Is Prog Underrated?

Lewian wrote: Certainly an interesting discussion although now I feel less clear about what your position actually is than before, particularly about how much relevance you ascribe to "academic scrutiny". What I do *NOT* think is that any of it can correctly claim to have universal validity, but neither do I believe that its value depends on that. I'm not convinced by the case for universal aesthetics

Excellent post certainly. I'm in broad agreement with much of what you say and now have a better understanding of the limitations of any value that 'formal academic scrutiny' might confer on any given music. My position has drifted a little since we started this discussion by way of your responses, so you can take credit for that. Where we diverge is that I believe their is a kernel of universal aesthetics that has been revealed by 'formal academic scrutiny' i.e. there are certain intervals, cadences, modulations, pulses, patterns, harmonies, structural consistencies and tonal gravity that we as humans seem to find satisfying and pleasing.
I don't pretend to know the reasons for this but I do know that our musical history stretching back hundreds of years provides an abundance of evidence that such traits cannot be arbitrary and are demonstrably impervious to both time or fashion. I would concede that conformance with the 'kernel' cannot be inferred as qualitative.
As far as Prog not being able to withstand 'formal academic scrutiny' goes, this belief is fueled by my longstanding view that those who conflate Genesis, Yes, Camel, Greenslade, early KC, Barclay James Harvest et al with Symphonic or classical forms, development and structural integrity are completely wide of the mark. My listening tells me that such bands are very highly skilled at stringing together short unconnected and undeveloped bits of popular song material and passing off same as a pseudo suite etc. Don't get me wrong, I was weaned on such artifice and still love 'em to bits.

Lewian wrote: Prog started in the second half of the 20th century and as such it was from its beginning surrounded by postmodern ideas on aesthetic, particularly the idea that the modern ideal of originality and progress may have run its course already, basically everything has already been invented and we can now only recombine and comment rather than create something truly new. With this of course came the fundamental uncertainly about values and the relativist tendencies to which I (at least partly) adhere. Great post Lewian Just some observations (not necessarily criticisms) This 'everything has already been done' line is just a cultural poison prescribed by post modernists to abrogate responsibility for a narcissistic, shallow and apathetic generation. It's probably gained even more momentum 'post internet' where we now have access to practically 'everything that came before' as if such were sufficient to prove the futility of originality. It's probably ironic but just maybe our prior isolation and ignorance actually helped foster innovation? (not that I'm advocating a return to such) The 'fundamental uncertainty about values' you cite circa 1945, stemmed from the experiences of WW2, so I'm not sure if you refute that to be the source? This is quite manifest in Prog, the first innovations of which were about "re-combination" of ideas, rock and classical composition, rock and free improvisation, and then (still more connected to modern ideals) technological innovation combined with futuristic/SF aesthetic ideas. Then the willingness of many of the main protagonists by the end of the 1970s to leave their earlier achievements behind and try some new re-combination, together with the ever growing influence of markets and commercialisation; w8ith an emergence, in parallel, of some artists who rather tried to conserve and develop approaches that at the age of just 10-15 years were too young, in their view, to be already left behind. In all this one can see, in my view, a fundamental insecurity about aesthetic value, which is actually quite typical for the time, which comes with its own aesthetic quality or interest. The Prog audience had dispersed long before the end of the 70's and had simply abandoned the genre. Therefore the 'willingness of many of the main protagonists to leave their earlier achievements behind' was hardly of their own volition. That's like saying those who are made redundant have the choice to not work for free. At this time the industry conspired to foist upon music consumers an engineered 'brand loyalty' by fragmenting what had been an indivisible whole from which Prog drew it's ingredients: Psychedelia, Pop, Metal, Jazz, Blues, Classical, Folk, Rock etc were now rigidly separated in the browser racks as well as the fan-bases 'Mixing and combining' in this marketplace would thus have become about as viable as selling mittens from a Horror costumier. I'm not saying that mixing elements of disparate genres together is not a good idea but when it comes to Rock and Pop musicians, if you don't bother to learn the second language properly, public speaking is never a good idea. Once again you mention Rock quoting classical inspiration but like I said before, most so-called Symphonic bands merely tied short song based fragments together in the creation of pseudo suites (ELP and the Enid are noted exceptions to this) Similarly, there are very few Progressive Rock bands who could 'free improvise' with anything approaching the credibility of Jazz masters (Crimson might be a noted exception here) I guess I'm saying that 'cod Classical' and 'cod Jazz' don't represent one genre being assimilated successfully into another. Maybe musicians need to study other genres closely before they tackle them ( 'formal academic scrutiny' might help in this regard ) I like to think that both of us also might recognize 80's Neo-Prog as fatuous AOR with delusions of being Next Gen Prog (the reboot) "A fundamental insecurity about aesthetic value' will emerge for any entertainer in danger of using up their shelf-life (not just ageing Proggers 'post-Punk') Personally I rate those artists highest who could steer through these developments in a confident and unmistakably personal and unique way. Firstly Can (including the solo work that followed the end of the band, I didn't choose my avatar for nothing). Czukay and Schmidt in particular as students of Stockhausen even had an academic music background (and Liebezeit was an established jazz drummer when Can started) and used this, and an insatiable curiosity for all kinds of music and sounds from all over the world, to produce their very own rich mix of influences, with a strong element of spontaneity, wilful primitivity and allusion to deep hypnotic and ritualistic roots of music, without ever standing still. In similar ways, although with very different results, Robert Fripp and King Crimson also created their very own sound and updated it continuously with new influences, particularly wide open to seamless integration of whatever new band members would bring in. Further examples are Magma and Art Zoyd; these and a handfull of other artists managed to put down so strong roots that they never lost their orientation when integrating new influences and "going with the time", but on the other hand their hearts, brains and particularly ears were always open enough to the big world of sound (and everything else) that they never stood still and managed to produce something fresh over four decades and more. I do like quite a lot of Can's music (prefer the Spoon compilations) but they too have been guilty of 'cod Jazz' and what I would term 'ethnic contraband' e.g. like the Talking Heads after them, and a million pale blues bands before them, a misappropriation of African elements that only serves as a great disservice to the source material. Call me a slave to structure but I've always found the fruits of 'instant composition' perish rather quickly. I also read somewhere that Schmidt was well on the way to becoming an orchestral conductor before he joined the group?. It's also ironic that the band tried to get Liebezeit to 'sound more like a machine and play robotically' Mercifully he resisted their entreaties. Isn't 'wilful primitivity' just pretending to be primitive? - Like brickies from Wolverhampton believing they're born under a bad sign. When you state you 'rate those artists highest who could steer through these developments' - does this mean that you consider their music better than that of others who have not perhaps steered through these developments (I'm implying in the marketplace) or that you are just referring to their adaptability and business acumen to remain viable? Of course I don't want to dispute the role of other prog heroes such as Yes, Pink Floyd or ELP at particular times, and chances are that in 100 years these will still be better known than more obscure artists such as Art Zoyd. Who survives in public perception is not a matter of quality alone and achieving 5-10 years of greatness combined with popularity will give an artists better chances to be remembered than four decades of flying confidently under the radar, but still, I'd expect that whoever rediscovers the work of Can, King Crimson, Magma or Art Zoyd in whatever time on whatever strange paths of music interest will be thoroughly amazed. Which of course is just my subjective opinion. It's probably self evident that no regular visitor to this site gives a discarded fig about who survives in the public perception

