I trust no one. Especially myself.
I trust no one. Especially myself.
Sleeping at home is killing the hotel business!
I sometimes get the feeling that some guys want the term prog to mean "something no one else but me will like". Early Yes was full of melodies and hooks in both long and short form song. Yet all anyone wants to remember are the side-long epics. The tunes that brought Yes to the forefront were jazzy, buoyant, even ebullient, not the overreaching symphonic style that they attempted later.
Same with Genesis. Their best works, long or short form have melodies and hooks. Genesis mastered their craft and made money. So what? And Peter Gabriel continued to make sprawling epics in his solo career?
Lots of current prog bands who attempt the 20+ minute epic do so with marginal results. I'd rather that they optimized their talents than overreach for the sake of pandering to an idea of what a prog band is supposed to be. Better a song be short and great than stretched into tedium.
I'd love to participate in this thread but I have to, I dunno, go jerk off or something...
LMAO ^^
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
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I don't get it. People get mad at Sherry Nolan for starting numerous Flash threads about the same thing, but yet Rufus gets a pass. Seriously, how many "Mel Collins Killed Genesis" threads have to be started for this fool to get it? Btw, we aren't Genesis fanboys, Dufus(oops, I meant Rufus) we are just tried off reading "Phil Collins ruined Genesis". You even said that on the Selling England By The Pound thread. If anyone killed Genesis, it was Jonathan King when he gave them that stupid name.
I was just addressing the fact that you don't get why you caused a stink in the Snowbound thread. It's because you continue to bash Genesis in every thread, even when that particular thread isn't about Genesis. It could be about Yes, but you would make it about Genesis by saying that Bill Bruford ruined his career by drumming on their '76 tour. Why is this hatred you have for Genesis? Seriously, take a minute and read some the responses to this thread, especially post # 29.
1. Prog is not a musical genre, it is a catch-all term for a group of styles and elements used in rock/pop.
2. All rock is also pop but not vice versa.
3. Pink Floyd, Yes, Deep Purple and Genesis all STARTED off as pop bands - their debut albums provide the evidence for it.
4. "Pop" and "prog" cannot be separated from rock as specific genres, because it is simply a subjective understanding of what one is hearing, for example, several members here will hear "prog" in the music of The Strawbs, I personally don't. But I do hear proggy elements in the music of Magazine and The Stranglers.
5. For me Supertramp, Kansas, Zappa, Jethro Tull (as much as I like all of them) were never prog. It is all very individual.
Didn't Starcastle go pop at the end of '77 with the release Citadel? Btw, when I first read the thread title, I thought that Rufus wanted to know when did Genesis first go poop.
MY GOD! Really? You think that I THINK that EVERY band I DIDN'T mention is prog simply because I didn't mention them??? The notion of listing a few examples of something to make a point (i.e. as I did with Supertramp, Kansas, Tull, Zappa) cannot possibly be an alien concept to you nor that such lists are never exhaustive, they provide just a few examples of a type. There are thousands of bands that I don't think are prog but I'm not going to list them ALL!
But for the record, no, I do not think Styx is prog. For me prog is a specific sounding product of a band not the band itself.
So for example, for me, Meddle was a prog album but The Wall wasn't.
As the term "Pop" is an abbreviation of "popular music", which itself is a misnomer given that it was coined around 50-odd years ago to refer to "modern" popular music, then Genesis have in the widest sense always been a pop band. Pop has since come to describe a narrower spectrum of music, but, like the term "prog", it is a subjective term, with no clear boundary. I'd rather listen to a finely crafted gem of a song that lasts 3 minutes than a 20 minute epic which was devoid of all emotion and filled with lumpy "prog" clichés.
If a song sounds great at 3 minutes, let it be (sic) 3 minutes. If it works best at 35 minutes, it should be 35 minutes. As long as it comes from the writers' heart(s), then it is valid. There have been many great "prog" hit singles from the likes of Tull, Floyd, Moody Blues, ELO, Kansas (yes, I know!), Marillion, Yes, The Beatles, Focus (oh yes they are) and loads of others.
Like Sunhillow says, if it's good, it's good. Just because it doesn't fit in with a preconception of what a prog song allegedly should be, doesn't mean it's wrong/bad.
Having said that, it would not worry me if I never heard "whodunit" again ;-)
While I agree with most of what you said, I must pick you up on just one aspect, and it is this , the whole "if it's good,it's good and if it's bad, it's bad" argument, that too is also a purely subjective approach, which differs from person to person.
The only truly objective response to any music or when providing a description when asked about a band is to first describe the music in comparative terms then to say either "I like it " or I don't like it". Judgements of quality are not required.
You're wasting your time, man. Might as well argue with a brick wall.
Can't really get my head around the idea of "Revealing Science" being entirely woven of pop songs. Or at least, I've never thought about it that way. Makes me want to put it on to see if I can hear it! As for "Supper's Ready", I doubt "Apocalypse In 9/8" was a smash hit on AM radio.
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
*** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***
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