A little different post, list and explain why the albums that you choose are souless and generic at best, and what lacks in them in your perception.

I begin: Rush - Moving Pictures means nothing to me, the songs looks too generic, cheesy, looks like the type of music that would go in a Guitar Hero game, just classic rock without nothing original or new to the table, the voice of Geedy Lee for me sounds VERY harsh and unpleasant, but in this album his voices sounds even more unbearable to me, but there are Rush albums that i really appreciate like Permanent Waves, Hemispheres and 2112, they sound much more original and concise all around.

So, what albums you really find boring and simple at best?

I agree with you about Rush---although I like some of their songs very much--I'm in the minority but think Grace under Pressure is their overall one of their best albums because it is what they do best--big power stadium chords with lot's of catchy verse- chorus. Also agree with Camel--- but I also think of generic when I think of lots of American prog like Kansas. 

       I've tried, but I find them dull as dishwater, sorry. For me,  they don't go places, musically.

RIO artists can also be very boring music, just really no excitement IMO. I have a lot of albums in these genres and I never play them.

Catcher10 wrote: But zeuhl/Magma is boring to tears as well as RIO and avant prog.

Wow. I don't like everything Camel's done (not a fan of The Snow Goose or Harbour of Tears), but to call them 4th-tier is harsh. Rain Dances is a splendid record (it was my first, and remains my favorite of theirs), and later albums Breathless, Stationary Traveller and Rajaz are very cool. The very first album's good, too.

why do people like this kind of thing I do not understand

harsh??? sheesh.. tough crowd.  I was giving them a complement by putting them so high and recognizing while I think they are as limp as Trump's dick and as inspring as a picture of his plastic silicon golddigging wife haha a lot of people like them.. which gives them sort of halfassed importance in prog.

but as far as as any importance or generally recognized classics ... much less inspriing anyone of note..  I think I have the right of it.  Having done my division format some years ago..  4th division is about where they belong.  Perhaps if I can be bothred to find it, or recreate my prog divisional list.. you'd see it would be laughable to see them in 3rd division.. there are some heavy weight and influenital groups in there. Posessing qualities that Camel has none of... like them if one wants.. but quite simply.. they were generic formumatic.. and simply brought brough nothing progressive to the music or the genre.

IMO course hahaha

Then turn it around.  I used the OP as an opportunity to say a lot of positive things about Rush in response to his negative assessment.  

I could have done the same thing with Camel, who I also love. 

three bands mentioned here I love - Rush, Enchant and Camel. 

To say Rush are generic is ridiculous if you ask me. 

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but just wondering if you have actually heard their first five or so albums especially mirage, snowgoose and moonmadness? Or maybe you just don't care for symph prog in general. I honestly can't see anyone who is a symph fan not liking them at least to some degree.

"Tough crowd"? Haha, hardly. You just wrote thrice as many sentences explaining why you think Camel sucks. I just said "harsh." Hey, wait a sec...tough crowd! 

Maybe you need to give them another whirl. They certainly kick Floyd's ass in the keyboards & drums dept. 

We have all of those albums, as well as Breathless and A Live Record. I actually play them relatively often, so Micky is quite familiar with them. Personally speaking, I find Camel a very pleasant listen, but not much more than that.  Though I wouldn't be so harsh as to call them 4th-tier, the worship they seem to receive from many prog fans has always baffled be a bit. To each his/her own. I suppose.

Anyway, a highly rated album that has always bored me to tears is Marillion's Misplaced Childhood. I have also never managed to "get" Foxtrot, though I don't think it is generic in the least (whatever this means).

For it does completely overstate their body of work, their influence on the genre, and any kind of influence they have on any bands which are the kind of exact things.. not being popular.. that get you promoted to the upper divisions.  

It's not about Camel worship, per se, it's about the random comparisons to certain politicians' appendages. LOL!

Like I said, some albums, like Harbour Of Tears, and the oft-revered The Snow Goose, just do not click with me. I ditched my copies many moons ago.

I only know of one real "Camel nut," and that's my buddy Dave. The guy rates them above most of their contemporaries. It's got more to do with Latimer worship than anything, methinks, haha.

Raff wrote: Anyway, a highly rated album that has always bored me to tears is Marillion's Misplaced Childhood.

made the history of progressive like Genesis and Yes (and partially King Crimson)...

and many others groups less important...

But if I think of a quite generic and boring album in the middle of progressive era (1969-76) 

which enjoys great reputation, in my mind comes the name of

Music in Glass House by Gentle Giant

I love this album, I wouldn't use a world like "gaga" though.

