Prog Died in 1979?????

Floydoid wrote: DarksideofAbel wrote: Floydoid wrote: Prog didn't die in 1979, it merely slipped under the radar of the average music fan. Tho I agree the classic era (where most of the prog I love is from) is approximately 1968-78.    As you can see yourself!  it did die!!!  as most of the prog that you love and I bet most of us as well, it is from 1968-79!!!  We like new bands from there on (1980 - 2024) due to nostalgia!!!!  You didn't read (or understand) what I said.

Boojieboy wrote: I wouldn't say that prog "died" in 1979, but for various reasons, most of the original creativity faded from that point on. Part of it was big competing new forces in music (disco, punk, New Wave, etc.) By the time those started fading away (the 90's), much of daily life and the spirit that had been around in the late 60's and 70's was gone. And so when prog. revived itself with new people and new bands, most just copied and predigested what had come before. And they probably thought they did a good job at it. Some times and some eras are very unique to facilitate such special creativity, such as the late 60's and 70's prog. It can't necessarily be easily repeated, but it's also not impossible.

Edited by DarksideofAbel - June 18 2024 at 15:37

Prog didn't die in 1979, it's just been resting. Norway has had a very strong scene, what with its Norwegian Blue parrots. It they seem listless, they're just pining for the fjords.

Anyway, progressive music has long been fusing styles since before Prog became a known-thing, and it continued to do so. I think in the 80s it is interesting how punk and art rock came together (think This Heat, Camberwell Now, Cardiacs) and Prog with goth etc. Post-Rock has been a very interesting development, I think. Today we have adventurous bands like Squid and black midi. It does become harder over time to be originative, but I always thought that the progressive spirit was innovative (and so originative) and innovation still happens. But I care about the music itself more than originality one might shallowly say, and I like a lot of retro music (especially of the more psychedelic, electronic and Krautrock varieties) There is this big Prog umbrella. I do tend to find the ones in the more melodic Symph vein less interesting these days than many of the ones found in Avant Prog, Post Rock, electronica...

Juts little digression if I had not digressed enough already: I love the modern music, I love the 2020's, I love the 2010s, I love the 2000s, I love the 90s, I love the 80s, I love the 70s, I love the 60s (I also love the late 50s and much earlier compositions). I actually don't care that much if one considers what I like to be Prog genre. A genre can be definitionally limiting and as it becomes more codified and stratified there is less room for experimentation and innovation often. I like to think of Progressive music, and that which is not bound to genre conventions 9can fuse genres, play with form etc.)

moshkito wrote: Jacob Schoolcraft wrote: ... I have always thought that if newer Prog bands had been inspired by a different choice of Classical composers that their original music wouldn't have sounded like the 70s Prog bands and possibly would have sounded just as unique and fresh as it did when it was first released in the 70s...but...no that is not the case. Instead they study what the 70s Prog bands did and are dismissive of the path in which those bands followed. ...which was to simply add the elements of Classical music written centuries ago. Instead they emulate the way Gentle Giant went about utilizing counterpoint. Don't do that. Instead realize counterpoint your own way.  ... Hi, Tough to discuss this, I wonder ... why? The popularity and explosion of pop music in the media and its sales from the 60's ended up changing the dynamics of the music history ... before the 60's it's really easy and simple to say that classical music is the inspiration, but that gets completely turned around if you factor in jazz .... which had really taken of in the 50's (per Tom Dowd) and still went its own way and really have not a whole lot of relationship to classical music. BUT classical music was taught in school and heard everywhere, thus it becoming an influence is fairly obvious, generally speaking. By the time the 70's gets here, I think that many rock musicians had enough of the connection to classical music, which was obvious, and ended up creating their own scene, by being more adventurous and dynamic with the music, and even ELP did that just fine, considering that they had come from classical music, and stuck to it. But some things don't always add up ... AD2's Renate, mentions that when they were doing "Yeti" they wanted to do something more classical minded and not western rock minded. And we will have a real hard time making this connection. This suggests that the musical understanding of a lot of folks in the 70's was no longer influenced by the media and school, as it had before ... and many of them did their own thing, since the unfolding of events was well suited to experimentation and new things ... which lasted a while until the same media decided that it was tired of these new things, and start trying to kill it all with second rate bands and the fads ... that were the main competitors, although many will say that Yes is nothing when compared to Saturday Night Live. But Yes, managed to survive and disco fell away probably because too many bars, at least in Southern California, were a haven for the new gay folks scene ... although it shouldn't be said that those were the only people in it. The thing that we know for sure, is that there was a period of very intense INDIVIDUALITY that helped make what we call "progressive" ... and that somehow, the majority of musicians fell out of that by the end of the 70's even though I think it was more of a factor of the death of the American FM radio being raped by the Corporate Raiders and replaced the whole thing with "classic rock", which is still there 50 years later! My take, is that bands today, are not intuitive enough, and in general, look for areas to "fit", instead of looking at themselves ... all they can see is the influence and the inspiration they can gain from the past rock musicians, which I suppose is normal ... but that does not, in many ways, says a whole lot about EDUCATION in both America and Europe, does it?  Reminds me of Berkeley and its knack for creating "new" studies and classes, that a lot of folks flock to because it is the "new thing" .... in the end, just falling into the thing we see the most ... copy ... copy ... and just change the sound a bit, so it sounds new ...  I don't think that a lot of rock music can improve, unless the studies in school get better ... without someone helping folks realize and understand there is more to music than just a song, and a format ... something that within the current progressive idea, we tend to make sure that most bands fit into ... instead of out of.

