Fanboyism in progressive rock

Raff wrote: I've come to this far too late, but I'd like to throw my two cents in - seen as this is one of the most interesting, stimulating threads I've seen in a long time. Kudos to TM for starting it. First of all, I don't know if (personally speaking, of course) I would use the word 'fanboy' to define the attitudes you listed in your initial post - though I'd definitely employ the 'fan' part of it, as a short form of 'fanatic'. More than simple fanboyism, which is usually manifested in the ways you mentioned (completionism and so on), I'd say it is an extreme form of elitism, or even 'superiority complex'. Other groups require their members  to 'pledge their allegiance'  by wearing a sort of uniform to signal their identity as a member of the group (see the 'are we a subculture?' thread for more on this subject). Prog goes about it in different ways, more subtle perhaps, as you pointed out in your list.

From what I've read the word "fanboy" was originally used back in the 1980s by comic book collectors to describe the totally OCD kind of completist, but recently it seems to mean more often the "my favourite work/genre/series/artist is perfect and hence the only one that really matters" mentality I describe in the OP whereas completists are usually called just that - completists. Granted, some fanboys are completists but the two groups aren't synonymous at all... for example, going "Oh no it's ruined forever!" over a series or artist radically changing direction because you consider the old version infallible is pretty stereotypical fanboy behaviour.

Now for my comments: People insisting that other sub-genres of rock'n'roll don't have proficient musicianship or ambitious concepts at all. Very common on this forum, much less so on other discussion boards I know. I don't want to sound ageist, but generally this attitude is typical of younger prog fans. Those of my generation or older generally show a much broader outlook, having been exposed to a lot of different music genres in their lifetime.

Fits very well into what Jim Brown said earlier about this being a phase a lot of people go through in their teenage years. It is the same thing with the "I'm too hip to actually like anything except in a detached academic sense" attitude that is fanboyism's evil twin, I might add.

There are prog albums which are next to unlistenable just because the musicians think changing time signature every five seconds is the best thing since sliced bread...

Would you name any examples here? The fact that you might be talking about something I like piques my interest because I no longer listen to anything uncritically... yeah, I might sound like I'm displaying that overtly detached attitude that I used to but in fact that's now made me more forgiving.

Whenever someone doesn't like progressive rock, it's treated as a sign of either some malicious conspiracy or stupidity on part of whatever group of people that's perceived as not appreciating progressive rock enough. See the plethora of threads about how everyone else hates prog - as if people lost sleep in trying to devise ways to put prog down. The truth is, most people will choose the path of least resistance when it comes to music, books, or movies - which means, they will go for stuff that does not tax the brain too much. If things were different, Hollywood would have gone bust long since.

The funny thing is that I think you might be falling into that trap here again, and I was about to point to the mainstream crossover success of prog rock and for that matter artistic cinema (like Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy) in the late 1960s/early-to-mid 1970s as a counter-argument... then again, maybe that was a historical anomaly brought about by the freewheeling disillusioned-but-not-cynical spirit of the times. When it comes to music there's also how rock music in general has very slowly been through a process of re-orienting itself towards being exclusively by and for fringe subcultures since the 1980s. With literature there's also how some fairly high-brow authors (e. g. James Ellroy, Cormac Mac Carthy) becoming popular and yielding a lot of bestsellers... but maybe they're the exceptions that prove the rule.

In general having a very "sacred cow" attitude to artists and albums that are seen as classics of the genre. This is not always true, as proved by the numerous ELP bashers, or by the 'modern vs classic prog' diatribe that is alive and well on this and other site.

I think that here we have a generation gap on display... every generation has its own historical context and perspective, even within fans of the same genre. This is not to say that people from different generations can't like the same music (or art of any kind) just that it won't be for the exact reasons. This might be why, as certain people have observed, retro-rock bands often resemble each other more than they do the classics.

