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rogerthat 
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 Posted: July 11 2010 at 07:41 |
 Rabid wrote:
Dunno......I've never really seen a motif running thru any of Genesis's albums (except 'the Lamb Lies Down').......I've always just regarded it as music. |
There's a motif reinforced in many parts of SEBTP and is first introduced in Dancing with the Moonlit Knight, not surprisingly where Gabriel goes "Selling England by the Pound". It is repeated right at the end of Cinema Show, done so subtly that you'd not notice unless you paid complete attention and absorbed the album deeply. They were masters!
| Curious, tho.......what's the motif of Close to the Edge ?
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Why, Howe's guitar figure that binds together the epic through all its excursions.
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chopper
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 07:55 |
rogerthat wrote:
Living for the City, Visions and Too High. Complex chord progressions in all three, which is in general a feature of his classic output. Even Higher Ground, but I would particularly pick those three. It's not Genesis, but I never claimed it is. It is certainly a lot more proggy than Alan Parsons Project or Nightwish, so on and so forth.
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Complex chord progressions alone doesn't make it prog.
Edited by chopper - July 11 2010 at 07:55
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rogerthat
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 07:58 |
chopper wrote:
Complex chord progressions alone doesn't make it prog.
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Indeed, but if not, then what is the overarching element that makes APP or Steely Dan prog? Especially Steely Dan's main bag is complex chord progressions. I don't hear any prog in the 70s vein at all and they WERE a 70s band.
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Dean
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 08:18 |
rogerthat wrote:
chopper wrote:
Complex chord progressions alone doesn't make it prog.
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Indeed, but if not, then what is the overarching element that makes APP or Steely Dan prog? Especially Steely Dan's main bag is complex chord progressions. I don't hear any prog in the 70s vein at all and they WERE a 70s band.
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Don't know, don't care. Never listened to either of them in any great detail. SD were added on a majority vote (I abstained... which resulted in the Controversial Artists ruling that prevents me from ever abstaining again... if you want to drag up the SD addition all over again, feel free, but don't do it here in the "let's add Stevie Wonder" thread) and APP were moved over from Prog Related on the consensus that 'The Project' better fitted in Xover than Related, unlike his solo work which remains in PR.
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Rabid
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 08:20 |
rogerthat wrote:
Rabid wrote:
Dunno......I've never really seen a motif running thru any of Genesis's albums (except 'the Lamb Lies Down').......I've always just regarded it as music. |
There's a motif reinforced in many parts of SEBTP and is first introduced in Dancing with the Moonlit Knight, not surprisingly where Gabriel goes "Selling England by the Pound". It is repeated right at the end of Cinema Show, done so subtly that you'd not notice unless you paid complete attention and absorbed the album deeply. They were masters!
| Curious, tho.......what's the motif of Close to the Edge ?
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Why, Howe's guitar figure that binds together the epic through all its excursions. |
Just as Alex Lifeson's guitar-figures do, too, on all Rush's albums.
What's the worst thing you don't like about Rush? Geddy Lee's voice?
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"...the thing IS, to put a motor in yourself..."
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rogerthat
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 08:21 |
Dean wrote:
Don't know, don't care. Never listened to either of them in any great detail. SD were added on a majority vote (I abstained... which resulted in the Controversial Artists ruling that prevents me from ever abstaining again... if you want to drag up the SD addition all over again, feel free, but don't do it here in the "let's add Stevie Wonder" thread) and APP were moved over from Prog Related on the consensus that 'The Project' better fitted in Xover than Related, unlike his solo work which remains in PR. |
I am not questioning the additions, I am trying to understand the basis for them. If the only thing that matters is whether or not they came in or were thrown out through consensus, then this academic discussion doesn't need to be furthered, from my end. 
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rogerthat
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 08:24 |
Rabid wrote:
Just as Alex Lifeson's guitar-figures do, too, on all Rush's albums.
What's the worst thing you don't like about Rush? Geddy Lee's voice?
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There is a huge difference between Howe's approach and Lifeson's and the latter's can be seen even in Sabbath's riff explorations. But since you have resorted to alleging bias where there is none (being that I am a proud fan of Rush and own many of their discs ), I don't think this discussion is worth having. I have never understood why you folks would think likes and dislikes come into the picture when classifying an artist because it's a purely academic exercise. Maybe YOUR prejudices affect whether you call an artist prog or not, but not for me. Good day!
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Dean
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 08:37 |
Consensus does not apply for Controversial Artists - it has to be unanimous. However, consensus is the basis for any team-voting system - the majority wins, in this case the majority just needs to be 100% regardless of the academic discussions that precede the vote. At the moment it can never be greater than 80% unless you convince me to change my opinion.