The album has a great flow, I find the playing tight, Fish's vocal performance great, good, emotional lyrics, nice guitar work from Rothery. 

This is a discussion board. Learning to deal with people that can explain (which is asked for in the op) why they strongly dislike something you may love... is good for you, its healthy and something we need to be exposed to as part of becoming an adult person. You can either just accept it - because why should you care if someone doesn't like some Marillion-album you treasure or whatever. Alternatively-or ideally you can try and come up with better arguments than the "negative person" has. Both reactions is better than having problems with other opinions than your own. Positivity is overrated - uncensored honesty rules. If an honest opinion comes off as unnessecarily mean spirited, too personal or plain stupid your opposer has "lost the debate" in everyone elses eyes anyway.

However if everyone just writes some album title and leaves, its about as worthless as writing the title of your favorite album. 

I've seen an almost one hour interview with him and it was not boring, he was not boring. 

Two more artists whose music I like are bashed here - Marillion and Steven Wilson. I guess I'm just not cool. 

micky wrote: got to go with anything by Camel haha..  the archtype of generic boring 4th division prog...

 

Something we agree on!

progaardvark wrote: I can cross the street with all 12 of my legs.

I'm with you Cristi . I really adore pretty much all of Marillion, but I can see how people might get bored with their music, I don't get bored. Marillion has a huge catalog, so it can be easy to bash them, just like Rush and Genesis. Huge catalog gives people fuel to nit pick because a few albums are not like the others so they get labeled boring or generic (still have no idea what that means), as opposed to an artist who has half the volume.

I've met Steven Wilson and he is far from boring, what people may not like is he has a "don't care about your opinion" attitude towards my music, or genre label. I appreciate that more than masking his opinion to satisfy the masses. And yea his interviews are pretty good, far from boring.

There is nothing wrong about a thread like this either. Problem is we could do more discussion about this at a bar rather than on a web forum trying to jot down our feelings in a short post....... 

Pallas made better music starting with their come back in the late 90s. Pendragon improved in the 90s. IQ started off well with their first two album and became poppier for a while, until 1993 when they did Ever and have been consistently good, sometimes great ever since. 

I enjoy Twelfth Night quite a bit, with or without Mann (there, I said it )

I'm pretty sure I'd struggle to tell the difference between these 5, all pretty generic.

no, you wouldn't struggle, because there are differences 

ummm....

no perhaps not.. but we the PA's cool crew...

still love ya man...

Beavis and Butt-head listening to RPI and RIO, now that could have made a good episode. 

Hi,

Sad ... specially when at the time they came up it was about the EXPERIMENT and had a lot less to do with "music" and "musically" than it did with seeing where things could go, regardless of the result, of which TAGO MAGO was culled from 20 hours of crazy fun.

A lot of the mid 20th century music was NOT about its musicality and what music was supposed to do, and then the audience kisses up to it. Rock music kinda changed that some, and now it is all about the kiss and no one gives a hoot about the music anyway ... it's all has become a favorite game, and some of the comments, sadly enough, only seem to show how little music history so many folks know.

I'm not the expert in that history, but it is really easy to see how music changed from the early 1900's all the way to 1999 ... and its many variations, due mainly to the development of the recording, which now was able to save things for many years for folks to listen to and evaluate in the future.

CAN, was, all the way to "LANDED", and experimental band, and after that Holger kinda left and it was no longer a great band as it had once been. Holger continued that in his solo albums, the first 4 or 5 of them being very crazy and total fun to listen to, and I imagine that he might even have wanted to do some of that with CAN but the others did not want to.

Sad that you even think it is not musically interesting ... neither was disco and the repeating thing ... and EGE BAMYASI is a heck of a FUNK album ... and if it were not for Damo, I think that many might have been thought of as some American Funk band ... and yet, because of his vocals it became something else.

Regarding the vocals which are not "musical", as you suggest, that is mostly intentional ... and its meant to be a counter point opposite the music to add something else. It is also an incredible exercise in vocal freedom, something that so few have done over the years, although it was done better and with a much more intense effect in film ... go watch Klaus Kinski in several of the early Werner Herzog films. There is no difference to his vocal freedom and expression and Werner was not going to be stupid and stop it when it was amazing to just be able to film it, although sometimes it was hard because of fast movement and vocal gymnastics that were too much for any audience. BUT, at that time, there were many theater groups travelling the academic circles doing a lot of experimental things, and VOICE was one of the most important ones, and it showed in rock music, however, the 'control" of it by commercial interests turned those vocal experiments into crap and now ... you and I and everyone else, think that those folks were stupid crazy and bizarre, and there was nothing bizarre about it ... it was an experiment, and it succeeded, and is remembered FONDLY (I might add) as "krautrock" although this is hardly fair since it was happening in film since the mid 60's (Godard/Truffaut were known as the new wave), and their freedom and experiments were well known and discussed, and then over to Germany, that had its own "renaissance" in the 60's ... and it was loud and clear in film and theater. 