I agree with all of this!! Excellent viewpoints

Jacob Schoolcraft wrote: moshkito wrote: Jacob Schoolcraft wrote: ... I have always thought that if newer Prog bands had been inspired by a different choice of Classical composers that their original music wouldn't have sounded like the 70s Prog bands and possibly would have sounded just as unique and fresh as it did when it was first released in the 70s...but...no that is not the case. Instead they study what the 70s Prog bands did and are dismissive of the path in which those bands followed. ...which was to simply add the elements of Classical music written centuries ago. Instead they emulate the way Gentle Giant went about utilizing counterpoint. Don't do that. Instead realize counterpoint your own way.  ... Hi, Tough to discuss this, I wonder ... why? The popularity and explosion of pop music in the media and its sales from the 60's ended up changing the dynamics of the music history ... before the 60's it's really easy and simple to say that classical music is the inspiration, but that gets completely turned around if you factor in jazz .... which had really taken of in the 50's (per Tom Dowd) and still went its own way and really have not a whole lot of relationship to classical music. BUT classical music was taught in school and heard everywhere, thus it becoming an influence is fairly obvious, generally speaking. By the time the 70's gets here, I think that many rock musicians had enough of the connection to classical music, which was obvious, and ended up creating their own scene, by being more adventurous and dynamic with the music, and even ELP did that just fine, considering that they had come from classical music, and stuck to it. But some things don't always add up ... AD2's Renate, mentions that when they were doing "Yeti" they wanted to do something more classical minded and not western rock minded. And we will have a real hard time making this connection. This suggests that the musical understanding of a lot of folks in the 70's was no longer influenced by the media and school, as it had before ... and many of them did their own thing, since the unfolding of events was well suited to experimentation and new things ... which lasted a while until the same media decided that it was tired of these new things, and start trying to kill it all with second rate bands and the fads ... that were the main competitors, although many will say that Yes is nothing when compared to Saturday Night Live. But Yes, managed to survive and disco fell away probably because too many bars, at least in Southern California, were a haven for the new gay folks scene ... although it shouldn't be said that those were the only people in it. The thing that we know for sure, is that there was a period of very intense INDIVIDUALITY that helped make what we call "progressive" ... and that somehow, the majority of musicians fell out of that by the end of the 70's even though I think it was more of a factor of the death of the American FM radio being raped by the Corporate Raiders and replaced the whole thing with "classic rock", which is still there 50 years later! My take, is that bands today, are not intuitive enough, and in general, look for areas to "fit", instead of looking at themselves ... all they can see is the influence and the inspiration they can gain from the past rock musicians, which I suppose is normal ... but that does not, in many ways, says a whole lot about EDUCATION in both America and Europe, does it?  Reminds me of Berkeley and its knack for creating "new" studies and classes, that a lot of folks flock to because it is the "new thing" .... in the end, just falling into the thing we see the most ... copy ... copy ... and just change the sound a bit, so it sounds new ...  I don't think that a lot of rock music can improve, unless the studies in school get better ... without someone helping folks realize and understand there is more to music than just a song, and a format ... something that within the current progressive idea, we tend to make sure that most bands fit into ... instead of out of. I agree with all of this!! Excellent viewpoints

I also agree! One of the main problems with this phenomenon for me is that, because the majority of the music consumption and creation crowd locked themselves in their echo chamber-like comfort zone of "the lazy kitschy low-effort cookie cutter product cult", that is why AI generated music nowadays is so widely accepted 🤮. And artists aren't really brave enough to push their boundaries to oppose it by creation instead of relying solely on their worthless crybaby protests and couch potato activism.

I waved goodbye to hip hop earlier this month. I said enough! If the hip hop scene and the hip hop audience is so unwilling to be musically challenged, I quit. I believe it was a good decision for what its worth.

