You won't believe what happened at work tonight.

StyLaZyn wrote: Man Overboard wrote: Trademark wrote: A funny thing about it is that they are now on the Roadrunner label which was started (and is still owned, I believe) by Derek Schulman of Gentle Giant. He of all people should see the dangers of "commercialization" after what happened to GG at the end of the 70's, but he's had so much success with mainstream acts asa Record Exec. that he's lost his perspective to this little community. I hope Derek Shulman wasn't personally responsible for signing Nickleback, Slipknot, etc.    Oh! I know. God forbid the man use his abilities to make any money off successful bands that people obviously like.

Yes, we simply have to make clear our unanimous stand against popularity. Any act that sells more albums than there are people in the group should be shunned as a sell out. And while I really don't care to even hear Nickelback et al ( my wife & friends are going to see them Canada Day weekend, and I'm babysitting the kids), there are people, lots of people in fact, that do enjoy them. We all have freedom of opinion, and others having a different opinion in music, that most dangerous of arts, do not constitute grounds for getting all snotty & snobby. I saw a short interview with Derek Shulman, and the acts he's signed all had something that he thought were deserving of exposure to a wider public. So unless he's stated some high flown standards that he would be pushing , I don't see the rationale for dissing his current work.
Remember the punk critiques from the late 70s about progressive rock. Where they any more accurate or well founded then those we see herein about other genres ?

Now children! can we all behave like Gentlemen please?

If prog fans and a mainstream nu-metal fan enjoys it, surely this only makes it better?

If you don't like the album, don't listen to it. Or alternatively express your views in a concise intellectual manner, in a review or something.

Don't just come into a thread about Porcupine Tree or one of their albums and use it as an excuse to give it a lame bashing and get people annoyed.

Christ.


Edited by coleio - May 26 2007 at 14:32

Man Overboard wrote: So I'm at work, and listening to Evergrey at a nice, respectable volume.  This woman comes up and she's like "I LOVE HEAVY METAL!  I LOVE KORN AND DISTURBED AND SEVENDUST AND LIMP BIZKIT!" I kind of shake my head a bit, but she won't go away, and she says (though not as eloquently as I'm typing it, her grammar made my head hurt), "Oh, and there's this new band I heard recently, they're as good as Korn!  They're a new band, so you probably haven't heard of them, but they're called Porcupine Tree.  I totally identify with their debut album, Fear Of A Blank Planet!  I hate how people try to understand me, but their lyrics are so cool and make me wanna fight the man!   I love getting stoned at the mall, and the video is sooooo awesome, it's just like my life!" Is this the audience Wilson is trying to reach?

*pukes into a bag*

I think someone should email this to Steven Wilson

Melomaniac wrote:  What is more important is that the quality of the music is not inferior.  Hell, any band that can manage to become mainstream with high quality songs over 10 minutes in this day and age deserve everything they get, and I'm happy for Wilson and PT.  FOABP is an amazing album that, for once, has some proper promotion, and we all should be happy for them...   Music is what counts, not the hype... or are you people just listening to underground bands to be able to say you are "in the margin", and as soon as your favorite underground band starts getting the recognition they deserve while being true to themselves, you spit on them ?   That kind of attitude digusts me, to say the VERY least...

In fact, I can't applaud you enough.

Sell-out talk disgusts me most of the time....  Fear of a Blank Planet is a Porcupine Tree album through and through, true to themselves and prog, and I think it tells an amazing story that really hits home.  They deserve all the success they get...

GoldenSpiral wrote: Please don't misinterpret my earlier statement.  I think it's a good album, it's better than many things in the quasi-mainstream at the moment, but even when compared to PT's earier 'accessible' material like In Absentia, FOABP is vastly inferior.  They break no new ground, the lyrics are trite (which i believe was the point of my previous post), and the music is less diverse and not as well composed IMO.  This is not to say that PT is not still great, they are still one of my favorite bands, but I am definitely expressing a certain disappointment in this record.  I find something wrong with a 40 year old guy writing about how much it sucks to be a teenager.  There's already enough teenagers doing the same thing.