Stating artist X is more Proggy than artist Y is never going to convince me of anything since that is your opinion against mine and none of us has the same model of what Proggy actually means. Chord progressions, complexity, fusion, structure, instrumentation, lyrical content, "conceptualisation" are all elements of Progressive Rock, but they are also elements of other forms of music too. We are not here to catalogue all the clever/intelligent/well-played/complex music in the world.
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What?
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Dean
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 08:40 |
rogerthat wrote:
Rabid wrote:
Just as Alex Lifeson's guitar-figures do, too, on all Rush's albums.
What's the worst thing you don't like about Rush? Geddy Lee's voice?
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There is a huge difference between Howe's approach and Lifeson's and the latter's can be seen even in Sabbath's riff explorations. But since you have resorted to alleging bias where there is none (being that I am a proud fan of Rush and own many of their discs ), I don't think this discussion is worth having. I have never understood why you folks would think likes and dislikes come into the picture when classifying an artist because it's a purely academic exercise. Maybe YOUR prejudices affect whether you call an artist prog or not, but not for me. Good day!
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Fortunately those people selected to be part of the additions process are very good at putting their prejudices and personal preferences aside when making addition evaluations. All of us had added bands we don't care for (and perhaps even strongly dislike).
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What?
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rogerthat
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 08:44 |
Dean wrote:
Stating artist X is more Proggy than artist Y is never going to convince me of anything since that is your opinion against mine and none of us has the same model of what Proggy actually means. Chord progressions, complexity, fusion, structure, instrumentation, lyrical content, "conceptualisation" are all elements of Progressive Rock, but they are also elements of other forms of music too. We are not here to catalogue all the clever/intelligent/well-played/complex music in the world.
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I agree with all of this except the "none of us has the same model" part, but I understand nobody's really interested in defining prog, so nothing can be done about that. That is not my point at all. I am simply asking what were the characteristics of Steely Dan's music that convinced the Xover team to add them...likewise with APP. There should surely have been SOME reasons. If shut cases are not discussed, then very well...but it's music, it's all made of notes and there are strong resemblances between SD and Stevie Wonder, one just gets called rock and the other doesn't. W.r.t your next post, I wasn't targeting you or the respective teams, I have just seen this line "What do you hate about X band" thrown about a lot in discussions related to classifications and don't understand. It's just a shortcut to settle or 'win' the argument.
Edited by rogerthat - July 11 2010 at 08:44
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Snow Dog
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 08:45 |
rogerthat wrote:
Rabid wrote:
Dunno......I've never really seen a motif running thru any of Genesis's albums (except 'the Lamb Lies Down').......I've always just regarded it as music. |
There's a motif reinforced in many parts of SEBTP and is first introduced in Dancing with the Moonlit Knight, not surprisingly where Gabriel goes "Selling England by the Pound". It is repeated right at the end of Cinema Show, done so subtly that you'd not notice unless you paid complete attention and absorbed the album deeply. They were masters!
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I think anyone would notice that its so obvious......but is that it? That's all? I'm a bit disappointed with that answer.
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rogerthat
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 08:47 |
Snow Dog wrote:
rogerthat wrote:
Rabid wrote:
Dunno......I've never really seen a motif running thru any of Genesis's albums (except 'the Lamb Lies Down').......I've always just regarded it as music. |
There's a motif reinforced in many parts of SEBTP and is first introduced in Dancing with the Moonlit Knight, not surprisingly where Gabriel goes "Selling England by the Pound". It is repeated right at the end of Cinema Show, done so subtly that you'd not notice unless you paid complete attention and absorbed the album deeply. They were masters!
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I think anyone would notice that its so obvious......but is that it? That's all? I'm a bit disappointed with that answer.
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I only answered that part of the question and not really what all makes SEBTP prog. It seems he didn't pick it up at least, because he claims there are no motifs in their music save Lamb. Thematic reinforcement is in general a feature of classic prog and is a pervasive element in Genesis's music as well.
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rogerthat
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 08:49 |
Another thing re Cinema Show is the beauty is not in introducing that motif right at the end but in how Banks's solo slowly but surely resolves to make way for that motif. THAT is their touch of brilliance. I would have to use time stamps to express better the points that make me gasp in amazement.  EDIT: And interestingly, the song as a whole hinges on a different motif, which is that acoustic guitar line coming in just before where Gabriel's vocals are introduced. Now how the song can be written around this motif, which seems to be the case, and yet repeats the refrain of Moonlit Knight is a beautiful mystery.
Edited by rogerthat - July 11 2010 at 08:51
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Rabid
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 08:53 |
rogerthat wrote:
Rabid wrote:
Just as Alex Lifeson's guitar-figures do, too, on all Rush's albums.
