 6) that blazed the original trail. I suppose there are some bands (very few) that are still trail-blazing, but for the most part, almost all the new ground has already been explored, if you still want to call the result progressive rock. Perhaps another more descriptive term for this type of music might be experimental rock? But at some point some artists might veer away from any rock elements at all, and the music transforms into something quite different, perhaps it is jazz, classical, blues or whatever, but if it does not rock anymore, they would exit this category.
Prog: Those bands who built on the foundations of the Big 5 (or 6) and are not so much blazing new trails any more, but may be exploring new directions within an already established genre. I would say 90% of what we discuss here on PE belongs here, including Rush.
The new ground the author is looking for in music has already been explored, making it is impossible to "rediscover the 70's" in 2014.
“Where words fail, music speaks.” - Hans Christian Anderson
You have it completely backwards Neon!
Prog is a title bestowed on the first wave of Progressive bands and everyone who tries too hard to sound like them. Progressive is music that is actually still progressing. But, of course, half the fans of these genres get these definitions backasswards which is what causes poor reviewers like this one to completely misunderstand the problem while still offering no solutions to fixing it. But, I could be completely wrong.
So, page 1, post #14, what, about 2:20 pm??
Yeah, I first thought of this a long time ago. I still believe it because strange as it sounds not all prog musicians are even prog fans(or at least not hardcore).There are now approximately 10,563 progressive rock bands for every 1 progressive rock fan. Do the math.
Anyway, this article is rather old. I remember seeing it a few years ago and even then it was already old. Some of it is true, especially about how Van Halen changed guitar playing. However, he does seem to have a strict definition of what prog. But if there's one thing I've learned is that most people don't have the same definition of what prog is.
But it makes sense that someone who doesn't do much more than spam this place with information about a certain band would dig up an article that has been on here before probably only a dozen times.
Last edited by Digital_Man; 02-18-2014 at 02:34 AM.
Do not suffer through the game of chance that plays....always doors to lock away your dreams (To Be Over)
the article seems fixated on the mere Symph style of Prog
the world of Prog in the 70s was so much more than that
while Symph (and Fusion) may have become trite in the 80s, Zuehl and Avant Prog were still going strong
writers of these kind of articles cant see the forest for the trees
Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
Not sure I disagree with the overall sentiment of the article, but I think the author is way off base about IQ. IQ is not even remotely derivative of Marillion in any of either bands incarnations. The 1st 2 IQ albums are wonderful Nursery Cryme era Genesis influenced with tons of mellotron (an instrument Marillion never messed with to my knowledge). After Peter Nichols left and returned with albums like Ever, Subterranea, The Seventh House, etc IQ has really defined their own sound and style.
Check out my solo project prog band, Mutiny in Jonestown at https://mutinyinjonestown.bandcamp.com/
Check out my solo project progressive doom metal band, WytchCrypt at https://wytchcrypt.bandcamp.com/
Absolutely, you'll get no argument from me at all on that front - Marillion, Pallas, IQ, Twelfth Night and so on.
My first response, however, stating 1977 was a direct response to the exact wording of the article, "golden period".
For me the golden period was ony the first flush of the first wave of the original bands i.e for me anyway from 69-77.
If you read carefully, the author has covered all the points being brought up here (minus some specific names). He grants that there's still a lot of good music being made, but percentage-wise, nothing comparable, and lists all the major factors involved causing some of the specific results you're listing.
The basic point being, the overwhelming majority of today's musicians don't have the broad background and influences of the musicians who created what we now see as "the Golden Age". There's no substitute for that, or getting around it. You are what you've listened to plus what you add with your own vision. I agree.
And the last major factor being that you want to sound different from (even better than) your favorite stuff, not like it.
I think the only problem nowadays is there's more wheat than there ever was, but you have to sift through a hell of a lot more chaff.
I tend to agree that the collapse of the labels and the growth of technology making it easier to release at lower cost makes it harder to find quality stuff amongst the shear volume of releases.
Whereas the internet has made it a lot easier to explore.
Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on progrock.com
https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-a...re-happy-hour/
Gordon Haskell - "You've got to keep the groove in your head and play a load of bollocks instead"
I blame Wynton, what was the question?
There are only 10 types of people in the World, those who understand binary and those that don't.
Sorry, that reasoning just does not compute. How can "Prog" be a title bestowed on bands you self admit as being the "first wave of Progressive bands."? They are already defined as Progressive making it redundant to also define them as "Prog". I think most of the problem is because people simply shorten the term "progressive" and use the term "prog' as a form of shorthand.You have it completely backwards Neon!
Prog is a title bestowed on the first wave of Progressive bands and everyone who tries too hard to sound like them. Progressive is music that is actually still progressing. But, of course, half the fans of these genres get these definitions backasswards which is what causes poor reviewers like this one to completely misunderstand the problem while still offering no solutions to fixing it. But, I could be completely wrong.
I think of "Prog" bands as derivative of the seminal seventies Progressive Rock bands who are the original trailblazers.
Also, the author does not address the point I am making about all the ground already covered by those 70's bands cannot be rediscovered and still be thought of as Progressive Rock.
I do agree that there is music out there that is still "progressing" but I think most of that is outsides the boundaries of what we think of as rock music.
“Where words fail, music speaks.” - Hans Christian Anderson
Thing is, the author's main point, I think, is that musicians then had a great diversity of musical heritage that continuously fed their very ORIGINAL music. They never covered their own ground again, much less anybody else's. They weren't copying anybody. That was strictly taboo, sounding like someone else! They had no labels, no genre. They had so much background to draw on—classical, jazz, country, folk, rock, pop, the whole world of music history. Anything could go into the pot of the musical stew they were creating. The British had that going on, and that culture of educated diversity, if musicians had it to the same extent today, is what produces truly PROGRESSIVE sounds that are completely original and come from the heart and soul, not the head.
All the rest—big labels, a more supportive, adventurous music biz and population—followed. It's impossible to separate the great music from the support system and vice versa. But I believe it starts with the musicians. And they have to be well educated with an intentional desire to be original like those Brits from the 70's.
That's the main point the author makes and I believe he's absolutely right on.
So, if we want another golden age, it's back to school to broaden our experience. It may take another generation or two to get there. Meantime, we still have a few of those pioneers who are making music today, that doesn't sound like anything else! Hint, hint...
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