Emulating Classic Prog Is Not Prog

Understand that there's a difference between originality and creativity.

yanch wrote:   THIS!   Well said.  Additionally, I'd ask the question-don't we listen to music that makes us happy, or that in some way moves us and makes us want to listen to more of it? That doesn't mean it has to sound exactly like something else, but that it will have characteristics that the listener truly enjoys. For example: I love Gabriel era Genesis. Does that mean I shouldn't like or deride an album like Big Big Trains The Underfall Yard because it sounds a lot like classic era Genesis? NO! It is influenced by that era, but it isn't the same. There are examples like this in all genres and sub-genres. The only thing that should be important is whether or not the listener  enjoys and wants to hear more music that is similar. To paraphrase Rick Pitino (I know-a sports reference!!!!!  ) "The classic prog era isn't walking through that door!" It's passed and we need to find what we enjoy and listen to it.

Edited by rogerthat - April 22 2011 at 00:30

ProgressiveAttic wrote: Emulating could be progressive... many (if not all) of the classic prog bands started as cover bands or emulating other groups (such as Yes playing Beatles covers).

A lot of artists are just writing what comes most naturally to them. Sometimes what comes naturally to them has some aesthetic similarities with other artists. This isn't always intentional or even desirable, it's just what happens.

Harry Hood wrote: A lot of artists are just writing what comes most naturally to them. Sometimes what comes naturally to them has some aesthetic similarities with other artists. This isn't always intentional or even desirable, it's just what happens. What isn't progressive is denying an artist the progressive label based on aesthetic similarities alone.

richardh wrote: Nathaniel607 wrote: I don't get it. This just seems stupid to me. You guys must be hearing something I'm not.  Everyone on this website seems to think everyone's copying off of someone. Just because it has similar texture or instruments or whatever. Yeah, it may use similar instrumentation, or structures, but it doesn't matter. Because the composition is different. Just cause they have a similar style, doesn't mean they are THE SAME. The same can be said about any genre - jazz, for example, has a pretty set-in-stone set of instruments that can be used, but there's still a lot of groups that manage to sound different from each other.  I just don't get this argument... it just seems that people are trying to invent more ways to praise "The Golden Age Masters" even more than they already are.    People seem to need everything to sound completely innovative, but forget that there can be more subtle innovations. Interesting chord structures, riffs, texture etcetera. Of course, it's nice to here something that sounds completely new, and that can be found as well.   I agree especially with the bit I've highlighted. We just seem to bow down to Yes and Genesis with the idea that these bands achieved perfection and could not be improved upon. I don't follow that reasoning either. I've always enjoyed IQ more than Genesis because their music engages me on an emotional level even though its not innovative or even on as high a level from a technical viewpoint. There is just no accounting for taste

Well there is the example of say Coheed And Cambria and Rush. C&C frontman Claudio Sanchez was hugely disturbed and frustrated when interviewers/critics repeatedly stressed the huge influence of Rush on C&C, how Sanchez was clearly a huge Rush fan and even going so far as to call C&C a Rush soundalike or copy.

This "argument" began 30 years ago and still people regurgitate it like it means something. Progressive (n) and progressive (adj) can co-exist side by side without the Universe imploding in cosmic cataclysm. They are neither mutually inclusive nor mutually exclusive so an artist can be retrogressive and innovative in the same breath even if you don't like the resultant vector, it can and does exists and it always has, even back in the late 60s / early 70s with bands building on what went before... Proto-Prog bands were retrogressive and innovative, early Prog bands were retrogressive and innovative. (Innovative means 'renewal or improvement' ).

The best prog today is the prog which follows the original prog formula but the compositions and sound is all original. In other words, sounding like a unique 70s band. If you can compose great ideas then you are half way there. It's all about producing rock with compositions and musicanship with a jazz/classical method and using the right instruments. That's what they did in the 70s and if you can do it now you are still original as long as you can compose quality stuff and have taste in the right instruments. Bands can use all those instruments, but if you can't compose great stuff it will never sound that great. If you resort to composing songs which are based on other bands then you obviously aren't a great composer either because you have to copy others. i'll never bother with Opeth, Tool, Porcupine tree etc. A complete lack of jazz and classical ideas in their composition, a complete lack of hammond organ, rhodes piano etc, a complete lack of wind instrument and a over reliance on guitar. Not very interesting music most of the time

Edited by dr prog - April 22 2011 at 05:50

rogerthat wrote:   I am not sure I understand this, it seems to read as if music outside the Western system is invalid. Have you actually heard music outside the Western music system, with an open minded perspective?  Are you aware that Indian music, for instance, is melodically and rhythmically more intricate than Western music? And are you aware that some artists have been able to blend both schools seamlessly?  So if I understand you correctly and you are dismissive of music outside the Western system, it seems perfectly plausible to me that your threshold of tolerance for more of the same would be high because your willingness to embrace something different is apparently not very high.