What's the worst thing you don't like about Rush? Geddy Lee's voice?
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There is a huge difference between Howe's approach and Lifeson's and the latter's can be seen even in Sabbath's riff explorations. But since you have resorted to alleging bias where there is none (being that I am a proud fan of Rush and own many of their discs ), I don't think this discussion is worth having. I have never understood why you folks would think likes and dislikes come into the picture when classifying an artist because it's a purely academic exercise. Maybe YOUR prejudices affect whether you call an artist prog or not, but not for me. Good day!
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Sorry bout' that.......you gave me the impression that you thought that Rush was a less valid band than Genesis because they don't repeat sections of their music.
Maybe motifs only exist in the imagination of the imaginer.......music IS pretty personal.
 Good night !
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"...the thing IS, to put a motor in yourself..."
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rogerthat
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 08:54 |
Rabid wrote:
Sorry bout' that.......you gave me the impression that you thought that Rush was a less valid band than Genesis because they don't repeat sections of their music.
Maybe motifs only exist in the imagination of the imaginer.......music IS pretty personal.
Good night !
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No, actually they are, they can be decoded..it's a question of noticing them. Ironically, it's more difficult in the intricate 70s prog. 'night!
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Alitare
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 08:55 |
Dean wrote:
Consensus does not apply for Controversial Artists - it has to be unanimous. However, consensus is the basis for any team-voting system - the majority wins, in this case the majority just needs to be 100% regardless of the academic discussions that precede the vote. At the moment it can never be greater than 80% unless you convince me to change my opinion.
Stating artist X is more Proggy than artist Y is never going to convince me of anything since that is your opinion against mine and none of us has the same model of what Proggy actually means. Chord progressions, complexity, fusion, structure, instrumentation, lyrical content, "conceptualisation" are all elements of Progressive Rock, but they are also elements of other forms of music too. We are not here to catalogue all the clever/intelligent/well-played/complex music in the world.
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My inquiry, however, lies mainly in what you use as a personal basis for prog, my friend. To reach a determination of what constitutes prog for yourself, you've got to utilize a comparison, somewhere. Take, for example, a situation where all music on this planet is as "progressive" as Gabriel-era Genesis. What would be prog in that world? So, when you say you judge a particular band based on their own merits, it seems to be a fairly meaningless gesture. Who do you compare Stevie Wonder to, to arrive at his non-prog status? If you don't compare him to anyone, at all, where does your determination of "prog" come from? Magic? I am not asking for a universal definition of prog. Like all words, the majority determines what it means, and each person tends to have a slightly differing take on the matter. I'm asking exactly what prog means to you, and why Stevie Wonder doesn't apply to this diagram, in your eyes.
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Dean
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 09:42 |
Alitare wrote:
Dean wrote:
Consensus does not apply for Controversial Artists - it has to be unanimous. However, consensus is the basis for any team-voting system - the majority wins, in this case the majority just needs to be 100% regardless of the academic discussions that precede the vote. At the moment it can never be greater than 80% unless you convince me to change my opinion.
Stating artist X is more Proggy than artist Y is never going to convince me of anything since that is your opinion against mine and none of us has the same model of what Proggy actually means. Chord progressions, complexity, fusion, structure, instrumentation, lyrical content, "conceptualisation" are all elements of Progressive Rock, but they are also elements of other forms of music too. We are not here to catalogue all the clever/intelligent/well-played/complex music in the world.
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My inquiry, however, lies mainly in what you use as a personal basis for prog, my friend. To reach a determination of what constitutes prog for yourself, you've got to utilize a comparison, somewhere. Take, for example, a situation where all music on this planet is as "progressive" as Gabriel-era Genesis. What would be prog in that world?
So, when you say you judge a particular band based on their own merits, it seems to be a fairly meaningless gesture. Who do you compare Stevie Wonder to, to arrive at his non-prog status? If you don't compare him to anyone, at all, where does your determination of "prog" come from? Magic? I am not asking for a universal definition of prog. Like all words, the majority determines what it means, and each person tends to have a slightly differing take on the matter. I'm asking exactly what prog means to you, and why Stevie Wonder doesn't apply to this diagram, in your eyes.
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I was going to post this in response to rogerthat's post, but here will do just as well.
A while ago, in the AZ I posted a reply relating to the addition of an extreme metal band, while not being specifically an answer to yours or rogerthat's post, it does outline y approach and discuss a little of why I believe it is impossible to create any definitions, or set any empirical rules on artist evaluations:
Dean wrote:
You were reacting to gut feel and there is nothing wrong with that when questioning an addition, even if we cannot use it to justify an addition (and by the same virtue cannot use it to veto an addition). I often have gut feel that particular additions would be wrong even though they fulfil all the criteria for addition, when that occurs I go looking for further justification to either accept or reject the addition.
