Petition to take Radiohead off Progarchi

Lunarscape wrote: Easy Livin wrote: Don't panic Arteum, there's often an initial rush of reviews when new bands are added, especially ones which have enjoyed some commercial success. Things will settle down again though. Interesting to note a lack of Roxy Music reviews though, not a single one yet! Dont worry, the RH rush will fade and within short time they will be  forgotten. The reason that they are here in the first place is purely comercial. As an MTV backed up band, they do atract some attention to the juvenile listeners, lets say like  Back Street Boys with mellotrons ! Why they shouldnt be listed ; Their vocals are lousy, Pshycodelic Furs had better vocals, the depressing undertone in these vocals are at the best; annoying. The lyrics are dreadful a pop clichés far to boring to dissect. Now as for instrumentation; The drumming is, again, boring and repetitive played without any imagination or passion. Bass lines ? no way ! The guitar playing is, humm lets say, burocratic and yes...efficient enough to call attention to the less experienced listener. Keyboards; Move over Wakeman, Emmerson, Van Leer, Vangelis, your new master is here to teach you guys how to make refined and superb music ! Listen to Airbag, Idiotique, Creep and I Might be Wrong and tell me if this is the stuff a serious Prog site would deal with ?

Listen to Paranoid Android, Like Spinning Plates, Pyramid Song (which has probably the weirdest time signature I've ever heard).  Is this the kind of stuff a serious prog site would deal with?  Yes!

If you honestly think the vocals are bad, try to sing with half the emotion (not to mention the fantastic range) that Thom puts into his voice.  Since when does the quality of a band's lyrics dictate how prog they are?  ELP has written some of the most cringeworthy lyrics I've ever seen, but no one has any problem considering them prog.  They have some very complex drum parts (listen to the title track from Kid A, or as I mentioned previously, Pyramid Song), some outstanding basslines (Airbag, Myxoatosis), some incredible guitar work (If the soloing in Paranoid Android doesn't qualify as impressive, we might as well just never bother listening to music with guitar).  Just becuase they don't insist on clogging up their albums with bloated, meandering keyboard solos, doesn't mean they aren't prog.  Again, just because they're not a keyboard based band, doesn't mean they're not prog.

They've been going strong for more than 10 years, and are only getting more and more popular as time goes on, so I think that to say they're a fad being backed by MTV is ridiculous (especially considering they made a point not to release any singles for Kid A, and considering MTV is pretty much branding them as "uncool" now that they've moved on to a higher form of art).

Rob The Plant wrote: the musical box wrote:  The point isnt wether we love or hate Radiohead...its just that with their inclusion, i believe the site will now struggle to set certain bounderies on" what is and isnt prog". Of cource there are no set bounderies (if we consider bands like Tool or Styx), but this is also going to make things alot harder for the admins in perticular...but it seems that the admins have taken their stand and they are here to stay...and as hard as that is for me...i can accept that. As creator of the thread:   THE END If Porcupine Tree is Prog, then so is Tool. Tool is prog man, you just don't like it. So maybe your opinion on Radiohead is biased as well.

I didnt say that Tool werent Prog....

I like the fact that Radiohead are there because it annoys the Radiohead fans I know - all of whom see themselves as supporters of a "shining beacon" in contemporary music's horrible decline, and preach unhealthily about the passion and integrity of Messrs Yorke and Greenwood.  Radiohead are at best a good indie band with existential pretensions and at worst a pretentious, self-righteous, and utterly dispicable crew of overaged teenagers, moaning about why the world doesn't work.

However, its their fans that really hack me off - like REM fans (and often there is communion) - who all seem to believe that they are operating on a higher level because they listen to (and sometimes understand) Yorke's ponderous, but ultimately, adolescent tosh. Telling them they have been included on the Progarchives website (the bain of many a joke against me), has had the effect of dividing the intellectualites who believe ALL Radiohead is godlike from the hangers-on who think its cool to like bands who think.  And their faces when I tell them....  Now there is division - its like post-Gabriel Genesis ("Well, of course, I only really like the Bends, and that other stuff was just a bit too strange for me....")   

To this end, Radiohead's inclusion is welcomed, though ultimately it will serve little purpose in presenting prog fans with something new to digest - the vast majority will be grossly disappointed - like hearing Kansas for the first time after some of the reviews on this site. 

My vote for their inclusion just swung it 51-49% in favour...apologies to those who voted with genuine intent of their removal.