Bored with Prog and Metal...?

[trurl]

Just want to second this...very good album...

Hey, I seconded it. You're third.

[Modry Effekt]

[Modry Effekt]

[Progatron]

I have been on a steady diet of Bruce Springsteen, Tragically Hip & Cheap Trick lately.

No I'm not bored with prog. Metal sometimes though - that goes in phases.

I didn't realize The Hip were known outside of Canada really, they are a great band!

[Camelogue]

Little Bit of chicken Fried cold beer on a Friday night.....

sure I listen to variety and some gets tiresome at times.

Sometimes ya gotta dance to some EWF. as one "progger" told me

[Reginod]

Every now and again I like some old blues (Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Son House, Howlin' Wolf, Freddie King, Albert King, Lightnin' Hopkins, T-Bone Walker, Muddy, Buddy, etc) and I enjoy His Bobness, Mr. Dylan, on occasion.
Generally I'm drawn to more harmonically "involved" music, though. You can call it "prog" or you can call it a ham sandwich. Don't matter to me.

[SteveSly]

What about Queensryche? Where's a good place to start in that catalogue for good prog-metal?

Oh boy………I have almost all of them, so here we go…….only my opinion of course:

Queensryche (EP): Great early slice of prog metal from these guys featuring classics “Queen Of The Ryche” and “The Lady Wore Black”

The Warning: Great early 80’s metal. Worth owning.

Rage For Order: Some people love this one, but I never warmed up to it. It was defintltly an experimental step for them.

Operation Mindcrime: One of the classic progressive metal concept albums of all time. A must purchase if you like the band.

Empire: This is where they hit the big time commercially and it is a good album with lots of classic songs.

Promised Land: This may be my favorite album by them, although it gets mixed reviews from fans. One of their proggiest for sure.

Hear In The Now Frontier: The train started coming off the tracks. I like the first two songs, but the album falls off really fast after that.

Q2K: Probably their lowest point. A pretty lousy album for the most part.

Tribe: This one was a bit better than Q2K and HITNF, but sill not a great album.

Operation Mindcrime II: This was actually a bit of a comeback. Not nearly as good as the original, but better than the albums that came in between.

Take Cover: Covers album and pretty much a waste of time.

American Soldier: I actually thought this was a nice comeback. Overall it is a strong album with good songs. I pull It out from time to time.

Dedicated To Chaos: A worthless piece of crap and the album that broke up the band.

Today there are2 versions of queesryche, but I have not heard either album yet.

[Facelift]

"Darkness" gets an amazing amount of love from Springsteen fans, which I find hard to understand. Certainly "Born To Run" was seen as his magnum ops at the time, and for a long time afterwards. then "The River" seemed to take over that mantle, until the huge success of "Born In the USA" - goodness knows why that album is seen by so many as his pinnacle.

"Darkness" has some good songs, but then so do most of his albums. I wouldn't place it at the top of the list of his best, and certainly not above The River or The Rising.

I've never considered myself a "fan" of Bruce Springsteen, but I love Born To Run and The River.

[The Czar]

Well, to be honest I've always found Bruce's music kinda cheesie.

Which is hilarious, because lets face it. Prock rock and Metal have some of the cheesiest lyrics.

I get it though, he is sometimes very wordy, but you do see the humor in that statement right?

[The Czar]

No I'm not bored with prog. Metal sometimes though - that goes in phases.

I didn't realize The Hip were known outside of Canada really, they are a great band!

Yeah, it can probably be considered an anti-prog & metal phase, but at almost 42 years old, I feel like a teenager when I use the term "phase"

Oh yeah The Hip are known in Minnesota a bit, but nowhere near as much as they are in Canada.
The cool thing is that they play much smaller venues here. When I saw them in the 90's, I spoke to a few people who came down just to see them play at a smaller club.
World Container and We are the Same are two of my favorite albums.

[TheLoony]

Steve, I disagree about Rage For Order. One of my favorite albums of all, and the last three tunes that run together at the end, brilliant tunes and brilliant way to end the album. Somewhat like Caress of Steel, it had to be made so the could make the next album but whereas Rush went somewhat backwards, Queensryche went sideways. Basically for me, QR was great up to Promised Land and sucks balls after, with the notable exception of Operation:Mindcrime 2 which is so awful my dog died when I played it. Almost took me out too but I have a strong ticker as I've been subjected to multilple listening/torture sessions involving Wehrmacht, the worst heavy metal band of all time.

Do not ever listen to them. Trust me.

I don't get bored with genres of music, although there are some I don't pay any attention to at all so that could be considered bored. I just get bored with music I've heard. So I look for something I haven't heard.

[Vic2012]

Which is hilarious, because lets face it. Prock rock and Metal have some of the cheesiest lyrics.

I get it though, he is sometimes very wordy, but you do see the humor in that statement right?

