Too Pretentious? Au Contraire.

Grumpyprogfan wrote: None of my friends call prog snooty. Maybe you need more informed friends.

Most of my friends would just look blank if I even mentioned the term

 

This could be a fitting response about their (attacker's) own music tastes...

 

.... which in turn would confirm your "snootyness"

He was one of these old school puritans that thought rock and roll should be simple, three chords & raw. 

Nothing wrong with that if it's what you like but we all know it can be so much more. 

twosteves wrote: For friends who think prog is pretentious I always say--well if you think this is pretentious you been taken for a ride---look across the mirror before that u decide.

Genesis quote, from "It" off The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway!

Anyways, it's not just the general public that feels prog is "snooty", it was especially the rock critics. The rock critics were accusing prog of such even before punk existed. Sure some rock critics were worst about it, most particularly Dave Marsh, Lester Bangs, and Robert Christgau (although Christgau did give King Crimson's Red an A-, his reviews, regardless of artist or rating, you can't always tell if it was favorable or not). The first Rolling Stone Record Guide, from 1979 actually gave pretty favorable reviews to Yes albums, even Tales from Topographic Oceans, but in the second edition, from 1983, they couldn't cough up more than a three star rating. If I remember right, it's because Rolling Stone let Dave Marsh review those Yes albums and he never had a favorable opinion towards that band. This is the same guy with an unhealthy obsession with Jackson Browne where he throws four and five star ratings at everything he done in those books.

Pffft! Merely the mewling cattle call of the unwashed masses.

LOL , Miss Piggy said it best

This, and they assume that people who listen to stuff like prog (or jazz or classical) only do so to fulfill intellectual needs and not because they find it soulful.  What they don't realise is complex music is naturally more dense and takes more effort to fully come to terms with and only THEN you can start appreciating its emotions.  It makes you have to persevere to appreciate, which you don't have to do with pop and they think that is somehow wrong.  

^ Wurd

Well I said, in that case most classical masterpieces must be unlikable in the stressed mind of the modern music expert. 

    

I would tend to believe It is mostly about the attempt to avoid that the masses from starting to think, and their mind starting to become active, they might want more for themselves. 

Making a situation where the under educated and the educated hate each other, is just what the 1/2% richest need, so they won't unite, cos that is where revolutions always start.     

Kinda like saying that Bernard Herrman is pretentious ... or almost every known composer of music in the 20th century.

The 20th century was the century of the GREAT VISUAL that would be considered "pretentious" if it had been written or discussed ... instead ... IT WAS THE NEWS AND LIVE ... RIGHT DOWN TO A BULLET TO SOMEONE'S HEAD ... and calling the strength and emotional impact of the music (and many of the arts) "pretentious" ... is, to me, not only weird ... but way out there on left field ... aligned with Martians and Venusians!

Why would those who have not been programmed to enjoy 'simplistic artistic expressions' necessarily gravitate to Prog, Classical or Jazz rather than other popular music genres? The music of Lou Reed, Beatles, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, Johnny Cash, Patti Smith, Harry Nillson, Paddy McAloon, Lloyd Cole, Ray Davies, Burt Bacharach, Jimmy Webb, John Fogerty, Brian Wilson, Buddy Holly, James Brown, Randy Newman, Neil Young (the list goes on) is relatively simple when compared to Progressive Rock but none the less profoundly moving and thought provoking for all that. Why do we persist with the idea that complex music is somehow more deserving of reverence than simple music that has withstood the transience of fickle fashion for more than 50 years?

 

Maybe they call prog rock "snooty" because of how we look down on them. Ok, I admit that I'm a music snob, but at least I accept that label with good humour, and recognise that maybe we are at least partly to blame for the denigration of prog.

