Do you ever feel sorry for "Prog" fans who just do

I definately do, I mean I almost couldn't live without folk music but prog is still my favorite genre

Ancient Troubadour wrote: Darklord55 wrote: I recently discovered that G.F. Handel wrote a few organ concertos.   WOW!  I cant' stop listening.  Very Proggy!!  Names, serial numbers?? Recommendations! I must listen to these babies myself.  Going thru a Hammond Phase, y'see.... my improv sounds a bit Bach like (or Vince Crane, perhaps!) a bit of Handel ought to do me good. Thanks a bunch.... -Brendooooon

I feel sorry for:

1. People who didn't studied laws, because it's my passion
2. People who never surfed, because I surfed when kid and loved it
3. People who only like Football or Baseball, because Soccer is tyhe best game for me.
4. People who don't have a religion, because I'm a religious person
5. People who never played in a band, because I played driums and even when we sucked, I loved it

If this is the true, then Neil Armstrong probably feels sorry for the billions that never went to the moon

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - November 25 2009 at 23:02

Abstrakt wrote: Bj-1 wrote: Abstrakt wrote: Yes. This year i've been listening to classic rock, hard rock, alternative & grunge alot more than prog. I even like some pop songs. Take THAT!     Only some pop songs? Yep. Like most Kent songs and Orup "Min mor sa till mig". The latter is pretty embarrasing, but it's good!

Jorvik wrote: I don't believe in being open minded, I don't want my brain to fall out. .

The person who accuses me of not being open minded because my taste on commercial music is limited. But, in the meantime, their analogy is a self-centered one. As various musical styles that don't always fall into a prog category, are dismissed by these types of goons. Is anybody guilty? No. So it's like they are pointing the finger at you because of their own egotistical nature. Why worry about their thoughts? That's why the.....I don't want my brain to fall out saying sums it all up for a person that displays an ignorant attitude while conversing. I personally go way over the top! I should stick to sayings like this one. I will keep this saying in the back of my sub-con at Thanksgiving dinner when I'm told that my mind isn't open. 

Nuke wrote: A non-valid response I've seen on this thread time to time is the "fans of X are close-minded, so there is no reason for me to be open-minded." Come on, you certainly see the logical fallacy in that. Quoting what others think of prog is no reason for any beliefs you may hold. Yeah, punks are on a high horse, so what? Does that mean you should be?

Ivan, just because you like primarily prog does not mean you are close minded, so no-one should even make that assumption. Though being a prog rock fan ( Defined as at we generally call "rock" based ) often lead to other "progressive" musics. Enjoy what you like, and you never know where it will take you over time.

Slartibartfast wrote: I take it from the color of your text you like the blues.  I'd have to say 90-95% of my collection now is prog.  I blame this site. Prog Archives, give me back my life!!!

I have to admit that 99.99 % of my collection is music.
I estimate that 60% is great music, another 30% is good, some 8% has me wondering why I haven't used the CD to see from how far I can toss it into a waste bucket. The other 2% I just can't listen to, so I don't know

Whatever is left over after all of those is likely influenced by psychedelic / space rock

as far as blame, I blame technological advances for having over 2000 CDs. First I traded or sold my LPs for cassettes, then I bought LPs at yard sales when others started buying cassettes and CDs only, then I sold or traded my cassettes & LPs for CDs. Then, when I got a computer,  I burnt albums onto CD-Rs, sold or traded the originals for more CDs, which i then continued the pattern.
Unfortunately, there is no sense in buying a new CD at $16, burning it, and selling or trading it for $3-4. And strangely, as if to come full circle, you can still buy a used LP for $6-10, and sell or trade it back for at least half of what you paid. Which I then upload to my PC, and burn to a CD-R

Of course, I have told myself that when the next advance in music technology comes around, a good 30% of what i now own will not make it. After all, if after 4 years you come to realize that you really never liked that album by "?", are you going to preserve it ?

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Nuke wrote: A non-valid response I've seen on this thread time to time is the "fans of X are close-minded, so there is no reason for me to be open-minded." Come on, you certainly see the logical fallacy in that. Quoting what others think of prog is no reason for any beliefs you may hold. Yeah, punks are on a high horse, so what? Does that mean you should be?    believe you are making a "Reductio ad Absurdum", nobody says it's ok to be close minded because: LIKING ONLY PROG IS NOT BEING CLOSED MINDED You like what you like, nobody can force you to like everything because it's "politically correct" to say, "Hey I'm very Eclectic, I like Rap, POP and Prog,, how great and open minded I am, everybody should be like me or I'll be sorry for them" The point about the example on other forums, is that this is a Prog devoted forum, we should not criticize anybody for liking Prog, it's absurd, as if somebody in a Rap forum wanted to force you to like Prog or Classical Music......This forum was created for PROGRESSIVE ROCK, whatever else can be discussed, is secondary and should be posted in the General Music forum, for people to join, not join and express their positive or negative opinions.. But we believe we are so great and so superior, that we want to tell Prog fans, what is good for them, if they only like Prog, poor of them, they are worth nothing, just a close minded elitists who are limiting themselves, better be like "me" and listen everything because that is the correct thing to do. Saying that a Prog listener is close minded is a contradiction, you can't be fan of an unpopular genre, that nobody except a few people like us like, that doesn't make you cool or fashionable and at the same time close minded. You had enough open mind to say no to radios, DJ's, labels, musical industry, critics and your friends to say I like Prog and I give a damn about what this people say, this is the antithesis of being close minded. Iván

Ivan, I think the point being made is that some Prog fans are close minded. Some are close minded about what is prog, and some are close minded on where people (not all, not just one, in general ) can find good music, i.e. music that they will like. This last sin is to be found in fans of all genres. It is not restricted to prog fans. The same as many fans of other genres also are open to different musiques outside their preferred type.