Another example: The whole "people who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s thinking rock'n'roll peaked back then" business is quite a pet peeve for a lot of Gen-Xers, especially music reviewer Jim Derogatis who's best known here as the author of Turn on your Mind but also edited a book called Kill Your Idols a while ago that was an attack on the traditional list of rock classics' being informed by Baby Boomer nostalgia. Its underlying premise is that loyalty to the institution of "the classics" actually runs counter to the spirit of rock music. I've never actually read that book because I can't find it but I would like to out of curiosity... the prologue certainly sounds appetizing. (and it was one of the things that inspired me to starting this thread)

It's probably a similar conflict we're seeing here, with the entire progress business added as a second axis for the conversation to wrap itself around. So, we get different canons of classics depending on who you ask and age is no doubt a big factor here. For the record most of the contemporary prog-rock I like is generally not categorized as such because of "scene politics" and the associated obsessive nitpicking around genre classifications that is probably my number one pet peeve in music.

Thanks again for the great topic! We need more of the same sort.

Thanks. To be honest, I'm surprised this thread was as well-received as it was because with this one I set out to really kick out the jams though I also did go out of my way to make it clear this was from an insider perspective.

tamijo wrote: Now thats more interesting - why is the majority of people not putting any affort into having a better cultural experience than the one stuffed into your mouth/ear/eye ect.   Are they not able too ? Are they too lazy ? Or maby the "mainstreem" art is infact better than the Avantgard, and we are all just snobs ?

Well, look in the mirror... you have Lily Allen and 3 Doors Down on your last.fm top artists.

rogerthat wrote: I wasn't even born in the 70s but I do know that back then, means of entertainment here were limited and that may have actually allowed people the time to get the best out of what they had whereas today they are spoilt for choice.

Wouldn't the longer list of entertainment options logically make people more likely to investigate stuff that's out of the mainstream? On the other hand, you could also say that the internet has sped up the process of Western culture getting increasingly fragmented because thanks to message boards like this one, it's now possible to only get your reviews and opinions on music or movies or literature from people with mostly the same tastes as yourself. This could be another reason why fanboyism is more common in the younger generation.

I also think that if a child grows up almost completely on a diet of video games, it's unlikely that he/she would suddenly develop a serious liking for music and vice versa. Books and music have been my favourite source of entertainment since I was a child, partly because my parents couldn't afford to buy me video games and didn't think too much of it was a good idea.

I grew up with video games and I'm seriously into music and literature. Well, at least I like to think that I am.

rogerthat wrote: You have said later in your post that you DID grow up on video games.  I want to ask you how old you are, because I want to know at which point this business of forming warring camps based on genres started.

I am 21 years old. Maybe it should be mentioned that I also learned to read much earlier than average, and that I completely stopped playing video games at all back in high school. As for the increasing fragmentation of music genres I think that started in the 1990s, possibly in the late 1980s too. I don't remember reading about that much inter-scene rivalry as in within the same genre that happened in the 1970s.

Toaster Mantis wrote: rogerthat wrote: You have said later in your post that you DID grow up on video games.  I want to ask you how old you are, because I want to know at which point this business of forming warring camps based on genres started. I am 21 years old. Maybe it should be mentioned that I also learned to read much earlier than average, and that I completely stopped playing video games at all back in high school. As for the increasing fragmentation of music genres I think that started in the 1990s, possibly in the late 1980s too. I don't remember reading about that much inter-scene rivalry as in within the same genre that happened in the 1970s.

You are 'ahead' of me.     I used to play computer games even in college and I am two years older than you.  Hmm...yes, late 80s and early 90s sounds reasonable to me.  This was when Norwegian black metal bands famously declared war on death metal, saying it would ruin and corrupt metal and what not.  Also, sometime in the late 80s, Metallica played in the same concert as Bon Jovi and apparently told the crowd they wouldn't get spandex and ooh baby here.  Deeply ironic in light of what Metallica would do later and also rather offensive. I dislike Bon Jovi passionately but if some people do like it, what's wrong with that, why poke fun at their tastes? 

