Getting estranged from prog

BTW: I just finished some modifications at PF (you can now select more than one tag on the charts page) and the following list might contain some interesting albums for you, Friede:

http://progfreak.com/home/charts.xhtml?tags=avant_garde,experimental&g=rock&arpu=1

BaldFriede wrote: I don't know why, but I am getting more and more estranged from prog. It still has a place in my heart, but the development the music is taking in this genre makes me shy away from it. Or perhaps it is my own development, who knows? .In any case, newer  artists in prog seem to have different opinions about what prog actually is than I. The few exceptions can be counted on the fingers of one hand. There are some old heroes who keep carrying the flag, but some of them have left the path of what is acceptable for me. And they are of course not getting any younger, which means there number becomes fewer with each year. Artists like The Red Masque, who in my opinion are by far the best of what cropped up in the last ten years, are few. (They get, by the way, far too little attention in here, in my honest opinion. The archives should hail them like some of the big bands of the 70s, and I mean it). I find myself listening to classical music and jazz mostly these days. That is, I still listen to prog, but I am really missing new artists that keep the ball rolling. People have suggested some new artists to me, but they didn't really excite me. As I said, it may be just me (though Jean says she feels quite similar). There just is no real daring anymore, except from some of the old heroes. Modern production adds to my discomfort with prog; it no longer sounds organic, it sounds artificial. Every single instrument is so clearly seperated from the other - that's not the way it sounds when you hear music being played live. Here the instruments blend into each other, making the whole thing sound organic. This is probably one of the reasons why I prefer live recordings to studio ones (especially modern studio recordings). Is it just me, or is anyone else feeling like this?

Yep, sounds pretty familiar territory. With regards the modern production you speak of, I do agree that many new recordings sound anodyne or sterile to my ears. I think this might just boil down to the missing inherent warmth of yesterday's analogue gear which is recognized as an almost imperceptible and very subtle distortion that we humans find musically satisfying i.e the very lack of definition on much of 70's prog gives it an organic weight that we sense in the pit of our stomachs. This feeling is absent , for me at any rate, in purely digital recordings. It is no accident that in the age of Pro Tools etc, the most sought after mastering software are digital plugins that attempt to replicate the imperfections and colourisation of the old analogue gear. Engineers the world over, are spending thousands of dollars trying to 'degrade' their squeaky clean digital recordings to make them as appealing as those of yesteryear.

Of the modern prog bands touted in these very forums, I can only say that Porcupine Tree re In Absentia filled me with the same excitement as the original 70's giants, but after said milestone album PT appear to have ventured into a more metallic oriented direction. (Which ain't really my bag)

Scandinavia might just be the location where the 'keepers of the flame' might emanate from, given the fertile prog activity in that part of the world lately. However, although I do think that the likes of Flower Kings, Opeth, Wobbler, Black Bonzo etc are very talented imitators, their efforts to date can hardly qualify as innovative.

(But they're young - in prog terms - so don't give up hope)

As for what the next genuine development will be, who knows ? but I suspect that what we subsequently come to recognise as the next prog rock of the noughties, will sound neither like YES, ELP or even prog metal but a hybrid of electronic sounds wedded to developments in contemporary classical and jazz.

For what it's worth

Mr ProgFreak wrote: I read my posts again and I realized that I really didn't answer the original question of the thread but specific points of Friede's post. So here's my answer: I'm not feeling estranged from prog at all ... not classic prog, and certainly not modern prog. So far I've proven to be largely immune to what seems to happen to most people as they age: they get less and less flexible. I'm trying to counteract that and instead get more flexible with each new album that I listen to ... which doesn't mean that I like each and every style of music, but I'm trying to give them all a fair chance.

Alberto Muñoz wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: I read my posts again and I realized that I really didn't answer the original question of the thread but specific points of Friede's post. So here's my answer: I'm not feeling estranged from prog at all ... not classic prog, and certainly not modern prog. So far I've proven to be largely immune to what seems to happen to most people as they age: they get less and less flexible. I'm trying to counteract that and instead get more flexible with each new album that I listen to ... which doesn't mean that I like each and every style of music, but I'm trying to give them all a fair chance.   I agree with you in most, in my teens i was more intolerant than today, now i'm more open and flexible to hear new music

I also was a bit less flexible in my teens - I would mostly listen to Metal and Hard Rock. But I soon got into Zappa and Dream Theater, and that opened me up to all kinds of styles. Too bad that I can't remember the proper sequence of my album purchases - it would show how my taste developed over time. <shameless plug>too bad I didn't have Progfreak.com back then!</shameless plug>

I experienced this too, and solved it by simply not listening to prog for about a year and a half. Then I started revisiting some old favourites, and started looking for old bands I hadn't yet heard. That kind of solved it for me.

Try to be open to other genres, "regular" music or whatever. It can seem impossible and uninteresting, but it could be worth a try if you feel stuck.

It's not that I am getting estranged from prog, it is getting that I am becoming estranged from a lot of rock music. Not because the music is getting any worse but solely because of the really naff drumming that seems to be dominating things. The industry seems, to my hearing, to be dominated by talentless drummers who only seem capable of tapping out a naff beat on the snare drum which spoils what is really some good music. Also the overuse of high hat cymbals is severely degrading my enjoyment of the music.

limeyrob wrote: For some reason the sound engineers turn up the volume of the snare and cymbals which dominate the music and really gets on my nerves. The sound made by the snare and cymbals is totally incongruous with the rich sounds of the other instruments - probably because there is no sustain in the case of the snare and the there is little warning when the cymbals are crashed.

Not to forget that there is more prog available today in the form of remasters, lost classics etc.being re-released by labels such as Wounded Bird than was available than at any given time during these "sad times". And this is all courtesy of the evil internet. So I guess it`s good for something. I had to scour used record stores to find s*** back then.

I think Marillion saved the day for a while. You can`t deny they got a lot out of the Yamaha hardware they were using. As for Drama. Man! Was I worried about that one and I`m sure some record execs lost some sleep over it as well. But it`s got to be one of my favourite Yes albums of all time! Really. I was just listening to it the other day in it`s CD format where the bonus tracks outnumber the original studio album tracks. Trevor Horn even sounded like Jon Anderson especially live. I liked the hard edge they came back with after Tormato which wasn`t exactly their magnus opus.

You gotta love it when a band shows up with an old moog or Hammond. I think Thijs van Leer of Focus tours with an old Hammond he used during the seventies.

Why I`ll never tire of Prog/art rock is because I`m stuck in the seventies. I`m in stasis. A holding pattern. (With the exception of a few bands )

Mr ProgFreak wrote: I read my posts again and I realized that I really didn't answer the original question of the thread but specific points of Friede's post. So here's my answer: I'm not feeling estranged from prog at all ... not classic prog, and certainly not modern prog. So far I've proven to be largely immune to what seems to happen to most people as they age: they get less and less flexible. I'm trying to counteract that and instead get more flexible with each new album that I listen to ... which doesn't mean that I like each and every style of music, but I'm trying to give them all a fair chance.

I feel very similarly as you do, Mike.

In my 30 or so years of prog freakdom, I've honesly never become estranged.  That's an estrange concept to me.