What Damo, or Flora Purim, and others did vocally, is a rarity ... it's something that you just about have to take the attitude that you don't care, but you do, because it's all about what you feel inside and comes out, and sometimes you do not have words for it.

Of course it ha no musicality in it ... it's a new expression and we have NOT defined a musicality for it ... and sadly, with that attitude, we never will.

It's all music ... the issue being that we think that all music, regardless, has to be this way and that ... period ... and by doing that we're limiting it. Think about the development of the synthesizer ... it was considered dark and evil and the voice of a monster ... and look at it now! Almost the same thing.

I like Porcupine Tree but i couldn't agree more with Marillion without Fish. That is the most boring music i've ever heard within the context of prog rock. 

           I will give Can another chance.

wow really? This can mean two things: you haven't heard much prog to say Marillion with Hogarth is the most boring thing ever (not likely to have happened, right?) or you just listened to a song or album you did not like and gave up all together. 

I mean what did you listen to to come up with such a radical statement? How many albums have you listened to? (there are quite a few). What songs and albums  put you off? 

I've listened to some awful neo-prog, and it was awful because those bands were poor imitations of the big names of the genre. 

wait, am I boring you? 

I have never picked on other members, never insulted anyone here. And won't start now. But why are you being rude right know it's gotta be a wtf moment.

ok, sorry then, nevermind 

 true, but you are in the prog lounge right now, so stick to prog 

I too wonder what are people listening to? Marillion especially with H is pretty amazing music, and his lyrics are excellent, well written. Brave and Marbles are two of the most brilliant recordings of that genre, and screw the genre but of that time frame. Rothery and Pete are amazing performers, Pete's bass playing is so deep with emotion its crazy to think it is boring music. 

What I think happens is some listeners simply do not spend enough quality time just sitting and hearing the music. Many, many times I buy a record and don't like it, but once I sit and simply listen with a passion it then hits me. KC took 10yrs for me to get, and now I really enjoy it, but it helped that I never thought they were boring. CAN on the other hand was easy for me, not all of it but most or at least their style. As Mosh said CAN has a lot of funk in their style and I am a huge funk/R&B listener all my life. Parliament/Funkadelic/EW&F/BarKays, if you don't understand funk CAN will be tough to like because there is little rock/hard rock to their base.

so it seems like I am Stewart and Micky is Butthead  He loves his RPI 

Obviously it's all subjective, but he said and I quote " that is the most boring music i've ever heard within the context of prog rock". Rather harsh, with no back up argument. 

I guess what bothered me it's not what he said, but how he said it. Does it make sense? 

At least you explained why you don't like the h era of Marillion. 

Depends if it was any good or not. 

They'll have all my noses too. I can't bear to go nostril-less.

I'm more worried about where to put my socks when I reach a toll booth. I've thought about putting one in my colon.

Wow ... you must be Lasse Braun's offspring!

Interesting idea, but some of it was done in THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN already, although its humor might be slightly off kilter here, and probably way too boring.

I would "question" anyone's idea of what is and is not "music" or "non music".

The more interesting and famous thought similar to this is Jean-Luc Godard's "anti-film", and almost all of his film work all the way through the 80's is an incredible mish-mash of weird, funny, strange and everything else that you can imagine in film, that is ... you would think that is something that students with a camera for the first time would do ... and yet, this guy was doing it with famous writers, and actors and actresses, and folks that wanted badly to be in his films because they knew they could do anything they wanted.

"Freedom" in music is an oxymoron. First of all almost all music is "regulated" by some context or other. Thus creating something as "non-music" is almost impossible since we are trying to define the wind ... with musical terms, and the wind just went somewhere else you didn't expect, or know.

Some folks, don't like this in music, or film. Why? It's simple really ... and scary ... it jolts you hard and you do not know how to react to it, and later, most folks end up not liking it because they do not understand it.

Here's a thought for you ... and it comes from Julian Beck and the Living Theater, but it had its roots much earlier in theater and film .... WHY ARE YOU PUTTING A MEANING ON SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T HAVE IT? 

We might, decide, 50 years later that it meant this and that and was about this and that ... but do you know of any artist that works thinking like that? Yeah, that's right ... none!

