Thought/Suggestion ....

 

Just went through the complete list of reviews ... and came across this, by Roye Albrighton (Nektar) ... and ... well ... I agree. I wish I could add my comments to some of them, but they are locked up ... what a bummer!

 

"You see, I believe the term “progressive rock” should be called "pioneer rock": it means those bands who were the pioneers of music; those bands who broke the boundaries that others shied away from - those artists with vision and a will to break away from the verse/chorus/verse ritual of the pop machine."

 

"But the danger lies in this: if I was to use, say, a Mellotron for an opening sequence to a song I wrote because I felt it needed that sound, and the song itself was a huge dramatic-type big production opening, am I going to be credited for the piece I just wrote as “an original work of art?”  Or am I going to be immediately tagged as, say, a King Crimson/In the Court of the Crimson King-style band? Is this where individuality ends?"

 

And the first thing that came to my mind was ... this is almost exactly the same thing that I have been saying, and one of the reasons why I would love to see us be able to clean up the " definitions" that we have, so we can come in line with the ARTIST a bit more ... and I have been saying exactly the same thing ... when it comes to some of the details ... just because someone does odd time signatures, or later uses lots of synths and then has some this or that ... it does not necessarily make it "progressive" ... specially when the FORMAT of the piece is the same as anything that was there before. (verse/chorus/verse or the sonata format).

 

I really think that it is important that we start making it clear that what we came to call "progressive" music was indeed a vision, and a break away from the "pop machine", and that when we do that, a lot of the "sub-styles/genres" will be a bit easier to accept and understand ... because now we have the basic precept that the music is original, and not exactly conventional. While I can enjoy DT a lot, there are times when what I am hearing is not "new" at all ... it is just support for the guitar virtuoso, if you will ... and it takes away from the totality of the music. So, in a way I would not consider this "progressive", but I would consider it extremely adventurous rock music, and not exactly something that most people out there can play ... I don't think we are going to see many bands playing DT material so soon ... and I'm ok with "prog-rock" as a term for this material ... maybe even saying that it is getting closer to metal and such ... but in the end, the most important thing is getting the definition of "progressive" cleaned up.

 

And the most important part, always was to "those bands who broke the boundaries that others shied away from - those artists with vision and a will to break away from the verse/chorus/verse ritual of the pop machine."

 

Thanks a bunch ...

 

 

Pedro is referring to this interview from 2004 and not any "complete list of reviews": http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=969&title=roye-albrighton-june-2004 

 

Once I've read that, and attempted to digest the points Pedro is making, I may comment further.

 

 

If you want that interview thread re-opened you only have to ask.