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Joined: April 18 2015
Location: 2112
Status: Offline
Points: 1199
Posted: May 15 2017 at 21:25
The T wrote:
Why doesn't everybody like prog??! It kills me to not feel validated by other peoples liking the music I like!
One reason I like prog is because no one else does. It is a way I can escape from a world of 21 pilots and Panic at the Disco, whom are actually two of the better pop bands I have heard. But then again, I do wish people would respect my favorite type of music
Why don't people who work in the auto industry like prog? How do we know that people who work in the auto industry don't like prog? We don't. How do we know that girls don't like prog? We don't. This thread has no point really.
Joined: February 09 2017
Location: Fort Erie
Status: Offline
Points: 501
Posted: May 15 2017 at 12:43
Why don't people who work in the auto industry like prog? How do we know that people who work in the auto industry don't like prog? We don't. How do we know that girls don't like prog? We don't. This thread has no point really.
Joined: January 12 2014
Location: NJ, USA
Status: Offline
Points: 436
Posted: May 15 2017 at 11:17
I have to say that this has not really been my experience. Most of my various girlfriends have liked some prog and continued to do so after the relationship was over, so they weren't just trying to keep me happy. But certainly most audience members tend to be guys. Even that, though, varies to some degree by country. Prog concerts I've been to in France, Belgium, Germany and Scandinavia tend to achieve gender parity (unlike hard rock or heavy metal in those same countries). It seems to be a US/UK thing (I can't speak for Japan) if anything.
Joined: January 06 2008
Location: London, UK
Status: Offline
Points: 617
Posted: May 13 2017 at 11:48
I think a big part of it comes down to the era. Back in the day people tended to assume that rock music of all varieties was boys' music, made primarily by boys, whereas women listened to pop artists market to them - girl groups, teen heart-throbs, that sort of thing.
That started to change in the 1970s when you had artists like the Runaways or Siouxsie Sioux knocking down barriers, but it hasn't changed as much or as rapidly as you might think - even in much more recent years you had bands like Kittie where "they're a metal band but they're all women!" was considered unusual enough to be a marketing point, rather than being utterly unremarkable, and even today genres there's an ugly tendency to write off genres which are directed at a primarily female audience as having less artistic credibility.
In the case of prog, it arose when that gender divide was very much a thing, and it's kind of inherited that a little. Prog bands were mostly men, record companies mostly marketed prog to men and boys, and soon you get a self-fulfilling prophecy - a boys' club which by its nature feels far less welcoming to women than an arena where women are more visible both as artists and as audience members.
I think a lot of us, whatever our gender, wouldn't feel so comfortable at a gig if we felt like we were the odd audience member out - if everyone else you can see is a different gender than you, or a different race, or much older or younger than you, or dresses in a particular style, it can feel pretty isolating. That's not conducive to relaxing and enjoying the concert. Likewise, when I grew up if a boy admitted to liking particular types of pop music at school, he'd get a heap of absolutely appalling homophobic bullying because he liked "girls' stuff", and girls who liked rock music got a similar outsider status - peer pressure is a powerful thing.
How to change it? Support women making good prog, just as you'd promote men who made good prog, don't pass on a group just because their vocalist is a woman, and make concerts welcoming to women by ensuring that men who creep on female audience members get thrown out just as they would if they made the men in the audience uncomfortable. It's the same in pretty much any subculture that's trying to rebalance itself in a similar way.
Joined: June 02 2005
Location: Germany
Status: Offline
Points: 10261
Posted: May 11 2017 at 16:55
Women don't have limited attention spans; on the very contrary, their attention span is much bigger than men's. Try taking care of a bunch of kids - an impossible task without a huge attention span.
I grew up with the music including some of the weirder stuff due to my brother who is ten years older than I am and whom I idolized when I was a kid.
Two, but what does that have to do with the question? The question concerns music not their overall ability to comprehend things. Do you have any daughters?
The question concerns why a gender may not like a certain type of music. Is someone with a limited attention span by your definition exclusively 'female' and have a commensurate disadvantage to enjoying and appreciating organised sound? I don't really think you believe that and my family are none of your concern.
Joined: April 03 2005
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 31
Posted: May 11 2017 at 08:58
Two, but what does that have to do with the question? The question concerns music not their overall ability to comprehend things. Do you have any daughters?
For the same reasons most girls don't play Dungeons and Dragons or become Tolkien fanatics. There is an elitism about it, something esoteric that most people do not get.
That seems like a rather lazy association of ideas. Very little Prog actually makes reference to Elves, Goblins, Wizards or other typical elements of fantasy literature. This is only true for post-punk music journalists, and girls are clearly way too smart to either read or believe them. Perhaps the knowing irony of someone fashioned as 'Prog Snob' is an elitism and esotericism that people do not get?
Perhaps their attention span can't relate to a seven minute song?
Well many girls liked Owner Of A Lonely Heart. And that is seven minutes long. And has five rhythm changes.
Formatted for radio my ... Here endedth the lesson.
P.S.
I think I may have mentioned this once aeons ago but at a Hammersmith Odeon gig there were rows of pretty young things really getting into the music. So much better for the senses than this all guys prog and metal thing.
Mick Jagger said it with "She's The Boss". And the heads of Heart... This is why Robt. Plant shared billing with Alison Krauss.
Still like someone advised, it is not a good idea to play Magma. There are limits. Elitism is a retreat not a pinnacle.
Joined: June 12 2012
Location: Staten Island
Status: Offline
Points: 225
Posted: May 11 2017 at 04:47
For the same reasons most girls don't play Dungeons and Dragons or become Tolkien fanatics. There is an elitism about it, something esoteric that most people do not get.
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