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moshkito 
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 Posted: March 13 2015 at 10:52 |
 moshkito wrote:
... you ready? ... it faltered, and even Peter Gabriel sang about it (SEBTP) ... so you know how fast it started falling apart, but in my book, it didn't help that PG was feeling frustrated by it all, and not wanting to go further with it. And the LLDOB is the rest of it. QUIT! DIE! OVER!
I think that "prog" continued, but it was not just as "popular" and by that time the "giants" of progressive had gone pop anyway, and it made it look like the scene died, when in fact, it NEVER DIED ... except in England ... which has made me want to say that it was a media thing in London all along, and the realities wwere slightly buried in words, that most folks would not even know what they meant? ... something silly like that! The 80's was full of new stuff ... but the problem is that we "thought" that there was only one GOD that could show us the way! And this is the main issue ... we refuse to accept that "GOD" has many names in many different cultures and that music -- progressive or not -- is also elsewhere.
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I wrote this BEFORE I read that section in the Robert Wyatt book ... guess what ... it would be political pressures and what not that would help many people think that "progressive" died ... when in fact the social/political times in England changed so hard that it affect people subtly! And caused the arts to change as well! It might be possible to say that Robert is overly sensitive to it, but his examples friends make it very clear that things change ... for something else.
Edited by moshkito - March 13 2015 at 10:58
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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SteveG
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Posted: March 10 2015 at 15:24 |
Toaster Mantis wrote:
I got the impression that progressive rock was initially part of the same overall cultural moment as the psychedelic movement it branched off from, which did have a subculture or two of its own associated with it in the Beat Generation and the Hippie Movement that a whole set of philosophical and spiritual ideals as well as a certain visual aesthetic came as part of.
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One of the few things that I think I agree with Bill Bruford on is the Prog was initially part of an oppositional music subculture until the "Intelligentsia" got a hold of it and claimed Prog for their own. Like pirate's capturing a ship.
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SteveG
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Posted: March 10 2015 at 15:18 |
^Your right. It's still dying. 
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WeepingElf
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Posted: March 10 2015 at 15:11 |
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Indeed, prog never died - it only fell out of favour and was considered "uncool".
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... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
"What does Elvish rock music sound like?" - "Yes."
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moshkito
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Posted: March 10 2015 at 12:24 |
WeepingElf wrote:
(The impression is almost correct, though using the word "correct" ... might not be the right one, but it's close enough!)
Yes. Classical progressive rock was part of (the English wing of) what is widely known as "the Counterculture" (read, for instance, Macan, Rocking the Classic), which of course was in many ways different in different countries, yet all those movements had something in common, namely a post-materialist progressive outlook (a drive to better the quality of life - and not only the material standard of living! - of the entire human race).
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NICE ... very nice ... and you can go to Germany, France, Italy, America and England and it's all there!
WeepingElf wrote:
... This is most visible in Yes, but plays a role in prog as general. "The Counterculture", however, faltered in the early 70s, though not without serving as a recruiting field of "Green" and left-wing political movements, leaving prog without a viable subcultural substructure, which may be one of the reasons why prog fell out of favour in the late 70s.
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... you ready? ... it faltered, and even Peter Gabriel sang about it (SEBTP) ... so you know how fast it started falling apart, but in my book, it didn't help that PG was feeling frustrated by it all, and not wanting to go further with it. And the LLDOB is the rest of it. QUIT! DIE! OVER!
I think that "prog" continued, but it was not just as "popular" and by that time the "giants" of progressive had gone pop anyway, and it made it look like the scene died, when in fact, it NEVER DIED ... except in England ... which has made me want to say that it was a media thing in London all along, and the realities wwere slightly buried in words, that most folks would not even know what they meant? ... something silly like that! The 80's was full of new stuff ... but the problem is that we "thought" that there was only one GOD that could show us the way! And this is the main issue ... we refuse to accept that "GOD" has many names in many different cultures and that music -- progressive or not -- is also elsewhere.
This, believe it or not, is a very important pretext for this discussion, albeit one that could become incendiary real quick and shouldn't ... but it is just another example, of how we do not believe that there is a world at the end of the ... FLAT ... ocean that has been keeping away from ........................ ????
