I adore 70s and modern Italian Prog equally.  I own about 150 albums of each. Love the language and the vocal deliveries.  You can't go wrong with PA's top 100 RPI.  I collect the horror subgenre hidden inside the RPI subgenre. So much fun in October.  I'm addicted to Italian Giallo movies.  

Edited by omphaloskepsis - May 28 2023 at 05:25

omphaloskepsis wrote: I adore 70s and modern Italian Prog equally.  I own about 150 albums of each. Love the language and the vocal deliveries.  You can't go wrong with PA's top 100 RPI.  I collect the horror subgenre hidden inside the RPI subgenre. So much fun in October.  I'm addicted to Italian Giallo movies.   I miss Michael (Aussie-Byrd-Brother) poetic Italian Reviews. Michael was my RPI tour guide. He taught and turned me on to scores of Italian bands. Don't worry, he's alive.  Probably, knee-deep in the river of life.

Edited by jamesbaldwin - May 28 2023 at 06:10

moshkito wrote: David_D wrote: David_D wrote: The classic Italian Prog is just great.  And Italy is definitely among my very most favorite Prog nations. Hi, Don't forget that Italy has a massive history of music on the classical style, and more than likely on the popular styles as well, but since Italy was not a complete country (like it is today) the differences and variations between north and south alone (Pasolini) would render the calling it "Italian", a rather absurd idea. My main thought here is that in places like the USA, you have, literally, 3 or 4 different countries and they don't agree on anything, regardless of what it is and who "rules" it. Thus, the music in America is all over the place and difficult to even place in a well defined context, as in here, in "progressive" ... KANSAS is fine for one or two cuts, and albums, but not for much else I did not think. CHICAGO is very experimental and has all the "elements" that the stupid progressive definition has, and yet, many folks/places do not like it in "progressive" because it has horns ... ohh yeah, it had hits too! Other than Spain, in Europe, I'm not sure that all other countries have such a RICH history of music as does Italy. It's hard to say that about France, but it has been destroyed and rebuilt too much going back to the guillotine days, when insanity was the rule and the law. Germany, has had destruction to the core a few too many times, and when that happens, a lot of the "culture" also goes out the window. Portugal is minor in this equation. England, I tend to not mention much, except that the music threads in there are similar to America (too many countries in one place) and the different flavors make it difficult to create a good sense of it all ... but it did really well when it came to "progressive" music and helped define it, although it was not as "original" as they thought when so much of it was copied off a lot of European styles ... and a lot of music that was crazy, specially the jazz that was going around in the 60's and 70's (not the American players, btw). The only thing I know is that the article is EPIGONIC, and a lot of the fans' attitude here is even more so ... in fact, complete opposite the spirit of what progressive meant right from the start ... but I doubt a lot of fans today give a damn about that!

omphaloskepsis wrote: jamesbaldwin wrote: omphaloskepsis wrote: I adore 70s and modern Italian Prog equally.  I own about 150 albums of each. Love the language and the vocal deliveries.  You can't go wrong with PA's top 100 RPI.  I collect the horror subgenre hidden inside the RPI subgenre. So much fun in October.  I'm addicted to Italian Giallo movies.   I miss Michael (Aussie-Byrd-Brother) poetic Italian Reviews. Michael was my RPI tour guide. He taught and turned me on to scores of Italian bands. Don't worry, he's alive.  Probably, knee-deep in the river of life.  If I remember well,  Micky's fave Italian prog album is Palepoli. PS What Italian GIALLO movies are you watching? Autumn dominates my GIALLO movie marathon.   I revisit everything Argento, Fulci, and Bava. I subscribe to the Shutter horror channel.  They have a GIALLO subchannel.   Recently I viewed: Death Walks At Midnight (1972) What Have You Done To Solange (1972)    The Perfume of the Lady in Black (1974)  I save the GIALLO classics for October.  Masterpieces like- Deep Red (Profundo Rosso) (1975) Blood and Black Lace (1964) Opera (1987) Don't Torture a Duckling (1972) Your Vice is in a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972)

Perché quelle strane gocce di sangue sul corpo di Jennifer? (1972)

Edited by jamesbaldwin - May 28 2023 at 08:05

James Baldwin said:   

Edited by omphaloskepsis - May 28 2023 at 10:01

PS the music of Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion is signed

