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Why is prog rock always called "snooty"? |
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Frenetic Zetetic 
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Joined: December 09 2017 Location: Now Status: Offline Points: 9233 |
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 Posted: December 04 2019 at 01:27 |
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The irony is the general public will call most niche hobbies involving some form of deeper intellect or art appreciation "snooty".
Compared to what? Neanderthal sports and celebrity worship?
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"I am so prog, I listen to concept albums on shuffle." -KMac2021 |
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Slartibartfast
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Honorary Collaborator / In Memoriam Joined: April 29 2006 Location: Atlantais Status: Offline Points: 29630 |
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 05:00 |
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That very statement is pretentious...  Ignorance is bliss.
Edited by Slartibartfast - December 04 2019 at 05:03 |
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Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Cristi
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Crossover / Prog Metal Teams Joined: July 27 2006 Location: wonderland Status: Online Points: 43717 |
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 05:01 |
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it's a snooty statement.
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Slartibartfast
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 05:16 |
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 Did you really mean that or are you just pretending to mean that???
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Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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ExittheLemming
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 06:44 |
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Not sure what's ironic about a majority believing that the tastes of a current minority are esoteric? I've never met anyone yet who ever used the term 'the general public' as anything other than a euphemism for people they consider beneath contempt. It wasn't always like that. In the early 70's Jethro Tull, ELP, Yes and Pink Floyd had Number 1 albums in the US and/or UK (and I think at least 16 of their albums reached the top 10) while Tubular Bells sold 16 million copies.
 (Pedro would have been horrified) Dean is correct that Prog became a pejorative term due to the borderline Maoist 'year zero' revisionism of Rock journalism circa 1976/77. When Prog wasn't niche, it's highly unlikely that the majority of its consumers were equipped with the 'deeper intellect' you ascribe to an appreciation of this musical art. Not everyone likes sports and that's perfectly fine but to be good at sport to a professional standard takes talent and hard work which ain't exactly a fumble in the end-zone off what is required to be a successful musician. Yes, celebrity worship is dumb. Full marks for that.Edited by ExittheLemming - December 04 2019 at 06:49 |
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SteveG
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 07:00 |
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^ I agree with what you're saying, but how did this pejorative term reach down to the consciousness of the huddled masses? Surely the proletariat can't read.
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Tillerman88
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 07:14 |
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Right in all accounts man, today many of the people you're referring to just find weird who dislikes what is popular and loved by the majority. And just can't help here but seconding you - "prog" is a perfect example of music whose popularity died but loooong ago......
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The overwhelming amount of information on a daily basis restrains people from rewinding the news record archives to refresh their memories...
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ExittheLemming
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 07:26 |
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^^ I don't believe anyone who ever bought say, Dark Side of the Moon orTarkus between 1971 and 1976 was ever turned away from Prog by the dismissive music journalism circa the 76/77 Punk gestation. The only demographic that rejected Prog was a vulnerable and politically disenfranchised generation who had never even heard the music but considered the descriptions provided by journos Julie Burchill, Ian Penman. Paul Morley, Nick Kent, Charles Shaar Murray and Lester Bangs et al sufficient cause to kick out against an unseen enemy by proxy.
Edited by ExittheLemming - December 04 2019 at 07:27 |
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Lewian
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 07:44 |
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Well, I wasn't there at the time, but aren't you overstating the influence of journalists a bit? I can't imagine it was that difficult to come across some prog even accidentally on the radio at the time, as it was still selling well. So I'd assume that people did know what it sounds like, at least to some extent. Also I wonder why similar things happened in other parts of the world, if the UK music press played such a big role in this. Although you may have a point, for example I know that in 1979/80 when I started to become aware of what was going on, the music press in Western Germany behaved very similar to the British press two years or so before. But then music changed in similar ways in Easter Germany at the same time as well, where hardly anyone had access to the western musical press, not even German let alone British. Overall I think that the press had some influence but people's listening, taste, and lifestyle changed as well (and also some major prog bands were in a state of decline) and were not all determined by what writers wrote.
Edited by Lewian - December 04 2019 at 07:45 |
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SteveG
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 07:44 |
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^ Fair enough, but were these music journalists dictating public tastes or reporting on them? Or was there some kind of a strange zeitgeist between them and the public regarding musical trends?
I could be wrong but I tend to favor the later scenario.
Edited by SteveG - December 04 2019 at 07:50 |
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Dean
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 08:12 |
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The sheer fact that Iain can reel off those 6 names from memory and I can instantly recognise every one of them (and add a few more) indicates to me that as, using the modern vernacular, influencers the power they wielded cannot be over stated. We are talking about a pre-internet era where a very small number of music newspapers and magazines were the only way that any music fan could get any information on their favourite bands and artists. Take for example Caroline Coon - one-time reviewer for the Melody Maker who was initially the inspiration for Matching Moles O Caroline and then later for The Stranglers' London Lady. Prog Rock artists avoided the press (possibly through social awkwardness) while Punks musicians (using that term loosely) openly courted publicity. Punk was a muso-journalists wet dream come true.
