The Marillion Round Table

I am about to piss off the entire world...

Misplaced Childhood is not neo-prog.

OK, here me out.  I've been heavily exploring neo-prog and many recommendations for a couple weeks now, and I'm starting to get a major appreciation for it.  But before I ever got into neo-prog, years before even, I was already into a good deal of classic rock bands.  Even though I'm more of a 70's guy, I've had a huge share of 80's rock, including with synths, under my belt.  And once I started exploring forums like these, standard prog, symphonic prog and prog metal became a few of my favorite genres.  But I couldn't get into neo-prog for its abundance of samey albums and simplicity at first, so it took years for me to go on my second ever neo-prog binge.  And at this point, I've been pointed to and discovered many greats like Frost, Arena, Edge and Satellite, although some albums tend to REALLY push the limits.

Today I listened to Beat the Drum by Pallas and Pride by Arena.  Beat the Drum was just overlong, decent but sappy AOR with no prog to it whatsoever, and Arena's Pride was a surprising and eclectic piece that gained a 9/10 from me.  I've had to deal with a plethora of pop rock, big music and AOR albums I wouldn't call prog.  If I'm going to call neo-prog "neo-prog," then it has to be as much "prog" as it is "neo."  So I re-evaluated Misplaced Childhood immediately after having difficulty finding but succeeding in locating the debut album of Satellite, which is nearly neo-prog perfection to me.  It pushes both the limits of pop structures and prog structures while maintaining a synth-driven orchestra of surprises.

Misplaced Childhood, however, is WAY too poppy.  Actualy neo-prog behavior takes up about 10% of the album.  Yes, it's synth-driven, melodramatic and sounds like Genesis.  But its structures are just too accessible, and every song meets this basic standard.  There's an eight-minute track and a nine-and-a-half-minute track, and yet the only instance of actual prog behavior was the beginning of Heart of Lothian, which got betrayed after like 45 seconds.

This may have INFLUENCED many neo-prog bands afterwards, but influence and actually being something are two different things, like proto-punk for example.  Now their debut?  Easily neo-prog.  Seasons End?  A bit of a genre-bender, but yes.  Fugazi?  Makes the cut pretty easily.  I'm re-evaluating Clutching of Straws right now.  But this poppy stuff?  Since it's connected to one of the first big neo-prog bands, and they were easily a part of that scene before, it feels to me that, much like other AOR or pop rock albums by neo-prog bands, that this is only called neo-prog because it's getting lumped in the scene, like how Melvins barely did any grunge until the mid-90's and yet they were called grunge because of the Deep Six comp from C/Z Records promoting the local scene.

I remember for years I was involved in an RYM argument over whether or not The Wall qualified as prog at all, and I defended it.  But The Final Cut was tagged as prog when The Wall wasn't, and that got on my nerves until they finally took the damn tag off.  I still believe The Wall is proggy enough.

Basically, I'm convinced that Misplaced Childhood is only called something it's not for a number of reasons that create a lot of mistagging.  I have to be honest and speak that opinion.

Having said all this, I never said that this isn't a great album.  If it's one of your favorite albums, even with my high belief in subjectivity aside, I really can't blame you.  It has an excellent epic vibe about it, and some great melodies are featured.  With some of the variety that made The Joshua Tree a hit, it might be a perfect album in my book.  But I'm taking it off my neo-prog chart and labelling it under "pop rock" and "big music."

essexboyinwales wrote: Interesting post….but Frost*, brilliant as they are, are (to my ears) not neo-progressive!

They've easily been steering out of it more and more with each album, like how Tool have become less alt-metal and more prog rock.  I'd say they were in their earlier days, but albums 3 and 4 pushed the buttons and 5 barely did anything with neo-prog.