Your Prog Rock Hot Takes

Edited by kirk782 - 3 hours 23 minutes ago at 07:18

My Hot Take tonight?  Robert Fripp is, without a doubt, the best electric guitarist in history.  

Edited by cstack3 - 10 hours 52 minutes ago at 23:49

^ I was not disagreeing with you in case it was not clear. I would sooner call it regional or national than nationalist. Not sure if I made my concerns clear. I'm not even that clear on them, kind of ambivalent.

My feelings specifically involve the limitations of the categories at Prog Archives when comparing Krautrock, Canterbury and RPI. RPI is the only one of those that is region specific in the there are no acts outside of its region, and that is a difference between how the categories are operating. Whether I should care less, or how I should feel, is another matter. Maybe we should add lots of region specific music to more region specific categories, or maybe even think more broadly of an RPI kind of sound and scene that extends beyond Italy's borders. Some don't like to think of bands/artists outside of the actual regional Canterbury scene as includable in the category (I like the terms Canterbury Scene and Sound). Some have questioned Krautrock including more than German acts.

EDIT: I should have a hotter take. While I would not expect the Bristol Sound to be included here as a Prog category, we might consider a Bristle Sound category except that as Hatfield and the North put it "Shaving Is Boring".

Edited by Logan - 11 hours 14 minutes ago at 23:27

Saperlipopette! wrote: Hrychu wrote: Hot take: the Rock Progressivo Italiano subgenre is nationalist. You must have a weird understanding of the term Nationalist. I see no difference in some kind of scene named Rock Progressivo Italiano or Canterbury Scene, Seattle Sound, Detroit Techno, Nederbeat, Britpop, West Coast Hip Hop...

It's regional (or national).

By the way, for me PA's RPI category is rather too regional compared to others in PA. Of course not every Italian act in PA is included in RPI, but every act included in RPI is from Italy. If it were a movement, a style and "sound", then one might expect it to have expanded beyond Italy (and singing in Italian is not required to be considered RPI). Others might have emulated the RPI sound. I have heard some Spanish-speaking acts that I think were influenced by RPI. With the Krautrock category, you find quite a number of acts that are not from Germany or based in Germany including Italian ones. A favourite of mine included in PA in that category is Lard Free from France. With our Canterbury Scene category one find various from the UK not based in Canterbury as well as quite few from around the world. Picchio dal Pozzo from Italy is fave of mine, as is Cos from Belgium. And then there's the Planet Gong! And of course most Zeuhl is not based in Kobaia. Indo-Prog/RAga Rock has its own meaning. I'm not against having RPI, but I might have added Prog Andaluz to it as a split or something (actually maybe want Spain, Portugal, central and South America, Mexico) if I thought something like that was worth doing. Then I might want to add many more regions... I don't know, it just never quite sat right with me to have a category at PA where all that are included are exclusively from a region/ nation.

Edited by Logan - 16 hours 60 minutes ago at 17:41

Porcupine Tree is the most overrated band of the genre

Not sure how hot these are, but I believe "Flight" is Hammill's greatest (solo) musical achievement, as well as King Crimson's "Islands" being superior to "Lizard"

Rick Wakeman's post 70s output is genuinely great. People tend to mock his later works. I've seen arguments ranging from him being "way too derivative of his influences", or that he's a "schematic boring w**ker with one to two decent tracks per-album".
I guess some of his stylistic choices are an acquired taste, but I don't see why he deserves to be lampooned more than anybody else.

Dream Theater has generally awful mixing, even in their best albums. I don't like most their new stuff, and the synthetic mixing is one of the reasons, but their recent output is already a subject of contention amongst the fans. I don't see that many people ever considering production issues when it comes to their older quintessential works. If to put it simply, I think that there is no balance between the volumes of the different instruments. The drums and the synthesizers are noticeably louder compared to the other instruments (vocals included), and the bass is completely overwhelmed and lost in the final mix. I see some coming with the argument, that loudness is a key feature of Metal, therefore this is justified.
DT, however, never came from that branch of loud "punk" inspired Metal. Roughness was not part of their image either.
Honestly, compare them to any of their contemporaries, or even bands partially influenced by them like Circus Maximus and Haken. None of them had such readability issues with their album mixes as DT. In fact one of the reasons to why I got into live bootlegs, is that I wanted to get a better grasp of Myung's bass. Listening to their bootlegs made me appreciate the bands virtuosity much more. I'm not a huge fan of LaBrie, but the way he re-harmonized certain vocal lines in some of his performances before the poisoning incident, made me enjoy some of these live versions more than the album mixes. Honestly, the bands problem is that they hinge too much on sustaining the image of a "calculated" act, while in-fact, they are at their best when they simply improvise on a whim.

Edited by KorgC3 - December 03 2024 at 23:40

verslibre wrote: presdoug wrote: Chocolate Kings is PFM's greatest album Still peak PFM, so that's not a hot take.

I love how subjective music tastes can be! I totally agree with you on 'A Momentary Lapse of Reason'—it doesn't get enough credit for its atmosphere and mood. And yes, 'Think of Me with Kindness' is an underrated gem! Music's beauty lies in these unique perspectives

These days, 'Book of Saturday' is the only track from LTiA that still feels fresh to me.