Emulating Classic Prog Is Not Prog

TODDLER wrote: leonalvarado wrote: Junges wrote: Andyman1125 wrote: In this argument one must differentiate progressive music and progression in music, where progressive music is the stuff we love, and progression in music is when a band furthers the genre with a new style, experimentation, or other progressions of music. Emulating classic prog is still progressive music, but is not progression in music. That's really all there is. The problem is that often when a band is similar or very similar to other, people call it a "copy". I don't think so. Even when bands sound very very similar they have their differences. And I don't think artists always have to be 100% original, make something new. They will always have influences, no matter if they show it clearly or not. I agree with you. Most progressive bands had their inspirations coming from other bands or even other styles of music. The fact that they were able to come up with a distinct sound is more of a by-product of the band's collective as it is trying to come up with something original. Each individual sees and translates their influences in their own way. When in a band, you can get all the elements to align, (sort of speak), then you know you'd have something special going on. Sometimes, that something special happens to appeal to a wide audience. Its a combination of talents and even some good old luck (at least at the beginning). The genres are defined by certain amount of similarities so therefore, many bands will end up with a similar sound. It doesn't mean that the band is just emulating other bands. It could simply mean that some bands are taking cues from their favourite musicians and placing them into their music. Most people listen to a moog solo and immediately associate it with Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman. Does that mean that everyone who bought a moog is simply just trying to emulate them? Could it be that ELP's sound just served as the catalyst for these people to buy into the instrument? In time everyone finds their own sound. However, there is nothing wrong borrowing ideas and sounds until such time arrives. Otherwise, it would be like saying that people should stop composing classical music because the orchestra thing has been done to death. Yes! I agree with many points here.....but.....isn't the musician suppose to be investigating Classical composers works that Emerson, Wakeman, and most of the others did not? Why don't they just use their own minds and find different composers for inspiration and forget about focusing on a style of today? That's what Progressive is all about .....finding a voice of your own.. Emerson and Wakeman as great as they are simply played Classical piano and were inspired by their favorited composers and decided it would be a great idea to combine it with Rock.   A formula method:  You come up with a beautiful chord progression of your own. Next you hear changes with bass and drums where there are breaks or stops over an odd time signature. Now you might hear a variety of bass note changes played on Cello from some great Classical piece that you played but no one in prog has yet given the attention to. So you can emulate that composers approach in style to the bass notes or bass strings of the guitar which are about to be composed for your piece. You have to be able to feel the composers style and by playing a few of their pieces in the past you most certainly will. So now you are doing what Emerson and Wakeman truly did on your own or independently.   This is the reason why when prog bands focus on a tune physically written around tri-tones it ends up sounding too much like Fripp, Gong , or Miles Davis. It's because they are only going to the specific composers that Fripp, Steve Hillage, or Miles Davis went to. There are so many damn 20th century composers who used tri-tones in their music and none of the reflections of their writings have ever turned up on a King Crimson album, Fripp solo, Miles Davis, or Steve Hillage's creative tri-tone usage. You gotta be progressive on your own. Fripp is not going to hold your hand like a little sour puss and guide you there. Look at Univers Zero? Okay....1979 I know...but they were still the first of the great aftermath of the original prog explosion. They might sound a little like King Crimson , but they definitely are influenced by different composers than Fripp. You can hear that on Rhythmix. There are other ways to do this. Better methods then observing prog heroes when you are attempting to be a serious composer of prog. Just by following the path they were on and not the choices they made when they followed it. Otherwise,...you are going to sound just like them.

thier is supposed to be hints of Van der Graaf Generator in Marillions music also, I can hear it but my eyes have probably fooled me

rogerthat wrote: leonalvarado wrote: A good example would be Marillion. If you ever heard "Grendel", then you know exactly that they were trying to create their own "Supper's Ready". I don't care what either the band or some of their most beloved fans say, the proof is in the music. Let's face it, they wanted to sound very much like the Gabriel era Genesis. In time they developed more into their own sound and eventually broke out of their original idea. I happen to think that this occurred by the time they recorded "Misplaced Childhood". Today's Marillion sounds very different from the one back in the mid eighties. The have found their true voice but you will still find many fans that liked them better when they sounded like a Genesis clone.   Marillion are not a Genesis clone.  There are only two aspects of Genesis's music that are echoed in the Fish Marillion albums, the angular vocal melodies and prominent use of keyboard arpeggios.  They derive a lot from Pink Floyd and Rush. They are more "rocking" than Genesis and this is mainly due to the influence of those two bands. I also hear a bit of Melt, especially in Fugazi. Their influences are fairly obvious and I would not consider them as original or unique as Genesis or Yes but they were not Genesis clones.

leonalvarado wrote: I don't hear any Pink Floyd and Rush at all in the earlier albums but the Genesis influences are clearly there.