Nuke wrote: I would disagree.The fragmentation of metal has actually led to great innovation, since each genre has developed on its own without accepting much outside influence. Would power metal be the same today if the major bands had been "innovative" by incorporating elements of other metal genres into their music? There wouldn't be much of an identity for future bands to work off of, and the genres would move closer together stylistically instead of farther apart.

It has happened anyway, Gothenburg/melodeath and symphonic gothic metal? These do melt the boundaries between power metal and other genres.  Fragmentation might give a distinct identity to bands but how do they then distinguish themselves if they all work within the same narrow parameters that define the genre?  Especially thrash metal has got to the point where unless you forget about every single riff you have ever heard, you can't help feeling a sense of deja vu.  In my opinion, only doom metal unfailingly produces something fresh year after year and this is because doom metal bands incorporate elements not only from metal but non-metal genres.  Acid Witch...psychedelic doom. Had a release in 2008, awesome, easily one of my favourites from this decade. 

You have a point. I think maybe genres need to develop in isolation to other genres, and then it's ok to fuse with other genres afterwards. You can't create a new sound if you are only mixing styles, although sometimes, like in the case of thrash, you need a breath of fresh ideas from other genres. I still hear plenty of innovative bands that are in one solid genre and even disdainful of other genres. 

Nuke wrote: You have a point. I think maybe genres need to develop in isolation to other genres, and then it's ok to fuse with other genres afterwards. You can't create a new sound if you are only mixing styles, although sometimes, like in the case of thrash, you need a breath of fresh ideas from other genres. I still hear plenty of innovative bands that are in one solid genre and even disdainful of other genres.

It depends on how the styles are mixed.  If it's done in an extremely gimmicky and patchy manner, it won't really take the genre forward. On the other hand, if done well, it could open up new possibilities  and directions for the genre.  It's interesting that you think of power metal as a genre working in isolation because I haven't really felt THAT to be the case at all; it has broken off a bit from the rest of metal but it also absorbs a lot of influence from non-metal music.  The problem with power metal today is that it's very cool for a lot of extreme metal fans to profess how much they hate it and this means you don't have enough interest being created in the genre and perhaps even new, promising talent coming in.  I don't know much about power metal but I know some people who do and they say there hasn't been a really good new power metal album in a while and this could be because of the antagonistic attitude of people in 'clubs' of other genres.  

It would be great if you bring up specific examples w.r.t that last sentence  because I personally don't think it's feasible beyond a point to keep coming out with fresh and interesting material whilst pretending that the rest of music doesn't exist; it would work for the first few years when the genre in itself is nascent and fresh but once the style is settled, it could lead to albums sounding terribly similar and familiar. 

Toaster Mantis wrote: tamijo wrote: Toaster Mantis wrote: Well, look in the mirror... you have Lily Allen and 3 Doors Down on your last.fm top artists.   Was that a "Yes i watch stupid cartoon movies" ? More like "I find it weird that you pull the beleagured defender of high culture persona while listening to some pretty damn populist music." Re-investigating your recent listening habits I don't feel like changing my mind , RHCP or The Cure aren't exactly underground or elitist. Oh, and I actually happen to enjoy the occasional superhero movie though right now I'm really sick and tired of the genre. (same thing with serial killer movies) For the record, if my avatar isn't enough of an indication I probably watch more arthouse/cult movies than the average person though didn't those get some mainstream crossover here in Scandinavia thanks to the Dogme 95 movement? It seems like occasionally the "plebs" will actually look into the subterranean caverns of esoteric and artsy stuff. NB.: Skal du med ind og se The Mars Volta Maybe maybe not, it's gonna be in December and chances are I'm gonna be really busy that month.

You are right if what you are saying is that im not "only" listning to Prog/Anantgard/Underground or whatever the label.

Edited by tamijo - September 06 2009 at 03:41

Yes i got that.

Edited by tamijo - September 06 2009 at 04:00