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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WeepingElf
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Posted: March 10 2015 at 10:17 |
Toaster Mantis wrote:
I got the impression that progressive rock was initially part of the same overall cultural moment as the psychedelic movement it branched off from, which did have a subculture or two of its own associated with it in the Beat Generation and the Hippie Movement that a whole set of philosophical and spiritual ideals as well as a certain visual aesthetic came as part of. |
Yes. Classical progressive rock was part of (the English wing of) what is widely known as "the Counterculture" (read, for instance, Macan, Rocking the Classic), which of course was in many ways different in different countries, yet all those movements had something in common, namely a post-materialist progressive outlook (a drive to better the quality of life - and not only the material standard of living! - of the entire human race). This is most visible in Yes, but plays a role in prog as general. "The Counterculture", however, faltered in the early 70s, though not without serving as a recruiting field of "Green" and left-wing political movements, leaving prog without a viable subcultural substructure, which may be one of the reasons why prog fell out of favour in the late 70s.
| This is, as far as I recall, what the Rock In Opposition movement tried to preserve in reaction to the commercialization of progressive music and get back to its original avant-garde ethos but even that tells that most of progressive rock had kind of separated from the psychedelic culture's origins at some point with the two being separate scenes that just overlapped a bit in places. |
I think this is true. Some people saw classical progressive rock as a commercialization of the psychedelic-avant-garde "real thing". There may be something to that, sure; it was easier in the early 70s to sell multimovement suites than LP-side-long noodlings on a single chord. Of course, the latter is IMHO hardly endurable without taking "psychedelic" drugs, and we all know what a sham those drugs were and still are.
Of course, all that stuff stopped having much of an influence on the mainstream culture at large by the late 1970s if not the early 1980s by then, before I think it saw a revival of sorts in the 1990s? Even then it's now for the most part something that plenty of cultural history books, newspaper columns and documentaries get made about but nowhere as many people actively identify with as metal, punk, hiphop, goth etc. at least if you ask people my age around here.
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Sure. Of course, metal, punk, hip-hip, goth etc. all have a stronger "provocation value" than prog. They sound "ugly" to the average person who is not involved with the relevant scene, and are therefore better suited to the "ressentiment listener" who uses music to show his discord with the mainstream. Most kinds of progressive rock do not really afford that. I remember how in '88, my grandmother entered my room while I was listening to Marillion, and said that the music was "beautiful". Those of my classmates who listened to Slayer or Public Enemy certainly did not hear that from their grandmothers!
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Toaster Mantis
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Posted: March 10 2015 at 04:49 |
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I got the impression that progressive rock was initially part of the same overall cultural moment as the psychedelic movement it branched off from, which did have a subculture or two of its own associated with it in the Beat Generation and the Hippie Movement that a whole set of philosophical and spiritual ideals as well as a certain visual aesthetic came as part of. This is, as far as I recall, what the Rock In Opposition movement tried to preserve in reaction to the commercialization of progressive music and get back to its original avant-garde ethos but even that tells that most of progressive rock had kind of separated from the psychedelic culture's origins at some point with the two being separate scenes that just overlapped a bit in places.
Of course, all that stuff stopped having much of an influence on the mainstream culture at large by the late 1970s if not the early 1980s by then, before I think it saw a revival of sorts in the 1990s? Even then it's now for the most part something that plenty of cultural history books, newspaper columns and documentaries get made about but nowhere as many people actively identify with as metal, punk, hiphop, goth etc. at least if you ask people my age around here.
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"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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rogerthat
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Posted: March 09 2015 at 21:02 |
moshkito wrote:
Terakonin wrote:
I would say that one of the many reasons metal is more successful is because there is a reasonably sized subculture associated with it, and that's something prog doesn't have. It's purely about the music. |
ohhh dear ... baroque never had a culture! Romantic never had a culture! Surrealism never had a culture! Dadaism never had a culture! Metal'ism -- I guess, has something that the world has never seen or experienced ...
What kind of BS is that?
Welcome to the board, btw ... the comment is not meant to give you a scare! But you got to use your noodles!
