Why are prog fans such music snobs?

That is sometimes true (some of the otherwise fine folks here seem to be rather narrow in their tastes and views) but it's rather a broad generalization, no? We are typically serious, dedicated music fans, but that does not necessarily mean that we like only "serious" music. I'm sure that serious fans of genres like classical, folk, traditional, (pure) country, jazz, bluegrass, early music, metal, etc., can be quite knowledgable/fanatic about their loves too.

I was a "progsnob" in my teens, but my tastes are quite diverse now.

I like music to have heart, or at least intelligence, and those traits are by no means exclusive to prog.

I agree with the assertion that prog is very much an album-orientated type of music.  The vast majority of prog albums I own I can listen to all the way through without having to skip anything.

The point is IMO that prog just makes so much more of music, uses all the potential of the musical canvas, if you will.  While listening to Neal Morse earlier today, I was struck by just HOW MUCH was going on in his music, not necessarily at the same time, but throughout the course of an album.  Popular music is based very much on a simple chord progression and melody.  It almost seems a waste to listen to something like that when you could listen to something that pushes music to it's limits, and uses many interesting melodies and chords.

It's because the music that we listen to is almost aggressively anti-single.  With pop, the emphasis is on selling the "single," and therefore people that listen to it are contempt to simply listen to the radio or download a song or too... A lot of people often ask me why I bother to buy so many albums, to which I respond back "Well, why don't you buy albums?"  Their response is almost always "because there are only one or two good songs on albums."  That's simply the way their genre functions...  two or three hit singles, and the rest of the album is almost void of entertainment for even those who call themselves rabid fans.  It's also no surprise they feel that way, since the radio only plays the hit singles... when was the last time you heard a Britney Spears song on the radio that wasn't commercially released?

Prog, on the other hand, is more album-centered, and that also goes for other album oriented rock (not only that particular genre, but also hard rock, metal, psychedelic, and other uncommercial music like classical, jazz and blues).  Because of this, the listener is forced to purchase albums instead of singles, and this in turn eventually leads to the listener being a completionist, because we're not only satsfied with one or two cuts on an album but usually almost all of them, and therefore we have more incentive to seek out other albums from the same artists.

The more that we become experts on our particular bands or subgenres, the more we become somewhat arrogant to our knowledge of the genre... this leads to snobbery.

Those are my thoughts anyway... 

AngelRat wrote: The main difference to proggers and commercial music lovers is that we actually LISTEN to the music.

Hmmm...not true I think. I think it doesn't matter that you can explain why you like something, or that you think that you ''really'' listen to something. Someone who thinks that 50cent is cool, is just as right as someone who can exactly tell you why Bruford is the best drummer in the world for example. It's the way you enjoy something. We enjoy by complete endulgence and severe investigation, others enjoy by thinking music is just cool. Being a snob has to do with fear. If you fear the 'normal' people for whatever reason, you are likely to pretend to be better as a defense mechanism. And knowing a lot about music, and claiming to be artistic etc is pretending to be better. So, being a snob is for some people needfull, because they are afraid that prog will not be accepted, and thus they give it artistic weight, so it MUST be accepted. Snobbism is just a defence mechanism to cloak fear.

I just enjoy my music, I too investigate into styles etc. But I no longer give prog more artistic value than other styles. What makes Mariah Carey less good than YES?? If it is enjoyed by people it is good. There is no better, there is only personal taste.

I'm open to all Rock Music well the real artists anyway! Whether it's Prog, Psych, Punk, Metal etc etc I like them all so I guess that dosen't make me a snob!

Well I HOPE not.

The main difference to proggers and commercial music lovers is that we actually LISTEN to the music.