Towards Finding An 8th Classic Prog Rock Band

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 Chameleon wrote:

I've never understood why everyone hates ELP, even here.

this expains it well

Emerson, Lake and Palmer are quite possibly
the world's most reviled band. Now, they were extremely popular in
the early 70's among those who 'took themselves seriously'
(especially college students), and even today they maintain a
sizable cult following, so it would be unfair to say that absolutely
nobody likes them. Regardless, however, this is a perfectly legitimate
statement on the general level. Fans of punk have always detested them as
they would any prog band, but this extended far beyond normal levels of
loathing; as an example, one of the staples of late 70's Sex Pistols shows
was to burn life-size statues of Keith Emerson in effigy.

Now, this normally wouldn't be such a bad thing, since after all hatred of
art-rock and prog-rock was one of the most important principles upon which
the punk movement was founded. No, what distinguished ELP was the amount
of venom spewed upon them by other "high-brow" artists and their
various followers. Fans of classical music absolutely despised them for
"butchering" various well-known pieces in their attempts to interpret
these standards in a rock idiom. There is a nugget of truth to this, of
course (Pictures at an Exhibition is often quite a stretch from the
original Mussorgsky piece, to put it mildly), but ... I dunno. I'm sure
that a good number of the band's fans became fans of classical music due
to their efforts, so that should be worth something. Or maybe the older
generation was just mad about all these young whippersnappers infiltrating
their societal niche .... 

The greatest insult of all, of course, is that even among some prog
lovers, they're hated like crazy! Now, prog is often considered a
relatively open-ended term, and many are eager to classify any band
with
the least bit of 'artsy' leanings as one. Hence, many groups are
GROSSLY misclassified in this genre. Styx, Journey, Kansas ... all are
talentless buffoons with large egos but little else, and let's face it,
you really
need talent to be a decent prog group (though I guess Kansas
and Styx can technically qualify as prog. Ehn). The Moody Blues and
Procol Harum often get the tag, but that's only because of the slight
symphonic elements in their sound (from mellotron in the former, organs
in the
latter); both are most definitely rooted in pop, and it should
definitely be noted that the former's concepts are never as
overwhelmingly bizarre as one would expect from a true prog band (not
to mention that the chord
progressions are never in the least bit intimidating). Jethro Tull ...
well, Jethro Tull was a prog band for the bulk of the 70's, sure, but with a couple of MAJOR exceptions, their progressive stuff was
extremely second-rate; I vastly prefer to think of Tull in terms of Teacher and the like as opposed to garbage like Minstrel in the Gallery.
And finally, it is highly tempting to refer to Pink Floyd as
progressive, but ... avant-garde yes. Artsy, yes. Pretentious, yes. But
the lyrics are, again, always either psychadelic, folk, pop, or
hyper-angsty. Anyways, the whole point of this is that among English
speaking groups (I'm not even going to try and fake any knowledge about
German prog or anything like that), there are really five widely
acknowledged prog groups (and yes, I'm aware of the existance of Gentle
Giant and Van Der Graff, but I'm speaking of widely acknowledged
groups, groups that a casual rock fan who may know vaguely enough about
prog to have made some level of judgement will recognize): Yes, ELP,
Rush (though that's debatable),
Genesis (the Gabriel-era stuff plus Trick of the Tail and Wind and Wuthering, that is), and first-period King Crimson (Larks to Red
is heavy avant-garde (though the complexity is sufficient to make a
definite argument of it also being prog), the 80's incarnation is
heavily rooted in New-Wave, and the 90's version could almost be called
progressive(*gasp*)-punk with a heavy improv side). And almost
universally, ELP is considered the worst of all of these.
]

Edited by micky - November 04 2007 at 18:03

Poll Question: Which band is worthy of inclusion as the 8th great prog rock band?
Poll Choice	Votes	Poll Statistics
Caravan	3	[2.59%]
Mike Oldfield	0	[0.00%]
The Moody Blues	9	[7.76%]
Van Der Graaf Generator	29	[25.00%]
Gentle Giant	19	[16.38%]
Premiata Forneria Marconi	3	[2.59%]
Le Orme	2	[1.72%]
Marillion	11	[9.48%]
Tangerine Dream	1	[0.86%]
Frank Zappa	9	[7.76%]
Camel	26	[22.41%]
Iron Maiden	2	[1.72%]
Magma	2	[1.72%]
This topic is closed, no new votes accepted