 

 

 

That gets into some heavy duty neuroscience and how the brain responds to certain patterns, loops, cadences and subject  matter. In a nutshell, most pop music provides a sort of hypnotic inducing spell that allows subliminal messages to be inserted whereas the more complex forms of music evoke the opposite reaction. There is more than enough evidence that the Tavistock Institute of Public Relations was responsible for the British Invasion for example. The 60s music scene was manufactured to create an escapist route so that many would find themselves immersed in a drug culture and in effect neutralize the protest movements. Once indoctrinated into the cult of simple music, anything outside of that paradigm seems threatening and thus a defense response. I remember when i was young i thought prog was some snooty old people music so i'm speaking from my own experience as well. It wasn't until i opened up my mind and explored it that i realized i was a friggin idiot for having any of those assumptions. Of course there was primo talent with the artists you mentioned above but famous musicians were effectively mind controlled and required to do what the record label wanted. Prog on the other hand exemplified true musical freedom (for some anyways) and also served as the jackhammer to shatter ossified mind patterns.

Prog/more complex "free" stuff can well be associated with escapism and drug culture, compared to some more "direct" music, possibly with direct political lyrics. I'm not saying that this is how it is, I'm just saying I can imagine (and have heard from some people) the same kind of argument stabbing the other direction.

True but it seems that repetitive and hypnotic patterns in conjunct with drug use allow subliminal programming to take effect whereas prog and other complex thought patterns break these attempts. This is a generalization of course but seems to be true for the majority of the population. There are always a few of  us who are literally unprogrammable

In prog terms, being snooty applies particularly to music journos with cloth ears who don't know a good prog album when they hear it, and who love to tell us that prog is pompous and pretentious and has had it's day, although everyone here at ProgArchives knows differently.

All said, prog is pompous and distended, but that's never bothered me.   I mean if you genuinely like something but some (or most) people think it's snooty, it doesn't take away form the pleasure you get from it.   The same would be true for music that is considered lowbrow and simplistic.

Give me pompous and distended Prog-Rock any time over the manufactured Pop music that's played on the radio these days.

^ winner of the 'Guys Who Look a Little Bit Like Ryan Reynolds' contest

Good point !

For social prosperity one should never profess to play or listen to music that hasn't earned approbation by local alpha people or general music-for-everyone certificate, unless one is the alpha guy... So do we pretend to be the alpha guy ?

now its fans..prog heads... oh yeah.. that is another thing 

 

You say that like you think it's a ridiculous notion. Whereas, something like 4′33″ by John Cage would have to be one of the most pretentious things ever produced.

 

 

 

 

My uncle was a classical music buff. I bought him the classical Queen Symphony for Christmas and he said "Why have you bought me that? You know I don't like Pop music!"

Psychedelic Paul wrote: I can't say I've ever heard anyone call Prog_Rock "snooty", but I'm sure there are some classical music buffs who snootily dismiss Prog-Rock or any other kind of Rock as not worth listening to.

I know the type you mean, but don't go by that stereotype. Remember ELP were  also known as "Classical Rock" for a reason! In a later interview, with pride, Carl Palmer credits the band with turning a whole bunch of people on to classical music.

          Myself, I discovered classical music the same time I discovered progressive rock, and wouldn't want to give up either!

           I read a recent article about famous symphony conductor Leonard Slatkin, and he has nothing but praise for ELP and says he has always loved their music.

               If Keith were alive today, he would tell folks that classical music and rock are not mutually exclusive. In an interview he did make, he called classical music "his Heritage".

 

yep great band that are more classical than rock . Underrated.

It's always been my contention that this whole Prog Rock is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_music" rel="nofollow - Art Music crap is vastly overstated and fundamentally flawed. The relationship between Prog Rock and Classical Music is tenuous, borders on parody and decidedly in one direction only. Listening to the Nice blast out the Intermezzo from the 'Karelia Suite' isn't a patch on listening to all 44 glorious minutes of Sibelius's opus played by a full orchestra. To infer that what Emerson did, or Queen's Bo-Rap was "Classical" is akin to saying Kanye West is Prog because he sampled 21st Century Schizoid Man.