Logan wrote: Prog didn't die in 1979, it's just been resting. Norway has had a very strong scene, what with its Norwegian Blue parrots. It they seem listless, they're just pining for the fjords. Anyway, progressive music has long been fusing styles since before Prog became a known-thing, and it continued to do so. I think in the 80s it is interesting how punk and art rock came together (think This Heat, Camberwell Now, Cardiacs) and Prog with goth etc. Post-Rock has been a very interesting development, I think. Today we have adventurous bands like Squid and black midi. It does become harder over time to be originative, but I always thought that the progressive spirit was innovative (and so originative) and innovation still happens. But I care about the music itself more than originality one might shallowly say, and I like a lot of retro music (especially of the more psychedelic, electronic and Krautrock varieties) There is this big Prog umbrella. I do tend to find the ones in the more melodic Symph vein less interesting these days than many of the ones found in Avant Prog, Post Rock, electronica... Juts little digression if I had not digressed enough already: I love the modern music, I love the 2020's, I love the 2010s, I love the 2000s, I love the 90s, I love the 80s, I love the 70s, I love the 60s (I also love the late 50s and much earlier compositions). I actually don't care that much if one considers what I like to be Prog genre. A genre can be definitionally limiting and as it becomes more codified and stratified there is less room for experimentation and innovation often. I like to think of Progressive music, and that which is not bound to genre conventions 9can fuse genres, play with form etc.)

Nicely put Logan!

And I love your opening paragraph😃

Logan wrote: ... Thanks. I have rather thought that Monty Python should be required studying in English language countries and English language forums (and exposure and openness to it world-wide potentially could do a lot of good). It is so widely referenced (so is Douglas Adams...). It is a worthy inquisition (not the Spanish...!) for those who have not yet delved into that world methinks and should not make one's brain hurt.

Logan wrote: Prog didn't die in 1979, it's just been resting. Norway has had a very strong scene, what with its Norwegian Blue parrots. It they seem listless, they're just pining for the fjords. Anyway, progressive music has long been fusing styles since before Prog became a known-thing, and it continued to do so. I think in the 80s it is interesting how punk and art rock came together (think This Heat, Camberwell Now, Cardiacs) and Prog with goth etc. Post-Rock has been a very interesting development, I think. Today we have adventurous bands like Squid and black midi. It does become harder over time to be originative, but I always thought that the progressive spirit was innovative (and so originative) and innovation still happens. But I care about the music itself more than originality one might shallowly say, and I like a lot of retro music (especially of the more psychedelic, electronic and Krautrock varieties) There is this big Prog umbrella. I do tend to find the ones in the more melodic Symph vein less interesting these days than many of the ones found in Avant Prog, Post Rock, electronica... Juts little digression if I had not digressed enough already: I love the modern music, I love the 2020's, I love the 2010s, I love the 2000s, I love the 90s, I love the 80s, I love the 70s, I love the 60s (I also love the late 50s and much earlier compositions). I actually don't care that much if one considers what I like to be Prog genre. A genre can be definitionally limiting and as it becomes more codified and stratified there is less room for experimentation and innovation often. I like to think of Progressive music, and that which is not bound to genre conventions 9can fuse genres, play with form etc.)

The main issue with the music business today is selfishness and or outright greed. We are in the digital age and the technology is being held above musicians as a tutor or teaching machine which can be rather insulting at times when in the real world...music is an art form that follows many paths.

Obviously money and the machine keeps the important media produced reaction running. It's much worse than it used to be. Last week I was in the recording studio...a state of the art studio and the sound engineer said..."It's good to be around decent musicians that take music seriously and are more about being creative and could care less about being commercially viable"

I got the impression that he found programming to be robotic and not connecting with the music lifeforce. It would seem that in the music business today...that too many Pop songwriters depend on repeating old music formulas for the sake of being successful and advised by people who are not musicians themselves.

It's not the same environment as the late 60s and early 70s when writers like Laura Nyro came along and changed everything about Pop Music by using dissonance in chord voicing and odd time signatures. People thought..."Well? What do we do now?" Todd Rundgren, Elton John , and all the melodic songwriters around the world were captured by her music and she influenced musicians to be more progressive sounding in Pop Music.

Is there a real reason why people like her no longer exist? Are there still innovators who change music? In the 70s several horn bands with hit records were very progressive. On their albums would be one or two hit songs and the rest of the album consisted of unusual songs...off beat...odd subject matter...creative art form....Chicago and BS&T to name a few . This concept seemed to change and people who wrote hit records had less freedom to be inspired by music. Definitely something that died within the industry to vast degrees and only a handful of people were allowed to do it. The ones who made money...