Genre expansion is incremental, each band addition expands the genre whether we like it or not - it is impossible that the 5,000+ bands in the PA all have a relationship to the "core" of the genre and the 953 bands in the three Metal genres cannot all have a direct relationship to Dream Theater. Because we cannot define exactly what the Genre is musically, and therefore cannot categorically define each Subgenre in empirical terms the only mechanisms we have are a loose and ambiguous set of pseudo-musical/structural terms (i.e. the common elements of Prog) and the relationship to existent bands, (and since it is impossible to be related to the whole spectrum, that relationship has to be to a narrower subset).
Assuming that each evaluation identified some of the common elements of Prog, then each band in the PA has an incremental relationship to a subset of bands who in turn have an incremental relationship to yet other set of bands. This isn't the same as being "Prog Related" since each band or subset of bands has been previously identified as being 100% Prog by the previous "rules", but each inclusion moved the goalposts by an infinitesimal and indefinable amount so that after an indeterminate number of other similar additions the goalposts are moved sufficient to allow another set of artists to be added - that is not a conscious or systematic expansion of a subgenre, it is a consequential one that cannot be avoided unless we stop adding bands.
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Of course we evaluate artists by comparison to other artists already here, but not on a one by one basis - that would be impossible, fruitless, pointless, meaningless etc. but on a range of similarities to a range of artists within the particular subgenre. No single band is included here because they are similar to another band, but because there is commonality to a number of bands (erm, otherwise known as a subgenre). As I said in the quoted passage - this is incremental, each addition adds a new dynamic to the equation making easier to add other bands that wouldn't be added if the previous band hadn't been. In this particular case the commonality to existing bands is narrow (very narrow) and by far outnumbered by the dissimilar and unrelated characteristics. In all this there comes a point where the next incremental addition is so far removed from the initial criteria that there is no direct relationship. Here Stevie Wonder may bear some comparison to Steely Dan (who I believe should be in JR/F or PR btw) but none to The Moody Blues, Mike Oldfield, Argent and a wealth of other Xover artists.
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rogerthat
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 09:58 |
Dean wrote:
Of course we evaluate artists by comparison to other artists already here, but not on a one by one basis - that would be impossible, fruitless, pointless, meaningless etc. but on a range of similarities to a range of artists within the particular subgenre. No single band is included here because they are similar to another band, but because there is commonality to a number of bands (erm, otherwise known as a subgenre). As I said in the quoted passage - this is incremental, each addition adds a new dynamic to the equation making easier to add other bands that wouldn't be added if the previous band hadn't been. In this particular case the commonality to existing bands is narrow (very narrow) and by far outnumbered by the dissimilar and unrelated characteristics. In all this there comes a point where the next incremental addition is so far removed from the initial criteria that there is no direct relationship. Here Stevie Wonder may bear some comparison to Steely Dan (who I believe should be in JR/F or PR btw) but none to The Moody Blues, Mike Oldfield, Argent and a wealth of other Xover artists.
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This explains very logically why Stevie Wonder cannot be included in the Crossover database but still doesn't answer why his music is not prog, that's a separate question. Nevermind! And you are spot on, SD should be in JR/F or PR.
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Snow Dog
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 09:59 |
rogerthat wrote:
Dean wrote:
Of course we evaluate artists by comparison to other artists already here, but not on a one by one basis - that would be impossible, fruitless, pointless, meaningless etc. but on a range of similarities to a range of artists within the particular subgenre. No single band is included here because they are similar to another band, but because there is commonality to a number of bands (erm, otherwise known as a subgenre). As I said in the quoted passage - this is incremental, each addition adds a new dynamic to the equation making easier to add other bands that wouldn't be added if the previous band hadn't been. In this particular case the commonality to existing bands is narrow (very narrow) and by far outnumbered by the dissimilar and unrelated characteristics. In all this there comes a point where the next incremental addition is so far removed from the initial criteria that there is no direct relationship. Here Stevie Wonder may bear some comparison to Steely Dan (who I believe should be in JR/F or PR btw) but none to The Moody Blues, Mike Oldfield, Argent and a wealth of other Xover artists.
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This explains very logically why Stevie Wonder cannot be included in the Crossover database but still doesn't answer why his music is not prog, that's a separate question. Nevermind! And you are spot on, SD should be in JR/F or PR.
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No I shouldn't! 
Edited by Snow Dog - July 11 2010 at 10:00
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rogerthat
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Posted: July 11 2010 at 10:01 |
 By the way, just curious, did my later posts about Cinema Show pacify you or were you still looking for more?
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