Very strange because Trewavas's bass playing certainly channels Geddy and Rothery's Celtic-flavoured solos, if I might call it that, evoke Gilmour.  And as I asked before, where does all the rock in their music come from but these bands?  Certainly not from Genesis.  There are mostly superficial resemblances to Genesis in their music and it's unfortunate that over the years, so much importance has been attached to that.  I do hear Genesis influence in Grendel but that does not also mean Script...or Chelsea Monday or Assassing were all sufficiently faithful imitations of Genesis to call them Genesis clones.

leonalvarado wrote: "Script for a Jester's Tear" is a great album that sounds pretty much like old Genesis. Surely you have noticed that.

Again, it is just the one aspect of keyboard arpeggios where I notice the similarity and that is not enough to pass it off as old Genesis updated for the 80s.  And if we look at say the title track, the instrumental passage before the "Fool Escaped from Paradise..." vocal melody strongly evokes Comfortably Numb ("Is there anyone home").  As such, their music strongly evokes Wall-era Floyd, another example being Rothery's solo on She Chameleon. He Knows You Know evokes the Supertramp track School with a Rush-like bassline.  Garden Party sounds like Iron Maiden with lots of keyboards instead of metal guitar. There is only one track where I hear elements of Genesis - The Web, especially the keyboard solo.  But that doesn't necessarily persuade me that they could be called Genesis clones. They are influenced by them and by many other 70s rock bands and wear their influences on their sleeve but it cannot be Genesis to the exclusion of other influences.  You are of course free to have your opinion on the matter but I disagree. 

Edited by rogerthat - July 20 2011 at 20:27

The beat of Garden Party is very NWOBHM/speed metal-like though without the crush of distorted metal guitar, it doesn't feel like that. 

I can see why people would call Marillion a Genesis clone and you are right, the theatrical element is part of why people make the connection but I don't think it can be presented as a widely accepted belief, much less as a fact. 

Maybe it has already been stated int he thread though there are alot of posts to go thru.
But here it goes :
If it has not happened already there will be a point when one cannot really do anything new musically. That all areas have been explored, picked apart and put back together again. Influence is a very porous thing and subjective. You either like the group and it's music or not.
But to try to define why they compose/play what they do I think is a waste. That can only come from the composer him-herself.
Listen to it enjoy it or discard. It's how it relates to you and your life.
Critiquing the band's why -how- if's are a waste of time.

If the emulation isn't prog than how can the original be prog?  The style of music isn't prog just for the act of being pioneering.

Everything ha pretty much already been done.
Who cares as long as it's effective.

Slartibartfast wrote: If the emulation isn't prog than how can the original be prog?  The style of music isn't prog just for the act of being pioneering.

It's amazing how often this whole genre/attitude debate comes up, given that it's a pretty simple idea to resolve in a way in which everybody wins.

When prog first emerged it was anything BUT a coherent style of music or genre, and the original progressive artists were lumped together because of a common attitude/approach they shared towards making rock music. By about 74/75, however, the likes of Yes, KC, ELP, PFM, etc. were all well established and were influencing a lot of the obscurer 70s artists we do so revere round these parts and this marks the beginning of prog as an identifiable genre with its own particular tropes and idioms.

So now, is a band intent on making music which relies upon those same tropes and idioms some 40 years later still a prog rock band? Yes, absolutely. Are they progressive, in the sense that they eschew the limitations of conventional rock music in favour of trying to find their own unique, radical approach? Not really, no.

So nowadays (and arguably ever since the mid-70s) we have two distinct ideas under the same umbrella - prog rock, the genre, and progressive rock, the attitude. Both are valid, both deserve a place here, but everyone's probably going to be a bit biased towards one or the other.

IMO.

I mean compared to today's pop and rap music 70s prog is still ahead of its time by far