Prog and the younger generation

^^^

explodingjosh wrote: Porcupine Tree, Tool, The Mars Volta, King Crimson, Meshuggah, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Mastodon, Opeth, Radiohead, Dream Theater, Between the Buried and Me, Behold...the Arctopus, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Oceansize, Sigur Ros, Kayo Dot, Three, Pelican, Isis, Devin Townsend, The Tangent, Ayreon, No-Man, Riverside, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.....My point is, Yes and Genesis may be dying a slow and painful death as of 2008, but prog is not. Progress or die!

Half of those bands are not even really "Prog" bands; even though they are on this site a lot of them either refuse to be labeled "Prog" (Porcupine Tree etc...) claim not to be influenced by "Prog" (Sigur Ros etc...) or are not considered "Prog" by most of the world partly because they came from a totally different influence (most Tech Metal, Post Rock, Post Metal and a lot of so called Progressive Metal - you do not see Dream Theater doing to many King Crimson covers - who by the way deny they are "Prog" themselves).

What is keeping "Prog" alive are bands with minimal interest or influence from the "Prog" movement being hijacked into the "Prog" world to make it look fresh. The real "Prog Metal" bands that keep and fuse the "Prog" movements traditions with metal are not breaking new ground (many posts on that here) but rehashing an already codified genre.

This maybe confusing for all the newbies but for the billionth time Big (P) Progressive and small (p) progressive are two different concepts and only one applies here: Big (P) the proper noun for the movement and all bands that are directly influenced by its specific musicality and style. Big (P) Progressive is also not to be confused with associative movements at the same time (Krautrock, Canterbury, Jazz Fusion etc...) who were erroneously put under the same banner.

Under the popular (to the newbie) term small (p) progressive any band with any sort of creativity could be argued as progressive, does not mean they are "Prog"; and since small (p) progressive is so subjective and impossible to prove it is extremely pointless. The use of this term as a connector to the "Progressive Rock" movement or any band that has emerged from such is highly irresponsible and downright revisionist history!

Darklord55 wrote: My kids are 15 and 18.  Here's a short list of bands they like from the prog world.  I'll let the list speak for itself. Opeth Flower Kings Porcupine Tree Eloy Yes Nektar Ozric Tentacles Pink Floyd Hawkwind Sleepytime Gorilla Museum Pelican Kingfisher Sky Dream Theater Symphony X Pineapple Thief Meshuggah Radiohead Black Bonzo Wicked Minds Mellow Candle

explodingjosh wrote: Porcupine Tree, Tool, The Mars Volta, King Crimson, Meshuggah, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Mastodon, Opeth, Radiohead, Dream Theater, Between the Buried and Me, Behold...the Arctopus, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Oceansize, Sigur Ros, Kayo Dot, Three, Pelican, Isis, Devin Townsend, The Tangent, Ayreon, No-Man, Riverside, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. ....My point is, Yes and Genesis may be dying a slow and painful death as of 2008, but prog is not. Progress or die!

I`m46 and don`t consider any of these bands prog with the exception of early KC. I just read an article which included interviews with members of Tool and they didn`t really consider themselves prog.Same with Dream Theater same thing an interview with James Labrie appeared in the Montréal Gazette a couple of years ago just before on of their shows at Metropolis ( which I attended ). prog was a musical phenomenom/movement  which died around `75 0r `76.
 Just last Summer I attended the Genesis concert at the Big O and they played roughly half in half new and old compositions and the younger people were baffled and after the show. I even  heard some younger people commenting that they didn`recognize half the songs.

So my point is that prog is dead as Elvis. Don`t get me wrong, I`m not knocking any of these bands but man they ain`t prog.

16 here and a huge Prog fan. I'm pretty much the only of my kind around my area, don't feel alone guys! lol

I rarely think that progheads today are mostly young people; nevertheless I live in a zone where prog isn't that well known as in Europe or in the USA; anyway, logic as it seems, youth are more exposed to genres where prog meets another more mainstream-related styles, like metal (Dream Theater, Pain of Salvation) or alternative rock (Porcupine Tree, Mars Volta). It has its pros and cons, but they are, for better or for worse, useful links to begin to understand what prog is (or was, if you wish). Of course I'm talking about a certain average.


Peace. 

Darklord55 wrote: Slartibartfast wrote: Interesting, get them some Talisma. Possibly, Jonas Hellborg Art Metal, too.   I've never heard Talisma so I gave them a listen.   Sweet!     I'll have to get their music for me too.  My son advised that I should have put Caravan on the short list.  He loves "Golf Girl".    Thanks for the sugestions.

There's an Art Metal streaming track on this site, too!  'Twas the streaming Talisma on here that got me hooked.  I gave it a try and had to pick my jaw off the floor.  Should warn you that I found it a little hard to figure out how to order off the web site that sells them, may have just been me.

Turning on people to new music and discovering new prog myself has been what's kept me into it since I was in my teens more than a few years ago.  It really never gets old.

Oddly enough I didn't get into Caravan until I saw them on tour in 2002 with Nektar.


Edited by Slartibartfast - July 29 2008 at 17:39

Agree completely. Despite often in weekends I listen to music just to 'have fun', to go dancing, etc, the real thing is when I listen to music at my home (Prog, Hard Rock, Thrash Metal, Classic Rock, Fusion, etc, etc).

But luckily I have five (FIVE!) friends who are into this kind of music (not counting all the other ones who are into Classic Rock, 60s, 70s music in general), of whom 3 were introduced by me to this wonderful musical world.

I am 47 and I like to listen to the old stuff (but not exclusively Yes and Genesis) as much as I do to newer prog/post metal stuff. But actually Coldplay is not really a good example I would say. I find them boring and commercial!

DJPuffyLemon wrote: cacho wrote: King Crimson776 wrote: There's a poll here somewhere that shows that the vast majority of people on this website are "young people". that's mainly because young people don't know THAT MUCH of Prog and this Site is very helpful. For the older guys(no offense) it's a chat room, of course, they discover new bands, etc, but they're not NEW at this. Young people mostly are new. Not to sound superior or anything, but I feel as though I know of more music than older people do, due in large part to this site, which has helped me find lots of new music. I feel as though the generation that grew up with Genesis and Yes still only listens to Genesis and Yes, and every now and then will pick up a Coldplay CD. I have no idea but my impression is that 96 percent of older prog bands snuff at new prog.

I'm 20 years old and I'm listening to prog (both classic and modern) for like 4 years now. And that's not only me but the bigger part of my friends are also listening to prog. The simpel mainstream music  can't excist forever because eventually people get bored of it. We saw that with punk, metal, grunge and it wil evantually also be like that with hiphop, the kaiser chiefs-like rock and nowadays dance music. I think it's kind of a spiral and in the near future people will turn to prog again. Not bands like opeth or mesuggah but think of porcupine tree or the pineapple thief, bands that not truly prog, but are certainly progressive in nature. When I look at myself when I was 12 or something like this I was really into bands like linkin park or nirvana. But after a few years I was tired of hearing always the same structures in every song (though I still think nirvana kicks ass).So I wanted something more experimental and came across tool, king crimson etc. I see more and more teenagers are moving in this direction. Maybe we are the first of a new generation of real music lovers. And you also see that bands like porcupine tree or dream theater getting more and more known in the mainstream rock audiences. Pluss on the other side you also see that bands like korn and linkin park heading to a more 'proggy' sound altough it's still far away from the real thing of course. (for excemple korn recording an album with terry bozzio). I think we have to go to the lowest point musically speaking before we go back to higher levels again and we have to agree that now the level can't get anymore lower or else it will be just one tone with one word repeated for 2 minutes