That isn't what he's writing about.  He's writing about what prescription drugs and over-saturation of electronics are doing to teenage psychology.  This album is a political/social commentary about big business and marketing... and even parenting.  At least, that's what I'm seeing...  EDIT: Apparently Wilson was trying to take no stand on the issue at all (which is interesting, because I get a definite 'this is a bad thing' vibe from the music... hmm...)

The Wizard wrote: Yeah as far as i'm concerned Porcupine Tree are selling out and conforming to todays mainstream music. They just want to sell records. That's it.

....
..........
Sure, then that would be why they pushed back the release video rather than capitalizing on the Virginia Tech shooting...
Seriously, I couldn't disagree more, here.  What artist deliberately trying to go mainstream would release an album with only 6 tracks, none of which are really single-length (5 minuters are fairly rare on mainstream radio), and one of which is over 17 minutes long?
Not only is this album very much prog, it's chillingly intellectual.   The style of the lyrics is a lot like Kate Bush, who very often inhabits a character in her songs (and often, she does this to make a point, such as in 'Army Dreamers' or 'Sat in Your Lap').  The entirety of FOABP is in this vein... and I think it's brilliant.  Some people like the woman in Aaron's story are misinterpreting the lyrics as a glorification of teenage apathy and hatred, when it's not...


Edited by StarsongAgeless - May 24 2007 at 23:11

^^ Is making payroll a problem?

Man Overboard wrote: Trademark wrote: A funny thing about it is that they are now on the Roadrunner label which was started (and is still owned, I believe) by Derek Schulman of Gentle Giant. He of all people should see the dangers of "commercialization" after what happened to GG at the end of the 70's, but he's had so much success with mainstream acts asa Record Exec. that he's lost his perspective to this little community. I hope Derek Shulman wasn't personally responsible for signing Nickleback, Slipknot, etc.

Melomaniac wrote: Frasse wrote: The whole situation reminds me of late 70s Genesis and very few prog fans has ever forgiven them so why would we forgive Mr. Wilson when Porcupine Tree makes it really big? Wilson will in fact be the next "love-to-hate" guy after Mr. Collins.     I cannot believe this... It's not as if they wrote 13 songs lasting 3 minutes each, created for radioplay...  Christ, every song on FOABP is above the 6 - 7 minutes mark, the overall album is more prog and heavier than most of their previous releases, while still capturing a certain psychedelic element previously found in The Sky Moves Sideways and Signify, what the f**k are you people whining about ?   Comparison : you have a friend that has been training all his life in a particular olympic discipline and, what do you know, he won the gold medal in his event ; he gets publicity contracts, endorsments, and everything else that comes along when winning an olympic gold medal, and all you can think of is "Goddamn sell-out, I preferred when he was a struggling athlete not yet at the top of his game".    My point is PT ARE at the top of THEIR game right now, having just released what probably is their best, heaviest and proggiest album, and just because they are FINALLY reaping the rewards of over 15 years of sowing (we all know how Steven Wilson is a workaholic), you call them sell-outs ?   Everyday I get to read nice comments and opinions on this forums, but stupid and ignorant posts like "PT are selling out" ruin the good moments I have here.

Frasse wrote: The whole situation reminds me of late 70s Genesis and very few prog fans has ever forgiven them so why would we forgive Mr. Wilson when Porcupine Tree makes it really big? Wilson will in fact be the next "love-to-hate" guy after Mr. Collins.

A funny thing about it is that they are now on the Roadrunner label which was started (and is still owned, I believe) by Derek Schulman of Gentle Giant. He of all people should see the dangers of "commercialization" after what happened to GG at the end of the 70's, but he's had so much success with mainstream acts asa Record Exec. that he's lost his perspective to this little community.

Edited by Trademark - May 24 2007 at 10:16