Edited by ExittheLemming - April 07 2018 at 07:31

^ erm...Pedro. You are ascribing my comments to Lewian in your quotation

^yeah this whole Is Prog Underrated?-question that started it all felt kind of dumb to me at first... but its a simple and effective question that for the last couple of pages (starting around the time I left) has inspired some of the best posts I've read here in years. Much thanks to Lewian who writes all the right things and has the patience, language and brilliant mind I haven't... and ExittheLemming of course - whom I fundamentally disagree with (but I've learned is mostly because of different approaches) - and finally Moshkito who's despite all is a lot smarter and knows his sh*t way more than all those who gets a round of applause for announcing their unwillingness to discuss with him.  

Thanks for the positive words guys, and let me second Saperlipopette's appreciation for the posts (well most of them) by moshkito and ExittheLemming.
I may have more to respond to but for the moment I jump on this one, as so much can be said about Can's music and approach and not that much of it seems to be here on this forum:

I do like quite a lot of Can's music (prefer the Spoon compilations) but they too have been guilty of 'cod Jazz' and what I would term 'ethnic contraband' e.g. like the Talking Heads after them, and a million pale blues bands before them, a misappropriation of African elements that only serves as a great disservice to the source material. Call me a slave to structure but I've always found the fruits of 'instant composition' perish rather quickly.