Logan wrote: ^ I love Morricone of course. jamesbaldwin wrote: I consider a great merit that Progarchives has several albums by PFM and Banco in the top 30 (RYM, on the other hand, will never have Italian artists even in the top 100, by force of circumstance, no one in Italy follows it and the voters are not music connoisseurs like the PA forumists). jamesbaldwin wrote: Logan wrote: Italian Prog certainly makes this top RYM chart CLICK Said it before, but the value for me is the versatility in how you can customise the charts which make discovering new albums quite easy and I'm far more interested in discovering new-to-me albums through charts than finding things I already know well. Greg, you are watching to the Top Italian prog chart. If you see RYM Best prog albums of all time chart,  the first Italian album (Museo Rosenbach) is at number 63. http://https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/all-time/g:progressive-rock/2/ I'm not just watching it, by adding the terms Italy (location) and genre Prog Rock, I set that list. My point is that the value is in the customisation. Of course at PA when also can limit it to country: Here is the list CLICK I actually don't know what you mean by by RYM will never have them in the top 100 as, as you for the Prog chart, Zarathustra is in the top 100, and if you compare PA's rating to RYM's ratings by number of ratings, Italy's albums regularly have higher numbers of raters than PA. Maybe you meant all genres, all time? Here is the 1970's jazz-rock list (no other criteria/tags set than that), and you'll notice that Area is in the top 12. CLICK If I do it for 1970's Avant-Prog, Area'a debut is at number 4 with 3.77 and 3,083 ratings. Overall for all albums it's ranked at #65 for 1973, #2,221 overall (all years), which is not shabby. At PA Arbeit Macht Frei has 730 ratings. The value in the RYM charts to me are how you use them and how you customise them, and if one spent more time with that then I think one would find that it can be a very valuable tool. I have felt like your derisive comments about RYM in discussion over the years have been born out of a very limited perspective and experience with the site, and fits your narrative and your particular biases. ------------------------------- Anyway, to answer the title question, some Italian prog is epigonic, some is not. If you user a looser definition of Prog which includes more academic music and experimental and soundtrack kind of music than you find far more innovative, inventive Italian music. I do put ones like Morricone, Umiliani and Egisto Macchi under the Prog umbrella for music they created. Area is very unique, and Stormy Six is innovative.

Edited by jamesbaldwin - May 28 2023 at 12:11

jamesbaldwin wrote: ... 4) Italy doesnt have a great tradition of rock music. The exception is prog music, for which it excels, after Great Britain. So it is fortunate that in RYM Area they are in a good position in the ranking by year and genre. But the fact remains that in the RYM prog album rankings Italy does not go beyond 63rd place, after a series of albums that besides not being very beautiful (my opinion) were not even particularly historically important or popular (and this is objective, I could give you examples).  ...

David_D wrote: ^ Okay, I guess you've been looking at RYM's all-music or Rock chart.

