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Manuel 
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 Posted: August 04 2009 at 11:49 |
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One thing we have to consider is the fact that many prog bands wrote more mainstream songs to catch the attention of the public at large. These were by no means bad songs, just more accessible pieces to get some radio exposure. In fact, many people discovered prog in the early seventies when they heard "from the beginning" or "living in the past" etc. After buying the album, they discovered the excellent prog pieces the album contained, and many became prog fans, so by no means these "non-prog" songs were useless, and most of them not necessarily bad songs.
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Nuke
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Posted: August 04 2009 at 00:07 |
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Well what do you think prog is?
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LanCaiHe
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Posted: August 03 2009 at 14:27 |
No, didn't have a mellotron, nor did I have the samples, so we just left it out and did some vocal things.
Toxicity, so appropriate a title when talking about Britney. I guess it comes down to what you think prog is. You and I have completely different ideas of what prog is.
 Nuke wrote:
Oh, so you played the choir part of that song with a mellotron? That sounds amazing to be honest, although I reckon you've had enough of that song to last you a lifetime  And I refuse to call matte kudasai progressive rock despite my penchant for calling way too many things progressive rock. It's too much like other pop ballads and too simple to really fall in with what we normally consider progressive. It does seem a cut above the pop on the radio today, but it doesn't win points for strangeness when so much pop is also really strange, especially from the 80's. I recently listened to Toxicity by Britney Spears and I would say that song is really strange too, moreso than matte kudasai, but that doesn't make it prog. Yeah, I guess a lot of rap has killed melody, but the thing I really hate is that autotune sound they use nowadays. Quite apt I believe your description of human bagpipes seems... |
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Jim
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Nuke
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Posted: August 03 2009 at 13:56 |
Oh, so you played the choir part of that song with a mellotron? That sounds amazing to be honest, although I reckon you've had enough of that song to last you a lifetime And I refuse to call matte kudasai progressive rock despite my penchant for calling way too many things progressive rock. It's too much like other pop ballads and too simple to really fall in with what we normally consider progressive. It does seem a cut above the pop on the radio today, but it doesn't win points for strangeness when so much pop is also really strange, especially from the 80's. I recently listened to Toxicity by Britney Spears and I would say that song is really strange too, moreso than matte kudasai, but that doesn't make it prog. Yeah, I guess a lot of rap has killed melody, but the thing I really hate is that autotune sound they use nowadays. Quite apt I believe your description of human bagpipes seems...
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LanCaiHe
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Posted: August 03 2009 at 12:38 |
Actually there is a category for the song Matte Kudasai by King Crimson, it's called "Progressive Rock." The Beatles came out with Yesterday in 1965 and there was no Progressive rock then as of yet. I know that you younger guys think that everything is Progressive. Then again, mabye that's true when you compare the rock and pop of today to the manure that is spewed over the air waves these days.