This is a good and interesting point and worth a discussion on its own. I am uncertain about this in ethic terms; there was a fairly recent peak of discussion of "cultural misappropriation" in the UK media and I found this a difficult topic because on one hand I get the arguments of those complaining about it, but on the other hand I have an issue with the idea of "cultural ownership". I see that creators of something great or inspirational deserve respect and a living, but I don't like the idea that this should imply strong restrictions on the "use", particularly the creative re-use and active re-examination, of such creations. There is surely a certain naivety of Can and particularly Czukay in this respect. There's the famous story that Holger Czukay got into a fight with Rebop Kwaku Baah, African percussionist of Can at the time, who accused Holger of stealing the souls of the singers who Holger was mixing into Can's music. I always felt that I'm with Holger on this one but I have certainly gained more understanding of the opposite view. In any case, I'm pretty sure Can didn't want to do the original material neither service nor disservice, They used it for inspiration and creation of their own sound. What would be naive would be to think that the way this "works" can be completely separated from the cultural connotations that come with the source material, and which may be influenced for the better or worse by this kind of "use" (I do realise that the word "use" itself points to where the problem might be). Can may to some extent be guilty of such naivety, but on the other side I feel very strongly attached to Michael Karoli's statement that "what made Can different from most of the other bands was that we were never interested in any kind of "message", we just wanted to make music" - just being interested in sound and its direct effect, probably wilfully ignoring political, ethical and other implications that seemed non-musical to them.
 
Well that's the deeper (aesth)ethical issue, regarding the musical value of the results we just may disagree. I wouldn't be attracted by all kinds of experiments of this kind, but the way this is done in a number of Can recordings and some of Holger's solo work such as Canaxis 5, Movies or the far too unknown live "Clash" is to me so fresh, explorative, deep and exciting that it has never failed to amaze me in all the years, and I'd think that this is not just personal (despite my frequent emphasis that aesthetic judgement is not objective), I think there's something genuinely special and valuable to discover in these works (which some may not like for good reasons, fair enough).  

I also read somewhere that Schmidt was well on the way to becoming an orchestral conductor before he joined the group?

Yes, and he did some orchestral work in later days, see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gormenghast_(opera)

It's also ironic that the band tried to get Liebezeit to 'sound more like a machine and play robotically' Mercifully he resisted their entreaties.

I don't think that's true. I read quite a bit about Can and I know they were joking about Jaki's machine-like qualities, cultivated quite consciously by the man himself, but I haven't heard anything implying that they wanted Jaki to sound different from what he himself wanted to do (apart from "normal" discussions about what exactly should be done with this-or-that track).

Isn't 'wilful primitivity' just pretending to be primitive?

As before, I think this question is too "outside music" to matter much for Can, but of course it can matter to their listeners, at least the skeptical ones, and if indeed it didn't matter to the musicians themselves they may be accused of naivety - or defended against that charge. I think it's very much about exploring an experience, and I don't doubt that the band and many of their listeners had genuine experiences from this approach and as such it "worked", and I see connections there to "primitive" practices and their archaic qualities in which music is rooted. I'd say there's no pretence in the experience itself, so in my view your objection may apply to my choice of words but not to the music itself.

When you state you 'rate those artists highest who could steer through these developments' - does this mean that you consider their music better than that of others who have not perhaps steered through these developments (I'm implying in the marketplace)

After having written this I thought that this was about appreciation for the (more or less) lifelong career of some musicians but this is of course different from appreciation for specific works, and surely I can value specific works of musicians as high and occasionally higher who don't fulfil the criteria I had used above over several decades. There may be some agreement between us here because when "rating" (from my personal perspective)  specific works, I'm attracted to work that creates what I'd call an "autonomous experience" rather than seemingly trying to satisfy certain expectations (even expectations that the musicians have of themselves subconsciously). Obviously it is hard to detect this from the outside but one element that distracts me is "showing off", the impression that something was created at least partly with the motivation to demonstrate virtuosity or a certain kind of "knowledge" or ability; one may see this in attempts to put "symphonic work" together that may satisfy certain criteria, maybe even academic ones.

Examples for such "autonomous" works in my view are Tangerine Dream's Zeit, Phaedra and Rubycon, Pink Floyd's "Echoes", Oldfield's "Tubular Bells", the last two albums of Talk Talk, and much by David Sylvian and Kate Bush (the latter two artists belong in my earlier list of "heroes over the decades"). "Autonomous" doesn't mean that nothing is cited and no external elements are used, rather it means that my perception is that really every musical element is there to serve the musical experience and nothing else. And obviously, when rating these, it doesn't play any role what else the artist did at other times.

I should probably admit that despite always holding up subjectivity and relativity in aesthetic judgement, "internally" I maintain a separation between "personal rating" and "critic's rating", the former meaning that I think that some music speaks to me personally but I wouldn't want to argue for this music in any more general terms; I love it but I may not think it should be highly rated in more general terms, which would be my "critic's rating"; there's music that I think has depth, potential and quality to which I don't have that much access, so it should be rated positively even though I don't like it as much as my personal heroes, but also obviously that some of those form a critic's point of view may not be all that remarkable (all the works and artists listed by me in this thread are highly rated by me in both categories).