As far as the "prog is unpopular" cross that you seem to bear & love to take the podium with, I wish that the numerous threads about prog's unpopularity had helped you realize that amongst ALL musical genres that one could enumerate , Prog actually does quite well comparatively. As a genre, it has some mega platinum sellers (A few Floyd, a couple of Rush, some Tull, Kansas, if you're from Quebec, Harmonium - nuff said), it has a good number of careerists, many cult acts, and a ton of other acts varying in obscurity.

Now, I wish I had a latin phrase to state how your usual case for "How Prog is unpopular compared to Pop"  is based on weak arguements. but I don't. So I'll put it in plain english ;;;

Pop music is composed of many many many (not quite to infinity, but there's no dearth of music journalists working to "discover" new ones) different genres. Prog, as a sub-genre of Rock music, is one of them. Why ? Because some prog acts, as with most other genres, are able to sell massive quantities of albums, and draw mega crowds for concert tours. Thus, it is popular music (therefore Pop music). And as with most other genres, you have lower tiers, with their respective size followings.

Sooooo , Pop vs Prog ? Pop wins. But only because Pop would include  Rock, top 40, metal, hard rock, reggae, punk, jazz, country, whatever Micheal Buble is, rock n roll and all its' various manifestations, some classical, folk, world, traditional, blues and so on. If we allow music journalists to justify their expertise, we can then expand (you could compare it to the Big bang and after) all these into sub-genres, not to mention the mish mash genres that have become rampant through the ingenuity of PR campaigns and hipster insistence that they are different (Klezmer metal, Jazz bluegrass, Reggae ambient) .

Once the realization comes that the battle for the title (that doesn't exist) of the most popular music is not limited to one behemoth Pop, versus one middle weight Prog (unless that progster is porgy or bess), but rather a mass of barely identifiable by concrete means generalized suppositions of what genre any given music might be, then one should come to know that too much time has been spent on figuring out how a genre can be unpopular and contain a half dozen acts that have combined for world record sales of many many millions, when the Kids in the Hall are still working towards putting enough money away to retire.

Bluegrass is unpopular because Pop is more popular. But then, one could say that Bluegrass is unpopular because Jazz is more popular. Or that more people prefer their grass green. Some others - rolled, and once rolled more music becomes popular with them.

Metal is unpopular because Pop is more popular. Pop is unpopular because once you look at all the other genres, their record sales and concert attendances ... well ... Pop is unpopular because all the other genres are more popular.

So now, I'm going on Wikipedia, and I'm going to write a new definiton of Pop music to alert reality that Pop music, once all other specific genres are taken into account, well, Pop music is not popular, and thus should be renamed - Not Pop music.
Once this revolution in music thinking has taken root, I expect bands to advertise their music as "not prog", "not punk", "not country", and so on. This will make it easier for , say, a country fan to know that they probably will not like a "not country" band.

Once academia (amongst them Macademians) has established theoretical criteria for its study, we shall see the establishment of "not musical" chairs, where the point of the game is to stay sitting in you chair rather than risk not getting a new one.

Being open minded is not about saying no. There is no open mindedness in saying that others cannot find good music outside of prog. One may believe that there is no good music outside of prog. One should not believe that others cannot or should not do so.

I am not a lawyer.

I am Canadian. We live next to the greatest nation in the world, and arguably in history. Not that we don't think that we're better than them. We usually think less of ourselves. Unless someone says so to our face.
We have the best beer in the world, and are ready to drink a two four of yours to make sure. We have facts to back up our claims. Our most recent census of beavers clearly shows we are the best dammed country in the world. We are the country from which the only band that has fans that can claim to be cool and or nerdy - Rush ! We had a band so heavy, that they could bench press their equipment - BTO. Our female musical artists, at one time this past decade , occupied the top spot in their respective music fields - Shania, Alanis, Celine, Sarah. We are a nation so attached to our coffee that we call it by its' first name - Tim's ! We believe we live in the best place in the world, and appreciate it whenever we come back from Florida. Only in Canada do you have Red Rose tea. Only in Canada do you have a professional sports league where the annual East vs West championship can be played between two western teams. Only in Canada will you find people who repeatedly tell you that they are tired of talking about separation of one part of the country, only to talk about their own part seceding.
And only in Canada ... did a site like prog archives begin.
Stompin' Tom, Helix, Les Canadiens et la Sainte Flannel, Cayouche, Corb Lund, Social Credit, peace keeping, hockey, lacrosse,
a country where media can't explain why Medicare defines Canadians as a people. a country that knows that caring for all defines them as a people.


Edited by debrewguy - November 26 2009 at 21:51