jamesbaldwin wrote: Logan wrote: ^ I love Morricone of course. jamesbaldwin wrote: I consider a great merit that Progarchives has several albums by PFM and Banco in the top 30 (RYM, on the other hand, will never have Italian artists even in the top 100, by force of circumstance, no one in Italy follows it and the voters are not music connoisseurs like the PA forumists). jamesbaldwin wrote: Logan wrote: Italian Prog certainly makes this top RYM chart CLICK Said it before, but the value for me is the versatility in how you can customise the charts which make discovering new albums quite easy and I'm far more interested in discovering new-to-me albums through charts than finding things I already know well. Greg, you are watching to the Top Italian prog chart. If you see RYM Best prog albums of all time chart,  the first Italian album (Museo Rosenbach) is at number 63. http://https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/all-time/g:progressive-rock/2/ I'm not just watching it, by adding the terms Italy (location) and genre Prog Rock, I set that list. My point is that the value is in the customisation. Of course at PA when also can limit it to country: Here is the list CLICK I actually don't know what you mean by by RYM will never have them in the top 100 as, as you for the Prog chart, Zarathustra is in the top 100, and if you compare PA's rating to RYM's ratings by number of ratings, Italy's albums regularly have higher numbers of raters than PA. Maybe you meant all genres, all time? Here is the 1970's jazz-rock list (no other criteria/tags set than that), and you'll notice that Area is in the top 12. CLICK If I do it for 1970's Avant-Prog, Area'a debut is at number 4 with 3.77 and 3,083 ratings. Overall for all albums it's ranked at #65 for 1973, #2,221 overall (all years), which is not shabby. At PA Arbeit Macht Frei has 730 ratings. The value in the RYM charts to me are how you use them and how you customise them, and if one spent more time with that then I think one would find that it can be a very valuable tool. I have felt like your derisive comments about RYM in discussion over the years have been born out of a very limited perspective and experience with the site, and fits your narrative and your particular biases. ------------------------------- Anyway, to answer the title question, some Italian prog is epigonic, some is not. If you user a looser definition of Prog which includes more academic music and experimental and soundtrack kind of music than you find far more innovative, inventive Italian music. I do put ones like Morricone, Umiliani and Egisto Macchi under the Prog umbrella for music they created. Area is very unique, and Stormy Six is innovative. Greg,  I try to answer. 1) Yes, I mean that in the top 100 albums of all time there is no Italian album. 2) Morricone and Umiliani are quoted by Merlin like innovative musicians. 3) I love Stormy Six's L'apprendista and Macchina maccheronica, two of the most beautiful Italian prog albums ever, but I don consider them particularly innovative. 4) Italy doesnt have a great tradition of rock music. The exception is prog music, for which it excels, after Great Britain. So it is fortunate that in RYM Area they are in a good position in the ranking by year and genre. But the fact remains that in the RYM prog album rankings Italy does not go beyond 63rd place, after a series of albums that besides not being very beautiful (my opinion) were not even particularly historically important or popular (and this is objective, I could give you examples).  In PA there are 6 Italian albums in the Top 60. Anyway, RYM's charts are clearly dictated by Anglo-American, and at best French, culture. Italian albums inevitably take a back seat.  But that is not why I dont consider their charts qualified. I say this by seeing them: it isnt serious to give so much importance to a few moreover questionable artists (Kendrick Lamar, Radiohead)  for the firsts places. The fact that three Radiohead records and two by Lamar is clearly ahead of any record by Dylan, Stones, Young, Reed, Springsteen, Waits, is enough for me to disregard that ranking. I think the best charts are those made by specialised listeners, not those left in the public domain: those only reflect the tastes of the public accessing the platforms, and in some cases also of the most active fan groups.

- Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run 3.95 / 5.0 from 15,698 ratings #6 for 1975, #321 overall

- Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited 4.15 / 5.0 from 31,188 ratings #2 for 1965, #55 overall

- Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers 3.99 / 5.0 from 19,496 ratings Ranked     #11 for 1971, #205 overall

- Neil Young - After the Gold Rush 4.07 / 5.0 from 20,981 ratings Ranked #5 for 1970, #115 overall

- Lou Reed - Transformer 3.90 / 5.0 from 20,932 ratings Ranked     #15 for 1972, #380 overall

- Tom Waits - Rain Dogs 4.05 / 5.0 from 22,367 ratings
Ranked     #2 for 1985, #122 overall

That's a heck of a lot of ratings just on those classic albums. Radiohead happens to be more important to me than those (and I heartily dislike Springsteen generally, not that that matters). Thinking that the charts have no validity, and are worthless, as I think you have put it before seems very odd just because some more recent ones that you don't have lot of respect for are more popular there. I don't take charts that seriously period. If lots of people loved a Bieber album and it was top of the general music charts, that wou;ld not take away the value I have found in discovering-new-to-me albums thanks to searching the charts with, mostly, custom searches.

It seems kind of arrogant to disregard it because you don't hold some popular (much rated and highly rated) acts in high esteem -- try customising those filters more. This is a site of this millennium that has had a lot of millennials (and younger now). We're too young to have been able to appreciate the early 70s in music at the time.

And when comparing PA, it seems comparing a prog site's chart to a general music one is a rather strange approach (although I went through the top several thousand listings off the RYM general music chart searching for music in PA for a series of polls -- I did that because a considerable amount of what is in PA won't be tagged the same there (might not have Prog a as primary tag). Maybe rather than the chart position, focus on the number of raters when comparing specific albums in PA to RYM. I did have too much time on my hands.

As said, though, for me the value is in customising the lists to fine tune my searches mostly for new-to-me albums. It does help that great may raters do seem to align well with my tastes at RYM (better than at PA, actually, when it comes to music included in PA).

While I don't value charts much period in a sense (I do find it interesting often), by specialising one's search terms for the chart listings then I tend to find more personal value. But I also read reviews there and get a feel that way. I like the fact that there are so very many users ratings albums there, and there is such diverse music. If you don't, fine, but I can't empathathise with many of your comments about RYM and its many, many users. I'm happy to see that there are so many people who like the same music as I do there, and I do wish to focus more on the positives. That said, sorry getting into it again.