You may think that by making this distinction I actually subscribe to the view that there are some "objective" qualities represented in the "critic's rating" that are different from what attracts me subjectively, and I admit that a certain paradox can be seen there (actually I believe that most if not all deep issues of humankind ultimately lead to paradoxes). I try to be well aware though that even my "critic's view" is *not* objective but personal as well. Only it appeals to criteria that can be more clearly communicated and refer to a discourse that is out in the open and in this sense not "inside me"; it resonates more with culture and communication rather than exclusively with inner experience.

or that you are just referring to their adaptability and business acumen to remain viable?

I tried to express something quite different. Obviously Genesis and to some extent Yes were very successful in the eighties business-wise, but I don't think they achieved this by creating a genuinely enrichening new music experience, rather by just adapting to commercial needs (if band members say that their development wasn't commercial calculation but that they genuinely wanted to take this direction for musical reasons, I would not accuse them of lying; I talk about what this music conveys to me rather than claiming to know what it "really" is). King Crimson's early 80s trilogy was commercially far less successful (despite working even in this sense better than the commercial attempts of many proggers at that time), but I see a proper and interesting musical development in it that responded to streams of the time but that I experience nevertheless as autonomous in the above sense. I don't mind the business acumen really, I don't like to see musicians aiming to be commercial on purpose, but neither do I have an issue with success, and I do value conscious development.

moshkito wrote: I disagree to a certain point. A lot of improvised music, did not necessarily agree with any of this and nothing in it, specially the early jazz that we found in Miles, Coltrane and others, had anything in common with the classical traditions of any "post modern" ideas. They were improvised, and they might have moments that came close to this or that, but I do not think that any of these folks were thinking, or had any weird ideas about turning these classical traditions on its ear and corpse and such!

I don't see this as disagreement to what I wrote. What I think is that Prog (or what we call now Prog) from the very beginning was based on conscious combination of elements, and part of these elements was the improvisational tradition from jazz. I wouldn't make that claim about that jazz tradition itself; one may find such elements in jazz as well as you noted, but probably for quite some time they weren't a major driving force.

Lewian wrote: This is a good and interesting point and worth a discussion on its own. I am uncertain about this in ethic terms; there was a fairly recent peak of discussion of "cultural misappropriation" in the UK media and I found this a difficult topic because on one hand I get the arguments of those complaining about it, but on the other hand I have an issue with the idea of "cultural ownership". I see that creators of something great or inspirational deserve respect and a living, but I don't like the idea that this should imply strong restrictions on the "use", particularly the creative re-use and active re-examination, of such creations. There is surely a certain naivety of Can and particularly Czukay in this respect. There's the famous story that Holger Czukay got into a fight with Rebop Kwaku Baah, African percussionist of Can at the time, who accused Holger of stealing the souls of the singers who Holger was mixing into Can's music. I always felt that I'm with Holger on this one but I have certainly gained more understanding of the opposite view. In any case, I'm pretty sure Can didn't want to do the original material neither service nor disservice, They used it for inspiration and creation of their own sound. What would be naive would be to think that the way this "works" can be completely separated from the cultural connotations that come with the source material, and which may be influenced for the better or worse by this kind of "use" (I do realise that the word "use" itself points to where the problem might be). Can may to some extent be guilty of such naivety, but on the other side I feel very strongly attached to Michael Karoli's statement that "what made Can different from most of the other bands was that we were never interested in any kind of "message", we just wanted to make music" - just being interested in sound and its direct effect, probably wilfully ignoring political, ethical and other implications that seemed non-musical to them.

I guess that Can, unlike pretty much any of their contemporaries, were all too aware of the impossibility or even desirability of 'authenticity' when appropriating third world musical elements in their output. (If the titles of their Ethnological Forgery Series are anything to go by). I do agree that there is no copyright on 'spirit' or 'inspiration' and stifling their use merely consigns the originators further into obscurity. I also probably didn't intend the discussion to feature Can so heavily (as I suspect the OP would, like myself, be very reticent to describe the Colognians as being remotely representative of the broad thrust of Prog ) Would you at least entertain the idea that Can might have been pleased to provide a didactic role in the opening up of 'world music to a larger listening public? they are after all, the greatest dance band that Prog would ever deign to call its own....)

Not being a part of the music academia, I can't comment on the above posts. However, I do feel that prog, being a part of rock, is looked down on from upon high with a  prejudiced eye. I believe one professor of music referred to rock n roll as "atonal noise". That statement says a lot.

^ I believe its a case of admitting that the sound he heard is music but not very good music.