You're A Prog Addict When... (Serious Edition)

I notice if I try to do homework while listening to prog I get get highly distracted and zone out, listening to the msuic

When you decline to buy a new album just because you notice that the band doesn't have a keyboard member in the band. It happened me several times a couple of years ago, I went in a record store, see the album of some new band I've heard randomly wherever, and check the credits on the back and saw that they didn't have a keyboard member, you know, that the keyboards were played by the producer or a guest player, and I didn't buy it... I thought "how this guys could possible make good prog just with drums, bass and guitars?" and to say the true, just few bands can possible be interesting without a key member like a keyboard player... at least in prog...

Textbook wrote: In myself I notice something kind of stupid that I keep doing anyway- if I'm listening to an album and something interrupts me or my attention wanders for some reason and I "miss" a bit, I will often restart the album, regardless of its length, from track one and begin all over again. I've tried not doing it and I've gotten irritable and distracted and ended up doing it anyway. In this way it can take absolute ages to get through one album.

That sounds more like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder than Prog Addiction, to me

=F=

I can understand the need to feel an album in it's completeness. A song, composition or epic has a structure and emotional development, but often good prog albums have that same development on a larger scale: the complete album has a sort of complete feel with a beginning and an end (like a sort of ritual).

Though I also believe music is the most enjoyable when listening to complete albums (perhaps as a ritual of some sort), I do think what the topic-starter has described sounds a bit like an obsession. This obsession however, becomes a disorder when it seriously harms the person and lowers the quality of life (in multiple ways). This important latter part has not been mentioned by Textbook. So there's still no reason to use the term Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

On topic. The only good measure of acquiring information about how addicted some-one is to prog is the time he or she spends listening and/or thinking about it. I do spend very much time with my prog-hobby, but perhaps less then the average time other people spend watching tv (active/in-active). This re-frames the prog-addiction from an addiction to a higher quality of spare time usage. I think watching tv is way more destructive (especially these days).

I work on many progressive pieces and it would seem that this so called accusation of being nerdy has more to do with the effect the music has on a large sum of people. The gymnastics of it is quite sportsmen and incorporates breathing exercises and development of the upmost dexterity. Most people define gymnastics in prog with the pompous in the musician. The interesting aspect for me is the fact that the technical side to music was written centuries ago. Whether you are a singer songwriter or a basic rocker there will come a time where you will be required to play something technical. Paginini or whoever, it has all been written before. I am still a prog addict when it comes to collecting titles and I keep the hobby private. Any pressure from the negative side should not be entered into and if you can somehow adapt the attitude of a monk, content with rejection, then solitude becomes a must with your afternoons of prog.

Apparently i have some serious psychological issues like the rest of you.

[QUOTE=jampa17]

When you decline to buy a new album just because you notice that the band doesn't have a keyboard member in the band. It happened me several times a couple of years ago, I went in a record store, see the album of some new band I've heard randomly wherever, and check the credits on the back and saw that they didn't have a keyboard member, you know, that the keyboards were played by the producer or a guest player, and I didn't buy it... I thought "how this guys could possible make good prog just with drums, bass and guitars?" and to say the true, just few bands can possible be interesting without a key member like a keyboard player... at least in prog...

[/QUOTE

Oh, I almost forgot: she also likes Transatlantic's Live in Europe. 

I almost never buy albums that don't have 10+ minute long songs. 

Edited by StrangerByTheMinute - May 12 2010 at 17:47

You don't get Relayer. You listen to Relayer again. You don't get Relayer. You listen to Relayer again. You don't get Relayer. You listen to Relayer again.

OR

You start the week with $350. You walk into JB Hi-Fi and come out with $14