Prog clichés

Dayvenkirq wrote: I'm very much aware of the allergies some people around here have to that word...

Atchoo. I have no problem with the word itself, but it is thrown around a lot, when it is "unwarrented, uncalled-for, unjustified..." I would say it's ironic, but that word is thrown around too.

cstack3 wrote: I like John Wetton's thoughts on the prog idiom: http://elephant-talk.com/wiki/Interview_with_John_Wetton_in_Big_Bang_Magazine "Everyone who wants to be progressive, in inverted comas, want to use mellotrons, Marshall amps and Rickenbacker basses, you know, it's all back to 1973, which is hardly progressive. So it's very much regressive. But it seems that progressive has become a generic term for a style of music which involves time changes, classical moods... "

In 1998, I don't think he'd have been thinking about Anathema and I don't know if prog metal was widely embraced as a part of the wider prog rock umbrella either at that point (I doubt it).   As a description of retro prog, his views hit the nail on the head.  He'd have to be asked in a fresh interview what does he think of bands like Anathema.  However, considering the recent thread where even Wilson's prog credentials were pretty brazenly brought into question, I am not sure the situation has changed much.  There's still a large section of prog listeners who associate it with certain sounds, instruments and styles.  Which is no different from any other rock genre and rock itself is trapped in ubiquity and stereotypes at the moment.  But another cliche of prog is to attempt to present it as something very different and superior from other rock music....and we wonder why critics call it pretentious.

twseel wrote: If progressive music is based on going against against clichés, doesn't that mean that any cliché used in prog is automatically no longer a cliché, as it's normal to do something different and different to do something normal? In that way the existence of prog-cliché is automatically impossible.

Having songs that are impossible to listen to and call it your finest piece. Doing blues scale with complex rythms and saying it is influenced by classical music.

Moooooooooooooooooog synths a blazin!!!

Not to be grumpy, but almost everything most prog bands do these days is cliched.

Hiring a desert island to go record your new album in a state of complete isolation and profound mystical meditation, spending a fortune to bring all the equipment there, only to realise that you miss the smell of car exhausts and bringing everything back and starting it all over again at Abbey Road 

Calling any band consist of keyboard, bass player and drummer "ELP clone" is a cliche

Stool Man wrote: There are clichés in everything, of course.  But what are the clichés of progressive rock?

Rock Music Critics & Journalists that hate Prog are cliches of Progressive Rock.