Joanna Newsom for prog folk - again!!

King By-Tor wrote: I can not judge whether it is actually prog or not based on the guidelines of the site.

I gave up on that pursuit long back.   After 1970s, most prog that can actually be judged to be prog without getting into whether it's experimental or weird or whatever is from the Avant/RIO/Zeuhl section.  Some early neo prog albums like Script, Lush Attic, some rare modern geniuses like Kevin Gilbert.  I find it hard to take anybody who says you can hear a prog metal album and judge it to be prog on a straight line from the 1970s seriously, I mean, you've got to be kidding me.  Music that could be judged progressive in the contemporary scene is necessarily going to be very different from what was prog in the 1970s; if anything, that's a good sign and indicates a measure of originality. 

I wouldn't mind seeing her in. I realize the banner says "ultimate prog rock resource", but I'd be pretty lenient on the "rock quotient" required for a category called Prog Folk if that's all that's keeping her out.

stonebeard wrote: Tori Amos has a handful of kinda sorta progressive rock structured songs.

See, this is the problem, I more or less summarized it on the previous page, there is, largely, no such thing as progressive rock after the 70s.  Most of what there is is in Avant/RIO and a handful of neo prog bands.  Extended sections don't make it prog, that was just one of the hallmarks of prog in the 70s and a more or less incidental one, imo.  If you want to say extended sections equate prog rock structure, then Rainbow, Black Sabbath or Metallica should be in Progressive Metal and not Prog Related.  If we only go by the presence of some hallmarks/elements of prog, they are definitely present in Tori Amos's music.  I would not call it prog rock but then, I would not call a lot of stuff after the 70s that's on this site prog rock and I truthfully don't understand how to decide if a band from after the 70s is prog rock as per this website's requirements.  It's all very well if you don't care about Nightwish, but they are on this website, and in prog metal and not prog related, and even if they are in a different sub-genre, they define the 'standards' of what is and what is not prog as per this website in some way; after all, it is all supposed to collectively represent prog rock.  If artists like Tori Amos, Bjork or Newsom ought to be judged by the standards of what was progressive rock in the 70s, how about judging progressive metal by those same standards?  Most prog metal additions are made by judging them to be progressive against metal standards, and not whether they are progressive rock.

rogerthat wrote: stonebeard wrote: Tori Amos has a handful of kinda sorta progressive rock structured songs. If artists like Tori Amos, Bjork or Newsom ought to be judged by the standards of what was progressive rock in the 70s, how about judging progressive metal by those same standards?  Most prog metal additions are made by judging them to be progressive against metal standards, and not whether they are progressive rock.

I'm not talking about how prog metal is judged, and once again, I really don't care about discussing that aspect ofhe site, and seeing how it makes no consequence on my argument to ignore it, I will.

I think we would solve a lot of our problems by keeping in mind a lot of the tenets of progressive rock when evaluating new artists to add. Look, it seems to me that prog was pretty well defined in the beginning. Long-ish songs sometimes, complex compositions, lots of virtuosity going around. Pushing all sorts of boundaries. That was fine then, but music has broadened and expanded incredibly since the late 60s, into electronic music, metal, post-rock, ambient, avant-garde, and frankly I find it hard to figure out how we can stake claim to Tori Amos or Bjork. Bjork's most ambitious career turn was into electronic music, and not the insular Berlin and wherever Kraftwerk are from schools. She simply doesn't fit here unless we uselessly expand the definitions of prog to make her fit.

In the case of Tori Amos, 95% of what she writes is pop songs. Pretty simply pop songs. Clever instrumentation, sure, but we're in a sorry state if adding a synthesizer and a banjo in the same song makes someone Crossover. Which, by the way, makes no sense as a genre, and causes more trouble than it's worth.

This site is implicitly expanding the definitions of progressive music to include pop artists that progress...as pop artists. Maybe that's worth including, but there's no logical reason to avoid adding "Goa Trance" as a genre here. After all, it did progress the trance scene. (We obviously aren't playing favorites with rock music anymore [re:Bjork])

I'm still pissed off about Glenn Branca not getting in. I mean how the hell does Bjork get in but Glenn Branca doesn't. I mean I support Bjork being here but come on, GLENN BRANCA.

Oh was he? I didn't know.

Negoba wrote: I just got YS and this is clearly a record with prog written all over it. I have always said, the purpose of this archive is to direct people of similar taste to other great music they could enjoy and might not otherwise find. This definitely qualifies.   Yes she's a variant of singer-songwriter. So is Hammill.

stonebeard wrote: rogerthat wrote: stonebeard wrote: You can't stop Tori Amos. And that is somehow more objectionable than that you couldn't stop Nightwish?  At least, Tori Amos has SOMETHING to do with prog. Nightwish has nothing to do with it all, not in spirit,not in form, just some dubious, superficial similarity to power-prog metal a la Symphony X. But I guess ear-splitting pseudo-opera is more proggy than Newsom's childlike wailing, p'haps? Tori Amos has a handful of kinda sorta progressive rock structured songs. She almost never veered from pop/rock, and only made the piano rock more weird through instrumentation and composition. >>>> She spiced things up, to summarize. I don't care about rehashing old arguments, but I never have seen any good argument for her being here at all, let alone in one of the "legitimate" genres. All I've heard is "wellI guess you haven't really listened to much Tori Amos, then." Wrong. Very wrong. >>>>> And I don't care about Nightwish, so...ok.

The first disc of Have One On Me is essentially Ys material with percussion. 

Sean Trane wrote:   Roger, Outside being a Kate Bush clone, could you be a little more specific and argument as to why you'd see just another singer-songwriter and her piano being anything remotely "prog"... just look up a DVD of her concert, you'll be bored by the fourth song, because she's fairly one-dimensional artiste (something that we couldn't possibly say about Newsom, though) and her stage presence (outside her atrocious tastes in clothes) is about lesser than a carrot.....

It's your opinion, with due respect to you, sir, that she's just another singer with her piano and I don't agree with it.  Little Earthquakes has diversity and width that very few modern prog albums, at least from the big names, can boast of.  Sure, OK Computer is at an even higher plane in that respect, but I guess even that's grudgingly accepted as prog in these parts.    I always thought and still do that prog was or is about this diversity and width, the ability to approach a concept in different ways, the ability to break out of rudimentary form, even if in modest ways like Little Earthquakes, at all times bound together tightly by compositional command and control.  I always took prog to have 'progressed' rock in that sense more than any other - of making it more sophisticated and 'musical'. It has taken me rather a long time to figure out that it's perceived mostly as a left brained, geeky game. In other words, Tori Amos just sounds less progressive because her mode of delivery and chosen instrumental palate is all too familiar but in terms of control over her medium, she's got a headstart over those bands who sound exciting and out there on the surface and have woefully not made much effort to put the pieces together on closer examination and thereby fall flat.  For me, that is a bare minimum qualification to call an artist prog and in that sense, Tori has something to do with prog without really being anywhere as brilliant or inventive as the greats of prog, should that be the standards by which you want to evaluate her.   Also, her music evokes Joni Mitchell much more for me and her singing Madonna.  Kate Bush is quite a different beast altogether.