You do what you feel, and in those days, you did not pay attention to a whole lot ... and in some cases people were stoned immaculate, and I doubt that a college educated moron would be trying to put together something that has "no meaning" ... it was, btw, what the music departments were trying to teach their students in the late 70's and 80's and it was so in Santa Barbara and most of the California systems. However, the "music" was totally tied down by the concepts and ideas of what "music" is.

And you have to remove all that ... before you can find a new world of ... you name it. Unfortunately, we have killed it for progressive and prog music because of definitions that are ridiculous and have nothing to do with music and instead stay focused on one instrument ... the most ridiculous thing ever ... a blue guitar, or slanted organ that most churches had ... becomes a "progressive music" essential ... 

There is no such thing as an album that is "very generic or boring" ... there is/are only listeners that do not like something or other, and think their opinion is more important than your, and have as much weight as a feather or cotton.

You decide!

C'mon, get over that hump.

I was thinking about whether I can make sense of this thread; I mean as long as we're just listing what we like and what we don't, the positive threads are always better because they come with an invitation to expore, whereas the negative ones are just negative and won't inspire me to listen to anything new. One still can have an interesting discussion but that'd require that people put up something worth discussing.

The category "boring" is by the way a category that characterizes the listener and not the music. Music can only ever be boring through a listener who is bored. So if you say this-or-that is boring, you say more about you than about the music. There's nothing wrong with that but I wonder whether everyone realizes...

Anyway, the music I'm thinking of when reading this thread is by two acts who were actually some of my heroes at some other time of their artistic activity, Mike Oldfield and Tangerine Dream. I've got to say that when Oldfield came out with the second version of "Tubular Bells" I was skeptical but listening to it I thought, doing a "number II" version in this way is in itself a quite original thing to do. It's not exactly my favourite but I find it both good to listen to and respectable. But then he goes on and does five (or whatever) further ones?? And then "everybody has been waiting for Ommadawn II and here it is, finally"... have I? Well, from Oldfield's other output between the eighties and now, chances are that his youthful creativity has dried out (I indeed get bored by the vast majority of that stuff)  and Ommadawn II is indeed the best that can be expected of him these days, surely it's nice to listen to but it's kind of the definition of "generic" and, well, I may not be bored but I'm not excited either, that's for sure.  

Tangerine Dream after about 1983... I listened to bits and pieces of various albums of them that came out after that year and some in full... I am impressed by the quantity... I will not complain and actually like it if it's played in lounges or shops or lifts... but I haven't heard a single bit which has moved me or of which I haven't thought, "oh that kind of stuff again".

Sad! Both of these created something very special in their early days and for quite some time; I don't even think the problem is bowing to commercial pressure here (actually some of Oldfield's 80s pop music is enjoyable and even somewhat original, surely better in my books than what came later), rather really, the creativity, the quest for adventure died out in them. I wish it wouldn't have happened.

Just out of curiosity and not directed at anyone specific, why do some people have such a bugaboo about negativity? It's like they consider it a form of radioactivity that will kill them or a vortex that will eat their souls?  It's just words, after all.  

Yeah, there's some Camel that I enjoy but at times listening to them I find myself wishing they would just go crazy with some high energy heavy riffs, just to change the pace a little. They can be a snoozefest at times.

At work I'm supposed to leverage separate realities so in that vein I will not attack you like a starving rabid dog going after a ham bone.

Calm blue ocean.....calm blue ocean......calm blue ocean

I do not like negative threads because some people will just mention artists and albums with no back up argument, others will insult other users for having different opinions, it's happened before, so it's likely it will happen again. That's why I said what I said. 

Yeah, it's frustrating when people don't back up what they are saying with reasons, any reasons. 

Call me a hopeless optimist who tries to take to heart what my old dearly departed mom taught me - if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. 

The only reason I am on ProgArchives is to find community with others who love the music that I love, and to discover new music that I might love. Ultimately, these negative threads descend into what could best be described as a tribal bashing of what someone finds offensive/noisy/uninteresting/you name it. In this vein, I always find it amazing that for a group that professes to love progress music, how much of it is actually despised by members of our group - not that it doesn't really click with them, not that the music is too atonal, not that the singer can't hold a tune to save his life, but members hate it. While I am sure I am pissing in the wind at trying to alter this overall pattern, at the end of the day, I'm really not interested in participating in these tribal arguments. Tell me what you like about the music you love and you are listening too, and let me know why I should try it and like it too. At the end of the day I may agree or I may disagree that this music resonates with me. 

presdoug wrote: I remember an acquaintance of mine calling it "non music"

Great turn of phrase.