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We do not have to dig the depths of history to answer rather mundane questions. What some of the folks here have said about metal vis a vis prog is true. It is a lifestyle. No, every metalhead doesn't have to have long hair or wear denims but the fact is if you go to a metal gig (and I mean 'pure', 'tr00' metal like Slayer, not a band like Dream Theater where progheads might turn up), most of the audience would be in 'metal wear'. Most will be headbanging, most will jump into the moshpit, etc. Prog has never been about a lifestyle. Some of the bands like ELP may have enjoyed a lavish lifestyle in the 70s but it didn't automatically imply that progheads needed to be flamboyant too. Prog attire was and is either intentionally outrageous (as in Gabriel's costumes) or entirely non descript, sometimes even old fashioned. The fact is since the birth of rock, the 15-24 thereabouts demographic has become very important for the music industry to ensure commercial success of their records. Such thinking percolates to the underground too; it is not immune to it. The fact is metal's lifestyle appeal draws in a lot of youngsters. Not solely the lifestyle, sure, but many who are at first drawn to the music also buy into the lifestyle and the famous metal motto of "Stay metal" (alternatively, "Stay brutal"). One of my friends resisted cutting his hair to satisfy his corporate masters for a long time because he saw it as having to go against his metal ideology or what have you. What was the scenario with regard to baroque is really not relevant here because you didn't have worldwide distribution of recorded music and you didn't have worldwide avenues of promotion like TV and internet. Even if the music biz has always existed, it now operates more in the fashion of a transnational conglomerate and the music itself is not immune to the implications of that. Music being regarded as 'hip' is important because whether the music is 'good' or not is surely not a question with a definite answer and varies too much from person to person. Hipness on the other hand can be spread through aspiration and peer pressure.
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silverpot
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Posted: March 09 2015 at 19:21 |
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WeepingElf
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Posted: March 09 2015 at 15:41 |
silverpot wrote:
Terakonin wrote:
I would say that one of the many reasons metal is more successful is because there is a reasonably sized subculture associated with it, and that's something prog doesn't have. It's purely about the music. |
I think that's a good observation. Most metal fans know they're metal fans and spend their hard earned cash on paraphernalia and take part in the festivals devoted to metal music. For many it's a lifestyle. |
Sure. There is a notion of "being metal" which goes beyond listening to the music. There is not much of a notion of "being prog" going beyond listening to the music.
Whereas most prog fans have no idea that the kind of music they listen to is called prog. I certainly didn't until I found this board, neither did my friends until I told them. 
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Huh? Most prog bands are unknown to people who aren't aware of "prog". There may be some Pink Floyd fans who aren't aware of "prog", and there may have been some Marillion fans in the 80s who weren't aware of "prog", but these days, most prog fans do have an idea that the kind of music they listen to is called "prog". But this may vary by country; I can only speak of Germany here.
Edited by WeepingElf - March 09 2015 at 15:42
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moshkito
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Posted: March 09 2015 at 13:09 |
CPicard wrote:
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- How many people from the lower classes were aware of Bach, Purcell or Monteverdi at the times of Baroque? I can believe that Monteverdi's first operas had some success among the "popular classes", but I still have some doubt about the other musical works of these times.
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There is no way to tell. History books are not detailed enough on these things, and we all have this historical view that is more of an upper class thing than otherwise, although we do know, for example, that the majority of audiences for Shakespeare were not the courts ... and that may have given us the first CLEAR indication that the courts and upper class were becoming less and less the definition of the arts and the like. This is not the case in painting where the church spent years destroying everything, so history in that area is really harsh and one sided!
Likewise, Moliere, who spent most of his life making fun of the upper class ... it would be unlikely that his biggest audiences were the courts and the upper class.
Today, this is different. The sales and commercial development of the popular and public class, have out-numbered the "classical" and these (supposedly) higher elements in music so much, that tomorrow, guess who the new rich and upper class will be? That will change the culture of music and its definitions forever!
We're in the middle of the "public" revolution and in about 30 to 40 more years we might have a better run/knowledge of where these things might go for a few years.