I don't really listen to lyrics that much. I rarely read lyrics while listening to the music (I'm usually driving). Believe me, if I love Van Der Graaf Generator it's not because I'm deciphering Peter Hammil's lyrics, I just love the music and the vocals as a musical instrument. Springsteen's music just doesn't grab me in any way. I don't particularly care for his voice, and the songs just don't reach out to me in any way. I've kept the album (Darkness....) because I'll probably revisit it one day and maybe it'll click. I had the same problem with a Bob Dylan album people raved about called "Blood On The Tracks." For whatever reason it just didn't click. I just didn't like his voice much, and I thought Idiot Wind sounded idiotic. But that's another album I plan on revisiting one day.

[bob_32_116]

Regarding appreciation of song lyrics, Bob Lind's 2012 album Finding You Again carries the following little note in the lyric sheet:

Please listen to the songs all the way through before reading the lyrics. Reading the words while you listen for the first time is like consulting a sex manual while you're making love.

I like that.

[The Czar]

^ that's funny, but kinda silly at the same time.
I grew up reading the lyrics with albums on the first listen.
...and some people would do well to read a sex manual!

[ThomasKDye]

I have a habit of singing along to songs when I'm alone, so I like to know what the actual lyrics are.

I think when it comes to acts like Bruce Springsteen, I just sort of resent the idea that musical knowledge is tertiary or quaternary to the Very Important Statement That He's Making. To use another example, I don't care how many lives Bono is saving by shrieking those Important and Spiritual Words like a stabbed harp seal, I can't make myself listen to him.

[The Czar]

I guess I don't think of those things when listening to Springsteen.

[Jerjo]

I love prog as much as the next guy but it is a lyrical wasteland. So many acts in the mainstream do it better: Dylan, Jagger, Springsteen, Petty, Waits, Waters, Townsend, etc. I would say that most Springsteen songs (as opposed to U2) are NOT big statements but views from a character in a song or just dealing with life. My wife has always hated Bruce, mostly because of his voice and she's not exactly a rocker. But having seen him in concert a few times she now understands the fanaticism. Like she said the first time, "he acts like he's still not sure he's got the job".

[JJ88]

In the case of Bruce Springsteen, I feel he is viewed by suspicion because some rock critics felt he was 'the future of rock' and all that. In actuality, his is a sound that harks back to the 50s and early 60s, with the lyricism of acts like Bob Dylan- in other words, reminding those critics of what they liked in their youth.

But I could never knock Springsteen himself or the music he makes, personally. I always enjoyed his music too much for that, and he's conducted himself pretty well over the years IMHO.

A band like U2 are another story...there's a band I've never been able to appreciate very much of, and goodness knows I've tried.

[spacefreak]

What about Queensryche? Where's a good place to start in that catalogue for good prog-metal?

"Rage for Order"

[Dave (in MA)]

A band like U2 are another story...there's a band I've never been able to appreciate very much of, and goodness knows I've tried.

When a U2 tune comes on I usually like it right up until the time when the singing starts.

[bob_32_116]

I'm constantly amazed by the scorn I see on the Internet for U2. It's true that their albums have become fairly predictable, and I would say that once you have The Unforgettable Fire and Achtung Baby you have the essential U2. Still, I certainly don't switch stations when a U2 song comes on the radio.

[JJ88]

I find them musically fairly limited and Bono's pronouncements (particularly on music) rather pompous. Not so much scorn- some of their songs I don't mind- as just bemusement as to why they cause such a clamour. Clearly they are hugely popular though.

[Garden Dreamer]

I'm not bored with either. I still listen to both but I'm more selective than ever. Like Rael, I'm on a big stoner rock kick right now but even there I don't go wild over everything that comes down the pike. But it's always great when you discover a new band in any genre, that's what makes the listening still worthwhile.

[SteveSly]

Steve, I disagree about Rage For Order. One of my favorite albums of all, and the last three tunes that run together at the end, brilliant tunes and brilliant way to end the album. Somewhat like Caress of Steel, it had to be made so the could make the next album but whereas Rush went somewhat backwards, Queensryche went sideways. Basically for me, QR was great up to Promised Land and sucks balls after, with the notable exception of Operation:Mindcrime 2 which is so awful my dog died when I played it. Almost took me out too but I have a strong ticker as I've been subjected to multilple listening/torture sessions involving Wehrmacht, the worst heavy metal band of all time.

.

I know a lot of Queensryche fans who totally love “Rage” and to be honest I am not sure why it never clicked much with me. I mean, I don’t hate it, but other than a few individual songs it never won me over. I have no idea why, as it is certainly one of their more experimental works. As for “Mindcrime II” I don’t think it is anywhere near as good as the first one, but I do like it. I thought “American Soldier” was a pretty good latter day effort as well.

[mozo-pg]

I get up, I get down, I get bored. Next, I reach for the Allman Brothers, some other great 70s rock, fusion, blues. It's limitless.