stop the "Neo" prog label ?

 

for me neo was just a style of prog that was more emotionally grounded and less 'flowery'. However its often thought of as a watered down version of 'real' prog which is wht Orford doesn't like the term. That said the bands were not as talented as the ELP's and Genesis and Yes's of the world. They had to establish themselves but certainly played on the nostalgia associated with prog. About 1983 there was a revival in proper bands generally as people got fed up with MTV mass produced pop where the producers were more important than the so called bands.

 

the supposed re birth of 'real' prog in the 90's as already stated came from Scandanavia but more specifically Par Lindh who formed the Swedish Art Rock Society. I think it also gained a little bit more momentum from the emergence of Radiohead who were suddenly labelled ''Prog'' from nowhere.I think it shocked them but I remember at the time it brought prog much more into the mainstream.One popular publication (Daily Mail I think) even directly compared Radiohead to Yes and Pink Floyd ho ho.

 

Back tracking slightly , IQ themselves adapted their music when they released Ever in 1993. That was almost a re birth of neo prog in my eyes. Neo prog evolved as a style and as already mentioned most of the bands associated with it are not creating the same style of music nowadays.

 

Orford is being a tiny bit hypocritical. The connection between Harvest Of Souls and Suppers Ready is very obvious even if apparently only two people are not able to see it! At the time he was upset that IQ didn't get due credit for making such an expansive work. I guess it may have contributed to his retirement but he shouldn't and needn't be so sensitive imo.

That sub-genre should not have accepted any new bands since circa 1976, for the simple reason that no new bands from Canterbury with that particular mindset have started since then. Any Canterbury "copyists", or influenced bands would, surely, belong in Neo? Certainly so, given that we do not accept neo as being a wholly symphonic sub-genre?

 

Using whatever gear you like in order to reproduce a similar sound to that of Genesis/Crimson/Yes or whatever, is of course not original at all though. It's not the gear that defines your style, it's your songwriting and playing.

 

Therefore, I would further argue that to "re-invent" prog one does not have to change the gear around, in fact that could end up being as uninventive as possible if you lack original song ideas. If you do have original song ideas then your worries are over, you WILL sound original. For me this discussion really is as simple as that. The only addition would be that some song ideas require some gear (Peter Gabriels "Melt" would have been tricky without a reverb unit ^^) so of course the gear defines the style in a way. But I think that you can complete an idea using various gear and the end result will still be as original as in any other gear configuration.