LanCaiHe wrote:
When you don't have a choir, you don't have a choir, or at least you have some mellotron samples. ;-)
Of course good melodies would go out of style since most music is "spoken" word nowadays i.e. rappppp! Melodies today, if you get them, are usually simple fragments of minor pentatonic scales, or blues scales, with lots of grace notes added (if you are lucky enough to have them), but then again most singers today soundlike human bagpipes! "Yesterday," a great song with relevant lyrics....especially for my life! LOL
Nuk e wrote:
Oh man, the crunge is pretty serious funk right there. I can barely stay seated listening to that one! LanCieHE, thanks for the story. It is so interesting to hear yarns from back in the day about music. My dad used to have great stories to tell me about marching band and pink floyd concerts and whatnot. It is so fun to realize how universal yet changing music is. I imagine it will be the same in the future too, when I get to pass on the family saxophone to my grandkids and tell them about the time my mom ran it over with a van, and they ask me what a van is. By the way, how did your group tackle the end of like a prayer where there is that choir part? As for Matte Kudasai, I think you might be right. I think yesterday by the beatles has that kind of really melodic slow melody, but it seems to have gone out of style in any pop from the last 20 years. It's like the melodies are shorter phrased these days. I'd consider Matte Kudasai to fall into the category of "obsolete pop ballad" |
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Jim
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LanCaiHe
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Posted: August 03 2009 at 12:22 |
When you don't have a choir, you don't have a choir, or at least you have some mellotron samples. ;-)
Of course good melodies would go out of style since most music is "spoken" word nowadays i.e. rappppp! Melodies today, if you get them, are usually simple fragments of minor pentatonic scales, or blues scales, with lots of grace notes added (if you are lucky enough to have them), but then again most singers today soundlike human bagpipes! "Yesterday," a great song with relevant lyrics....especially for my life! LOL
Nuke wrote:
Oh man, the crunge is pretty serious funk right there. I can barely stay seated listening to that one! LanCieHE, thanks for the story. It is so interesting to hear yarns from back in the day about music. My dad used to have great stories to tell me about marching band and pink floyd concerts and whatnot. It is so fun to realize how universal yet changing music is. I imagine it will be the same in the future too, when I get to pass on the family saxophone to my grandkids and tell them about the time my mom ran it over with a van, and they ask me what a van is. By the way, how did your group tackle the end of like a prayer where there is that choir part? As for Matte Kudasai, I think you might be right. I think yesterday by the beatles has that kind of really melodic slow melody, but it seems to have gone out of style in any pop from the last 20 years. It's like the melodies are shorter phrased these days. I'd consider Matte Kudasai to fall into the category of "obsolete pop ballad" |
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Jim
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Nuke
Forum Senior Member
Joined: October 25 2005
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 271
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Posted: August 03 2009 at 11:49 |
Oh man, the crunge is pretty serious funk right there. I can barely stay seated listening to that one! LanCieHE, thanks for the story. It is so interesting to hear yarns from back in the day about music. My dad used to have great stories to tell me about marching band and pink floyd concerts and whatnot. It is so fun to realize how universal yet changing music is. I imagine it will be the same in the future too, when I get to pass on the family saxophone to my grandkids and tell them about the time my mom ran it over with a van, and they ask me what a van is. By the way, how did your group tackle the end of like a prayer where there is that choir part? As for Matte Kudasai, I think you might be right. I think yesterday by the beatles has that kind of really melodic slow melody, but it seems to have gone out of style in any pop from the last 20 years. It's like the melodies are shorter phrased these days. I'd consider Matte Kudasai to fall into the category of "obsolete pop ballad"
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Tsevir Leirbag
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Joined: May 03 2009
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Posted: August 03 2009 at 11:37 |
ExittheLemming wrote:
Tsevir Leirbag wrote:
Sometimes, I think there are prog songs (made by prog bands), that are not prog. Most of the time, I don't like it because it sounds commercial or even really like popular music.
What do you think about it?/What are the "non-prog" prog songs that you like/you dislike? |
Forgive my candour, but this statement seems a tad 'fuzzy' to me i.e. how can a prog song by a prog band be both a prog song and NOT a prog song ? Do you perhaps really mean that the more mainstream oriented material produced by some of your prog faves leaves you cold ? (eg Love Beach, Abacab etc)
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Yes that's what I meant.
ExittheLemming wrote:
More importantly perhaps is my nagging suspicion that like many other misguided but well intentioned souls on 'PA' you confuse complexity with substance and/or depth ? e.g. I know many a prog snob who would turn their nose up at any music that has a simple beat and simple harmonic structure. This is plainly facile I am sure you would agree ?
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Yes, I agree
ExittheLemming wrote:
Aside from the deaf and possibly lovers of 'ambient', we would readily agree there is globally popular music that is not diminished in the slightest by its embrace by the otherwise credulous masses e.g. Kinks, Stones, Oasis, Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Lou Reed, Cure etc. (substitute your own closet faves)
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Agreed again!
Edited by Tsevir Leirbag - August 03 2009 at 11:37
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Les mains, les pieds balancés
Sur tant de mers, tant de planchers,
Un marin mort,
Il dormira
- Paul Éluard
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LanCaiHe
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Posted: August 03 2009 at 06:50 |
haha! You evoked a horrible memory from my past about that Madonna song! I remember when I was in music school there was this girl who was a voice major who wanted to play some pop tunes and make some bucks on the side. She put together a band and I played keys for them. She had an excellent voice, way better than Madonna's of course, and good stage presence as well. I remember that we played Like a Prayer and it was a fun song to play, but it was very similar to a lot of gospel tunes in it's construction. I remember the bass player was all over the place, the man couldn't play an ostinato pattern if you put 60,000 volts of electricity in him! I had to quit the project because of that. Ever since, I've been really hard on bass players! LOL So, I must tell you that I lived and breathed that song in the day. There is no need to go back and revisit it.
I must say, you will NEVER find a melody like Matte Kudasai in a pop song. It's too....well.......melodic! 
Nuke wrote:
Lol, I think I already have been arguing forever with you  It's okay though, I actually enjoy arguing with people, especially people who keep it cool like you. Anyways, that madonna song is an 80's song, so it has none of the cliches needed for a today hit. Seriously, listen to it, it is far more progressive than either heartbeat or matte kudasai, I kid you not, especially the second half of the song.
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Jim
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Lodij van der Graaf
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Joined: July 21 2009
Location: Jakarta
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Points: 150
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Posted: August 03 2009 at 02:05 |
Nuke wrote:
Lol, I think I already have been arguing forever with you It's okay though, I actually enjoy arguing with people, especially people who keep it cool like you. Anyways, that madonna song is an 80's song, so it has none of the cliches needed for a today hit. Seriously, listen to it, it is far more progressive than either heartbeat or matte kudasai, I kid you not, especially the second half of the song. |
 Is it? Wanna check it out! How about Led Zeppelin's "The Crunge"?
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Grace is a name,
like Chastity,
like Lucifer,
like mine!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Real Paradox
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Joined: January 20 2008
Location: Lisbon
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Points: 174
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Posted: August 02 2009 at 18:19 |
In post-rock (not metal though) you might some of that prog is not prog, cuz although we consider it prog, it isn't self proclaimed prog at all. Think of Dream Theatre maybe, they sometimes have some songs that are hardly prog... i.e. "Another Day", "Hollow Years". Not to mention their lyrics. Petrucci you own guitar-playing, but as man of words... Such hatred for someone you love hearing... 
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What is This?
It is what keeps us going...
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DASistGrantTeeL
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Joined: July 30 2009
Location: california
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Points: 55
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Posted: August 02 2009 at 16:13 |
Blacksword wrote:
Ha! I think their best album is 'A Trick of the Tail' |
thats the only good album with colins singing imo because it's more like Selling England By The Pound it's still prog they didnt really seell out bad till 78
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"This dream is all I’ve ever wanted, Cared for, I only hope things haven’t changed when I awake…"
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Nuke
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Joined: October 25 2005
Location: United States
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Posted: August 02 2009 at 15:51 |
Lol, I think I already have been arguing forever with you It's okay though, I actually enjoy arguing with people, especially people who keep it cool like you. Anyways, that madonna song is an 80's song, so it has none of the cliches needed for a today hit. Seriously, listen to it, it is far more progressive than either heartbeat or matte kudasai, I kid you not, especially the second half of the song.
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LanCaiHe
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Posted: August 02 2009 at 14:12 |
Haha, well, we could argue about it forever, but Matte Kudasai is definitely prog, and Madonna's "Like a Prayer" is DEFINITELY NOT Prog. LOL! That's pretty funny!  It may be a well crafted pop tune using all the cliche's and hooks that are needed for a hit at this time in pop music history, but it is not a prog tune nor is it progressively written. It's pretty standard right down to the left pointed bra cup. Hey, anybody up for a little Pilates?
Nuke wrote:
LanCaiHe wrote:
Of course I disagree with you. First, if we dispense with labels then there is absolutely no use for a website such as this. Also, I also disagree with you that the songs Matte Kudasai and Heartbeat are not prog songs. They certainly are, the former being an interesting distortion of an old rock/country/blues lick, especially the way in which it's combined rhythmically with the other parts of the song. 
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Well, on the first point, I was responding to the person above me. What I meant wasn't that labels had no value, but rather that they only take on a particular importance when you believe in genre superiority. If you look at some bands that got rejected from prog archives, ofthen the fans of that band take it very personally as if it were some sort of insult to not be included as prog (just look at the necrophagist argument if you don't believe me). The only reason that necrophagist fans would be offended that necrophagist aren't in PA is that they believe prog to be a superior genre to just plain old tech metal. As to your second point, those songs are pure pop. I mean, if you call them prog because they are interesting distortions of old songs or otherwise forward thinking, I could point you to tons of pop songs that also fit this category, but that we would never call prog. Listen to "like a prayer" by madonna for a great example of a pop song that is progressively written.
Dean wrote:
Fair point, though I wonder how far both AF and Epica were more Symphonic Metal than Gothic Metal when compared to the plethora of european Female Fronted Gothic Metal bands such as Theatre of Tragedy, Alas, Sirenia, Tristania etc. (or even Within Temptation or Lacuna Coil come to that). I guess I never really thought of either Dutch band as being particularly Gothic Metal. |
Well, I certainly wouldn't want to advocate After Forever as being gothic since they've changed so much, but I think their first 2 albums are really quite squarely Gothic metal, their second album decipher being the quintessential example of progressive gothic metal in my opinion. Epica are on the other hand very symphonic so I'm more hesitant to call them gothic metal, but you can hear gothic stylings all over their music, and they seem to be popular in the goth scene. |
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Jim
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Nuke
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Joined: October 25 2005
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Posted: August 02 2009 at 13:44 |
LanCaiHe wrote:
Of course I disagree with you. First, if we dispense with labels then there is absolutely no use for a website such as this. Also, I also disagree with you that the songs Matte Kudasai and Heartbeat are not prog songs. They certainly are, the former being an interesting distortion of an old rock/country/blues lick, especially the way in which it's combined rhythmically with the other parts of the song.
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Well, on the first point, I was responding to the person above me. What I meant wasn't that labels had no value, but rather that they only take on a particular importance when you believe in genre superiority. If you look at some bands that got rejected from prog archives, ofthen the fans of that band take it very personally as if it were some sort of insult to not be included as prog (just look at the necrophagist argument if you don't believe me). The only reason that necrophagist fans would be offended that necrophagist aren't in PA is that they believe prog to be a superior genre to just plain old tech metal. As to your second point, those songs are pure pop. I mean, if you call them prog because they are interesting distortions of old songs or otherwise forward thinking, I could point you to tons of pop songs that also fit this category, but that we would never call prog. Listen to "like a prayer" by madonna for a great example of a pop song that is progressively written.
Dean wrote:
Fair point, though I wonder how far both AF and Epica were more Symphonic Metal than Gothic Metal when compared to the plethora of european Female Fronted Gothic Metal bands such as Theatre of Tragedy, Alas, Sirenia, Tristania etc. (or even Within Temptation or Lacuna Coil come to that). I guess I never really thought of either Dutch band as being particularly Gothic Metal. |
Well, I certainly wouldn't want to advocate After Forever as being gothic since they've changed so much, but I think their first 2 albums are really quite squarely Gothic metal, their second album decipher being the quintessential example of progressive gothic metal in my opinion. Epica are on the other hand very symphonic so I'm more hesitant to call them gothic metal, but you can hear gothic stylings all over their music, and they seem to be popular in the goth scene.
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Relayer Duos
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Posted: August 02 2009 at 13:40 |
The greatest prog is not defined necesarily by the "progressive" elements. There are many albums (even venturing as far as Dragonforce =O) that have progressive elements that are no good. How many paradigm shifts you have in a song in no complete way define how good, or not, the song is. Take the example Providence off of Red by King Crimson. It is almost constantly evolving in one way or another, new quieter sections or sporadic percussion instruments taking over what once was. If we were going soley by how "progressive" it is it may very well be a great masterpiece, yet in reality it is just very strange.
Prog is defined--defined as good or bad--by how musical it is. The best prog is the kind that incorporates classical, jazz, and older rock/metal influences into their writing--producing a rock effect that actually feels like music. This is where the average band fails to make the leap, they write pop or singer/songwriter or alternative licks and just string two or three into a song. This form of music lacks musicianship in writing and in performance, and is truly the reason we don't like it very much.
Would anybody question the musicality of Horizons (off of Foxtrot)? It isn't particularly "progressive" but it is still a welcome addition to the prog family. The reason? It is still well made music.
I don't think any song that isn't "progressive" is just "pop." Take the new album by the Decemberists, The Hazards of Love. The average song length is under three minutes, which is not long enough to make a real "progressive" song, yet it is getting good reviews. The album is still a prog album due to other elements.
Individual songs don't always mean something alone.
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tamijo
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Posted: August 02 2009 at 01:49 |
Time to reverse this, and find prog songs on non prog albums 
NB.: Keep in mind that POP is not a style, as it only tells you that something is or was ment to be for the masses. In the same way as commercial. POP can not be a style, because what is POP depends on the timeframe in witch it was realeased.
Owner of a Lonely Hart - Just to use this as an example - Is a rock song - what makes it more commercial than other Yes songs is the catcy Vocal's, the Production very in line with the "sounds" of the time, that it has a running time fit for airplay. ect ect.; But it is Rock !
Edited by tamijo - August 02 2009 at 02:02
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Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours
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ExittheLemming
Forum Senior Member
Joined: October 19 2007
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Posted: August 02 2009 at 01:46 |
Tsevir Leirbag wrote:
Sometimes, I think there are prog songs (made by prog bands), that are not prog. Most of the time, I don't like it because it sounds commercial or even really like popular music.
What do you think about it?/What are the "non-prog" prog songs that you like/you dislike? |
Forgive my candour, but this statement seems a tad 'fuzzy' to me i.e. how can a prog song by a prog band be both a prog song and NOT a prog song ? Do you perhaps really mean that the more mainstream oriented material produced by some of your prog faves leaves you cold ? (eg Love Beach, Abacab etc) More importantly perhaps is my nagging suspicion that like many other misguided but well intentioned souls on 'PA' you confuse complexity with substance and/or depth ? e.g. I know many a prog snob who would turn their nose up at any music that has a simple beat and simple harmonic structure. This is plainly facile I am sure you would agree ? Aside from the deaf and possibly lovers of 'ambient', we would readily agree there is globally popular music that is not diminished in the slightest by its embrace by the otherwise credulous masses e.g. Kinks, Stones, Oasis, Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Lou Reed, Cure etc. (substitute your own closet faves) The foregoing are not remotely 'prog' but 'the food of love' would be a rather stodgy diet without such artists.
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topofsm
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Posted: August 02 2009 at 01:18 |
I don't only like prog, as many above have said, but a lot of my music that I like just falls under that category. Thus, I look through all music labeled 'progressive' and far more often than not I enjoy it. As for genres, I enjoy arguing about them whether it's prog, non-prog, prog related, prog metal, death metal, metalcore, hardcore, punk, alternative, folk, country, bluegrass, or jazz. Maybe I have no life, but I already knew that.
Also, LanCaiHe, do you normally quote and then post your reply above it? It's very confusing for me to read backwards.
Edited by topofsm - August 02 2009 at 01:20
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Lodij van der Graaf
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Joined: July 21 2009
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Posted: August 02 2009 at 00:01 |
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Whether prog's prog or isn't... I enjoy it well...
The term "Prog" is came from the outside, eh? The fans named it to the artists, not the artist declared it to the fans... (in early years)
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Grace is a name,
like Chastity,
like Lucifer,
like mine!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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/PAlogo_v2.gif "Progarchives.com Homepage")
Prog's not prog.
