In defense of Kansas (a rant on the 80’s)

AND HERE IT IS!!!!!


WHOOOOEEEEE!!!

GOD BLESS POLITZANIA!

SM.

in my opinion i think kansas made a great prog band
but thats just me talking

It was an unintended and unfortunate choice of words, that was obviously misconstrued and allowed the thread to degenerate into rather silly chest-thumping that had really nothing to do with music.  My apologies to all for starting the thread to being with.

"Patriotism is a lively sense of collective responsibility. Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on its own dunghill and calling for larger spurs and brighter beaks. I fear that nationalism is one of England's many spurious gifts to the world."
                                                                       -- Richard Aldington

yargh wrote: Then I would say you have very few excuses for your lack of insight.  Carry on... my wayward son!

This is the point at which I thank you for your startling insights, your
continued patronage of the band, your impeccable taste in music and
drugs... and leave quietly by the service door.


With








your










girlfriend.




She can explain my positions to you later.





HOHOHO.


Musta rolled that move 2 or 3 dozen times on GROUPIES like you, back
when Prog was a living music.


SM.

yargh wrote: Slipperfink -- it's clear you have no idea what you're talking about, since you apparently have zero grasp of musical components or musical history.  You're also probably about 16, like many of the other contributors to this site -- clearly you think and write like one, whatever your biological age may be -- and if you think you can get me to share my own wealth of knowledge on the likes of you, you'll have to be a lot nicer and try a lot harder.  Baseless statements and poorly- worded retorts just ain't gettin' it done.

Right.

I was around and PLAYING prog for A LIVING.... when all this silly tom-
foolery went down laddie-buck.

What you have above is a pretty accurate opinion of yerself.

You still gotta read that first post of mine in this thread... 'cause yer
taking a drubbing here, and I'm starting to pity you.

SM.

yargh wrote: Kansas failed with US audiences BECAUSE they were just ripping off the UK bands.  The US audiences who were into prog were at least smart enough to know the real thing from a fraud.  Kansas had to become an AOR band to capture middle America (metal-lovin' clods who also boogied to Styx and Journey) and, with Leftoverture, they became that AOR band.  Symphonic prog was born in the UK.  Kansas copied the elements and added bluesy/folksy touches that stamped them as being from the US.  I need not point out passages that were lifted from Yes to know that Kansas owed their existence to Yes.  There ya have it, ya big headbangin', AOR lovin' brute!  There's nothing like a retread, and Kansas sure were a bunch of retreads.

Kansas had about as much 'folk' in them as Ministry.

Try 'Country' ya hack.

Anyhoo.

Yer on pills. If you wanna start playing the "what came from where" game
I'm gonna hand you yer ass 60 ways to Sunday. 'Cause ALL these kids
were biting from the same 20 Classical composers.... And Kansas bit a
FEW of the same bunch as Yes. Most notably Handel and Stravinsky.

And if you think the Brits had a stranglehold on that dealio... Yer beyond
delusional.

READ MY ORIGINAL POST AND LEARN SOMETHING.

You can do it.

Be a good little progger.

SM.


Edited by SlipperFink

Other than that the first two albums sound almost exactly like Yes, except for the violin? 

This review excerpt puts it fairly well: "Being a hard-core Yes fan at the time, and largely naïve to the existence of other prog rock bands, I was transfixed. The music was so convincing of the Wakeman/Squire/Bruford axis, I initially thought that there was still some unreleased Fragile-era material out there that had somehow escaped me."

That pretty much says it all.

I never seem to get arguments from this sdie of the Atlantic?

 

SlipperFink wrote: yargh wrote: Here's the problem with Kansas:  In the 1970s (their prime, in the minds of those who consider the band to have had one) their sound was lifted from the better UK bands; thus, arguing that their '80s material was good because the bands they copied had moved on doesn't make any sense to me.  The '70s prog movement died in the late 1970s.  There was still progressive music to be made in the '80s, but by and large it was not to be made out of the same materials as the symph-prog bands of the 1970s.    What a load of utter hogwash. Which UK bands did Kansas bite from? Please name them. Gimmie a specfic example. Like say... well this part from "Icarus" sounds a whole lot like this part from "Heart of the Sunrise". Gee.. heck.. gosh... darn... golly... this part from "Song for America" sounds a whole lot like "Fracture". Get real. Total revisionist history. Kansas FAILED with the US proggers on the first 3 records because they decidedly DID NOT sound much of ANYTHING like the UK prog bands of the day. Go back and read my first post on the subject and learn something. Concentrate on the 'rock' and 'riff' thingies. They cut their own little niche with the kids who OUTGREW Journey and Styx when they watered down the compositional soup starting on POKR, and finally "crossed over" to FM radio rock... which was the plan of that evil little troll Don Kirshner from day one, and reason why he SIGNED the band. Hilariously... they actually still wrote a bunch of fairly decent 'prog-pop' stuff.... something the vast majority of their now wishy-washy English prog contemporaries, like GTR and Asia failed miserably at.... Which, without actually saying EXACTLY as much.... is kinda what the original poster was driving at. Anyhoo. There ya have it. Yer totally in the dark. SM.

Kansas failed with US audiences BECAUSE they were just ripping off the UK bands.  The US audiences who were into prog were at least smart enough to know the real thing from a fraud.  Kansas had to become an AOR band to capture middle America (metal-lovin' clods who also boogied to Styx and Journey) and, with Leftoverture, they became that AOR band. 

Symphonic prog was born in the UK.  Kansas copied the elements and added bluesy/folksy touches that stamped them as being from the US.  I need not point out passages that were lifted from Yes to know that Kansas owed their existence to Yes. 

There ya have it, ya big headbangin', AOR lovin' brute! 

There's nothing like a retread, and Kansas sure were a bunch of retreads.    

Most of my favorite bands are from Europe.  Still, there are some American bands that I see as just as good.

Ever heard Proto-Kaw's 70's output?