CPicard wrote:
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- Was Surrealism followed by a huge audience (not to talk about the Dada movement)? Did "Un chien andalou" gather thousands of people at the movies?
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Actually it went backwards and the likes of Jean Cocteau helped bring attention to these things backwards because all of a sudden the church was putting them all down ... and that means everyone went to see it. This concept, btw, only ended with the famous film "Deep Throat". Nowadays if the church says anything, everyone laughs and ignores it!
Surrealism, when it hit, came at the worst possible time, but also the best time. Worst because of the massive economic problems and stock market crashes that really created havoc with many economies and that meant no one could exactly afford a book or a movie. The 30's in America are a very interesting time, but also one that shows how most arts sufferent and did not go very far. Weird part is that Surrealism continued, probably because of the European side of it, while the newspaper plays and other American designs were lost in the process, but they, eventually, gave rise to things like Orson Wells!
CPicard wrote:
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- Same for Romantism: how many people in the XIXth century have read Madame de Staël, the young Victor Hugo or Byron? Were these writers connected with the composers of their times?
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Which is the reason why I always say ... as far as we know ... since those are the only things listed and shown. I taught a class on Gothic Horror and started it with Horace Walpole in the 1750's (Castle of Otranto) ... and by the time I got to 1850, I had already mentioned over 100 books, and get this ... most of them have had a movie taken from them! But if you read a compendium on Romantic Literature it lists Lyricism, Nationalism, Gothic, and maybe one or two others, and then dies ... and the examples are weak and not complete.
Same thing for studying "progressive music" and why I want to take out things that are musical/musician trickery that has nothing to do with the music itself, even though it adds a mood or two ... maybe! Our definition has to be smarter than just ... gotta have keyboards, time changes, and more bs ... which all music has anyway! Ohhh wait ... orchestras did not have keyboards ... no one could afford an organ in a hall, and harpsichords would get buried ... ohhh dang ... that's what all the string instruments were supposed to be!
Edited by moshkito - March 09 2015 at 13:22
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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CPicard
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Posted: March 09 2015 at 11:38 |
moshkito wrote:
Terakonin wrote:
I would say that one of the many reasons metal is more successful is because there is a reasonably sized subculture associated with it, and that's something prog doesn't have. It's purely about the music. |
ohhh dear ... baroque never had a culture! Romantic never had a culture! Surrealism never had a culture! Dadaism never had a culture! Metal'ism -- I guess, has something that the world has never seen or experienced ...
What kind of BS is that?
Welcome to the board, btw ... the comment is not meant to give you a scare! But you got to use your noodles!
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Just a few questions: - How many people from the lower classes were aware of Bach, Purcell or Monteverdi at the times of Baroque? I can believe that Monteverdi's first operas had some success among the "popular classes", but I still have some doubt about the other musical works of these times. - Was Surrealism followed by a huge audience (not to talk about the Dada movement)? Did "Un chien andalou" gather thousands of people at the movies? - Same for Romantism: how many people in the XIXth century have read Madame de Staël, the young Victor Hugo or Byron? Were these writers connected with the composers of their times?
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silverpot
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Posted: March 09 2015 at 11:29 |
Terakonin wrote:
I would say that one of the many reasons metal is more successful is because there is a reasonably sized subculture associated with it, and that's something prog doesn't have. It's purely about the music. |
I think that's a good observation. Most metal fans know they're metal fans and spend their hard earned cash on paraphernalia and take part in the festivals devoted to metal music. For many it's a lifestyle. Whereas most prog fans have no idea that the kind of music they listen to is called prog. I certainly didn't until I found this board, neither did my friends until I told them.
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Rednight
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Posted: March 09 2015 at 11:08 |
Horizons wrote:
Cuz metal doesn't have to be complicated or alienating. |
I more and more see metal as those two descriptions (and don't call me cuz).
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LearsFool
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Posted: March 09 2015 at 10:39 |
WeepingElf wrote:
moshkito wrote:
Terakonin wrote:
I would say that one of the many reasons metal is more successful is because there is a reasonably sized subculture associated with it, and that's something prog doesn't have. It's purely about the music. |
ohhh dear ... baroque never had a culture! Romantic never had a culture! Surrealism never had a culture! Dadaism never had a culture! Metal'ism -- I guess, has something that the world has never seen or experienced ...