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Gerinski
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 08:43 |
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I guess many people simply adhere to what's on fashion, regardless of what it is precisely. When Prog was fashionable they bought Tarkus and Foxtrot and Tubular Bells and The Dark Side of the Moon and Close to the Edge and Thick as a Brick and...
They enjoyed them, but most likely never made the "intellectual connection" with that music really. They also bought Saturday Night Fever and Abba's Greatest Hits and ELO's Discovery and Outlandos d'Amour and London Calling and Breakfast in America and the B-52's and whatever came on fashion, and those Prog classic albums became quickly replaced by other, more modern albums. Prog was left behind because they had never actually made the deep connection with the music we Prog lovers had made. Edited by Gerinski - December 04 2019 at 08:46 |
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rogerthat
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 08:50 |
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Yes, and not only for its penchant for publicity. I guess there was a feeling that prog - at least the big bands within prog - had become too excessive. Didn't ELP used to have a convoy of trailers to carry their stuff during tours? There was probably an urge then to return rock to a more political stance (a la Lennon/Dylan) and punk was the perfect vehicle. It was obviously necessary to 'otherise' something in order for a movement like that to catch fire and that 'other' was prog. That's ok and it happens often times. I just wish those journalists would fess up now and relent on their hatred for prog. It's not healthy to hate music of any genre so much. Respect the fact that somebody else is just on a different journey from yours. And yet, journalists still seem to feel obligated to regurgitate the same old cliches about prog even today, when those arguments are no longer relevant.
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rogerthat
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 09:13 |
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I have also mentioned elsewhere on this subject that the emergence of metal made prog obsolete from a pop culture point of view. That is, if prog stood for bombast and excess, metal delivered it in spades. And in big arenas too. And it was heavy and excited kids. Of course prog has many qualities that metal by itself (i.e. non-prog metal) lacks but these are not necessarily important to a lot of people. And this isn't even about snobbery or sneering down on the masses. As much as I like prog, the argument that it takes a complicated route to express emotions is not without merit. You could get a great combination of adventurous music composition, soulful singing and playing and impactful lyrics in an album like Stevie Wonder's Innervisions. And they are - barring Living For The City - just four-five minute verse-chorus songs, just that they happen to be songs with very interesting chord progressions throughout. It takes a lot of skill as well as creativity to shine in a standard pop format like that too. The virtue of prog listeners is more their/our patience as well as open mindedness to endure or even embrace all the weird things prog throws at us. But it is not necessary that all listeners should be as patient in their listening habits. Nor does the fact that the music requires such patience inherently make it special. |
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rogerthat
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 09:19 |
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To sort of echo what Dean said, in the pre-internet age (and extending up to the period when internet had yet to render print media largely toothless), art critics did wield a lot of power. Here in India, a reigning superstar experimented and spearheaded a film that took a critical look at TV media. Critics made sure to nitpick and run down the film and it tanked. Hard as it may be to believe that today, this did used to happen and what I cited isn't even the only instance. Not only were critics powerful, their influence was disproportionate. That is, if there was actually a large minority in the audience that still appreciated an artist or a genre, the vociferous chorus of the naysaying critics could still get the producers/labels to develop cold feet. To some extent, this may have happened with prog too.
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SteveG
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 09:24 |
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rogerthat
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 09:27 |
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Maybe but would it have exploded in the UK without Malcolm McLaren promoting it for ideological reasons, reasons that the press was sympathetic to? It is interesting that within a few years, punk went back to being underground albeit thriving in the mainstream through its many offshoots. |
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SteveG
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 09:35 |
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Dean
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 09:38 |
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Not as much as the music journalists would have you believe. It was a mostly fictional tale writ live as it never happened, Punk (as we should all be aware by now) was a very brief moment of self-publicised glory that took two years to get going and six months to burn-out. By the arse-end of 1976 it was all over bar the spitting. What most people regard as Punk was the post '76 commercialisation cash-in that followed. The penniless disaffected yoof were the poster-boys for the movement but definitely not the demographic that the bands, tour operators, record labels, t-shirt printers, saftey-pin sellers and more importantly, newspaper editors courted. If Punk was the result of socio-political and economic factors then it would have been nothing more than a passing footnote.
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SteveG
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Posted: December 04 2019 at 09:48 |
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^ I agree 100% about real punk vs. post faux punk, and the resulting trendy punk/new wave boom that followed. That was certainly perpetuated by the press. But the "real punk movement" was still an organic entity that I believe was created mostly on it's own before the music press ran with it. There is still a semblance of a give and take between the punk movement and the press. The bottom line is that the press did not create the punk movement. But they certainly did shape the punk rock that followed.
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softandwet wrote: