Getting estranged from prog

I have nothing against reproducing every instrument clearly but that it goes along with a wholly digital sound.  You - Baldfriede - bring up an interesting point about live recordings. I have not been fortunate to see prog bands - old or new - but I saw Iron Maiden on their Matter of Life and Death tour and Scorpions on their Humanity tour.  I must say the songs from their then newly released albums sounded much better in the concert ambience than in the studio cuts.  And in case you are thinking this has to do with the crowd euphoria which can tend to make live performances sometimes seem better than they really are, I must point out that they also played their classics in the concert and I wasn't necessarily satisfied with all their renditions.  It may be a little far fetched to ascribe attributes to what made it sound better, but organic may be just the word that describes it - note that AMOLAD is by recent metal recording trends, quite organic - sounding.  There's a tendency these days to attempt to magnify a song's appeal with some sort of artificial effects like drastically fading out the sound or increasing the volume though the instruments have not necessarily fallen silent or increased in intensity - done quite transparently in Humanity Hour I. It was done in the 70s too but to a lesser extent and the trend has probably accentuated over the years - the 70s just happen to be the time when prog had its big shout.   

I don't listen to "modern prog" (note that I don't consider post-rock or avant-garde to be prog, just a taste thing). I tried it, didn't work out. The stuff just couldn't compare.

But anyway, I only listen to three prog bands now and they are Genesis, King Crimson, and Gentle Giant. All great bands from '70 to '74. It's really all I need.

I'm too in love with indie right now to really spend much time on prog. Though I'm still open to finding more obscure gems from the 70's!

I don't feel estranged from prog.

 To the one who started this threat:

Prog as a one-course meal will never satisfy.  I've always and often taken breaks from it.  Fortunately for me I don't give a rusty f**k about staying true to prog or any other genre for that matter.  When I get tired of the prog I like, I find something else that excites me.  At the present moment I've been re-visiting Some artists I got into about 10-15 years back when on another long hiatus from prog.  It's fun to look in on some other styles and see what folks have been releasing while I was paying attention to prog.

Edited by Trademark - January 07 2009 at 16:08

I've also found myself moving onto musical pastures new of late. I've been dabbling in post-punk recently (Tuxedomoon and Blurt being particular favourites right now) and generally looking for interesting and unusual music outside of the world of prog. With the exceptions of RIO and Zeuhl (which I'll probably never feel sufficiently immersed in!), I feel as though a lot of prog has offered me as much as it's ever going to. I still listen to Yes and VDGG with a fair amount of regularity but I just can't get excited about every one-album footnote of Italian Symphonic Prog and even less about a lot of current bands consciously making new "prog" albums. So much of it sounds hopelessly contrived to my jaded ears.

I went through a John Philip Sousa  Phase when I was in high school because I was learning the tuba. I couldn`t pass the pitch test but I did so well on the rythmn test that I got stuck with the bloody tuba. My high School music teacher lent me some John Philip Sousa albums and I learned to play along with stuff like King Cotton, Stars & Stripes Forever, The Thunderer and stuff like that by ear. My dad kicked me out into the back yard so I could drive the nieghbours nuts. I swear, for about two weeks I didn`t listen to anything but John Philip Sousa marches. But the novelty wore off and I soon returned to my Focus, Triumvirat, Gentle Giant, Krautrock  and ELP records. I think my dad prefered the loud progrock. Likewise, I went through a Rush phase and listened to nothing but Rush when 2112 came out. I think I must listen to progrock in some form or another just about everyday. It`ll never leave me because it`s just too interesting.

Dim wrote: See with the older bands, you cant really talk about the atmoshpere, in the sense modern music does, simply because it just wasnt possible then.

This is obviously a completely subjective point since I don't agree. I tend to find loads more atmosphere in 70's recordings than in modern ones. Also, I rarely find old recordings to be "muddy".