What kind of BS is that? |
Sure, there are those metalheads you can tell they are metalheads by what they look and what they wear; this is more difficult with prog fans, whom you can only tell if they wear a t-shirt with a band logo on it - but then, you must be a prog fan to know the band ;) But the metal audience certainly is wider than those obvious metalheads, and mainstream pop also doesn't have a "subculture" associated with it, and they sell a lot of records ...
Perhaps the low esteem of prog in the general public is due to the fact that it is intellectual, and contemporary leisure culture has a strong anti-intellectual bias: if you are cool, you spend your leisure in the gym, not in the library. Hence, prog is music for "geeks" and thus uncool. Sure, classical and modern jazz are intellectual, too, but they have prestige to a much higher degree than prog, so they are OK ...
But frankly, I don't know.
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That all depends on who you ask.
And kids who spend their leisure time in the library are more in line with the soft side of indie rock and their poetic influences, like Joy Division and The Smiths (but not Patti Smith - must be too punk for them).
They don't even listen to The Feelies, let alone any prog.
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WeepingElf
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Posted: March 09 2015 at 10:24 |
moshkito wrote:
Terakonin wrote:
I would say that one of the many reasons metal is more successful is because there is a reasonably sized subculture associated with it, and that's something prog doesn't have. It's purely about the music. |
ohhh dear ... baroque never had a culture! Romantic never had a culture! Surrealism never had a culture! Dadaism never had a culture! Metal'ism -- I guess, has something that the world has never seen or experienced ...
What kind of BS is that? |
Sure, there are those metalheads you can tell they are metalheads by what they look and what they wear; this is more difficult with prog fans, whom you can only tell if they wear a t-shirt with a band logo on it - but then, you must be a prog fan to know the band ;) But the metal audience certainly is wider than those obvious metalheads, and mainstream pop also doesn't have a "subculture" associated with it, and they sell a lot of records ... Perhaps the low esteem of prog in the general public is due to the fact that it is intellectual, and contemporary leisure culture has a strong anti-intellectual bias: if you are cool, you spend your leisure in the gym, not in the library. Hence, prog is music for "geeks" and thus uncool. Sure, classical and modern jazz are intellectual, too, but they have prestige to a much higher degree than prog, so they are OK ... But frankly, I don't know.
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moshkito
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Posted: March 09 2015 at 09:11 |
Terakonin wrote:
I would say that one of the many reasons metal is more successful is because there is a reasonably sized subculture associated with it, and that's something prog doesn't have. It's purely about the music. |
ohhh dear ... baroque never had a culture! Romantic never had a culture! Surrealism never had a culture! Dadaism never had a culture! Metal'ism -- I guess, has something that the world has never seen or experienced ...
What kind of BS is that?
Welcome to the board, btw ... the comment is not meant to give you a scare! But you got to use your noodles!
Edited by moshkito - March 09 2015 at 09:12
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com
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Terakonin
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Posted: March 08 2015 at 23:01 |
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I would say that one of the many reasons metal is more successful is because there is a reasonably sized subculture associated with it, and that's something prog doesn't have. It's purely about the music.
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Progosopher
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Posted: March 08 2015 at 20:10 |
^ 
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The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions. -- George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty"
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cstack3
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Posted: March 08 2015 at 19:58 |
This bit of script from "This Is Spinal Tap" spells out my opinion of heavy metal succinctly....
Marty: Let's talk about your music today...uh...one thing that puzzles me
...um...is the make up of your audience seems to be ...uh...
predominately young boys.
David: Well it's a sexual thing, really isn't it. Aside from the
identifying the boys do with us there's also a re-reaction to the
female.....of the female to our music. How did you put it?
Nigel: Really they're quite fearful - that's my theory. They see us on
stage with tight trousers we've got, you know, armadillos in our
trousers, I mean it's really quite frightening...
David: Yeah.
Nigel: ...the size...and and they, they run screaming.
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Why isn't prog as successful as metal as an indus