Sure the <insert your favourite symphonic orchestra here> will prostitute themselves releasing orchestral versions of Progressive Rock and Classic Rock tunes (e.g. Queen and Abba) [hey, even first violinists have mortgages to pay] and some jobbing orchestras have even provided orchestral backing to some well known Prog and nearly-Prog bands but neither of those undeniable facts elevates Pop and/or Rock (Prog or otherwise) music to Classical Music status. Musically and musicologically they are poles apart even when the rock tune has many "movements" or borrows heavily from classical music theory.

As much as I dearly love The Enid (and have done since first seeing them back in 1975), they are a rock band.

Heavy doses of LIZZO seems to be working.

 

Yes, in particular, was one of my favorite groups while I was in college. But I was into all kinds of music. The turntable or the cassette deck in the car might have had Carmina Burana, or a Borodin symphony, or even Elton John playing. By the time I left college, the albums I was buying were mostly all "classical" (by which I mean--traditionally orchestral). And while I continued to enjoy traditional forms of all genres in subsequent years, I also leaned decidedly avant garde. Pretentious? Not really--not long after that, I was playing beer-tent polkas in a tuba quartet, surely safe from any claim of pretensiousness, in addition to buying Steve Reich, or Koyanisqaatsi, or the Creative Opportunity Jazz Orchestra (you'll have to look that one up, I suspect).

 

Clearly, prog bands intended their music as art, and just as clearly, their music was received as art and loved for its own sake by many, many listeners. That is all that art requires. Elitism on the artist's part appears when they don't care if any listeners receive their music as art. Elitism on the listener's part appears when they imagine only they are sensitive and sophisticated enough to understand it; they eschew the work of bands that bridge over into actual mass popularity, or those who are unable or unwilling to appreciate prog music as they do. But such elitism can be and often is expressed in all genres of music, even those that are not really even intended as anything more than a simple commercial product. These same discussions happen in the bluegrass world (I live near Appalachia and that is the native musical tongue in these parts), or string quartet music, or film scores, or country music, or beer-tent polka music, or church music, or choral music, or whatever.

 

I am a fan of prog for two reasons: It takes me back to a time when music could hoist me to my feet without the option, and even today the best of it seems to me fresh and compelling. Familiarity has not (yet) robbed it of its effect, at least to my ears. But Old and In The Way has the same effect, as do really well-executed renditions of more than a few polkas. I recently heard a performance of Vaughan Williams's Sea Symphony--surely as elevated in its intention as any prog music--and the audience rose as one at its conclusion. They were not showing off their sophisticated appreciation--they were genuinely moved out of their chairs.

 

The fact that prog is different from classical has no meaning for me. In the end, when music is good, it no longer matters. Music is validated by its effect on both performer and audience. 

 

But if having lofty aims is all takes to be pretentious, then I think they have a point.

 

Rick "raise me up" Denney

In the UK something called 'punk' happened and music history was quickly revised so that the prog bands were part of the establishment. With that the flood gates opened and suddenly it was all pretentious. As Greg Lake said , back in 1973 he was being called a 'progressive revolutionary genius' . By 1977 it was just pretentious crap. It's just perspective at the end of the day.

The punks needed something to rebel against and rather than take on hard targets they rounded on ageing hippies for reasons known only to themselves.

To be fair a lot of it was driven by the record companies and the punk bands didn't want to correct the narrative as it suited them. Money drives a lot of things and this was no different. 

and the muso journalists and turncoat radio dj's like Anne Nightingale and John Peel were quick to jump on the Prog-bashing bandwagon.

Compared to what? Neanderthal sports and celebrity worship?

That very statement is pretentious... Ignorance is bliss.

Frenetic Zetetic wrote: 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?

it's a snooty statement.

Did you really mean that or are you just pretending to mean that???  

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.

 

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......

^^ 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.

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.

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.  

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. 

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. 

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.