A Curious Phenomenon

The T wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: Petrovsk Mizinski wrote: Pat, please bear my child Let's get down and dirty to Paramore and raise prog-bashing children together <3 You really should do it... That glorious sarcasm of yours will prevent you of having children any other way...

lazland wrote: Dean wrote: TODDLER wrote: Man Overboard wrote: Tony R wrote: I think most Prog lacks attitude and genuine aggression because it tends towards the abstract. I can see why people might get tired with that and move on. As we see with John Lydon (Rotten) some people can like complex music but express themselves better through the visceral beats of simple rock and roll. Prog isn't the be all and end all, far from it, but at a Prog Rock site it is the prime focus and shared experience. If people feel the need to knock that then they should move on. Well put. But how can it be the prime focus and shared experience with everyone anyway? There is too much commercial prog on this site. Especially the late 70's and 80's mainstream prog which is about a hundred degree angle in the opposite direction of the mainstream prog of the mid 70's which even at that time the art was dead. What about 90125 BY yES?  Do you actually consider that a prog album? It contains radio hits just like Duke did. Is this true prog or artificial top 40 prog? Why should it matter? If two or more people on this forum can find something they like and if there are hundreds of such connections then it becomes the prime focus and the experience is shared. Surely that is enough... we don't all have to like the same thing as long as we all like something.            ... yeah, that makes sense. Dean is right - it doesn't matter in any way shape or form, and the constant debate about whether 90125 or Duke are prog or not is simply very wearisome. I personally love both albums, and hear elements of prog in both, whilst accepting that neither can realistically be accepted as akin to the "classic" 70's symphonic albums. The difference is that I don't beat myself up about the comparisons. I simply enjoy the two albums which have given me great pleasure over the years, and that, to me, is the only important factor.

The odds are not in favour of fans that enjoy obscure prog rock. Gentle Giant, Van Der Graff, and Magma are not the only obscure prog bands in the world you know? Fans of underground progressive rock that hails from 70's and 80's decades do not post. Apart from the occasional dog bone which is thrown our way, it doesn't seem to mean much. If anything, they make the situation worse as if to say that people like me need some sort of pathetic empathy trip, when in reality they paint the picture bad by not participating in posting on a regular basis, kind of like the fans of 90125 and DUKE do. It is not empathy that I am searching for. It is a common interest that I am searching for. Websites on obscure prog bands are insulting to a huge degree. It's like searching through a garbage can. The dates on the band's past concerts are mostly incorrect. The discography has missing chapters and the history can be pretty lame. In otherwords, it would be more interesting to read a P.A member's experience of a live show or whatever they can render, as anything would be more interesting than some lame website on a band. The people that are fans of more commercial prog seem to stick together. The fans of obscure progressive bands, apart from Rio and Cantenbury, do not. That's why it is NEXT to impossible to locate a posted thread on Stomu Yamashta, Jade Warrior, Pulsar, Curved Air, Art Bears, and many, many others. When fans post a thread, it usually gets between 4 to 5 replies, then slips away. Then we are back to 20 pages of posted replies for The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. I guess the fans of obscure bands are not willing to crawl out of the woodwork. What do you think?  

Petrovsk Mizinski wrote: Pat, please bear my child

Pat, please bear my child

stonebeard wrote: Dean wrote: Sarcasm is harder and seldom amuses more than one person, but it is so rarely executed with any finesse that is is rapidly becoming a lost art. And it's being replaced with Hipster Irony. (Above link is from Encyclopedia Dramatica, the posting of which carries two necessary consequences: 1) NSFW  2) Henry rages.)

Really looking forward to the part where Henry comes in and goes psycho

Dean wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: Plus it's fun to bash prog because the average prog fan is so uptight and desperately tries to validate his opinions by adding some objective metric to music that doesn't exist. I mean this is the easiest site in the world to troll because the concepts of hyperbole and sarcasm seem very foreign to many who post here.  It is easy to troll on any site, so we are no exception. Trolling is a poor gauge of anything other than the tolerance of others who "tut" and move on. Flame-wars seldom last here, not through any heavy-handed diligence of the Mods, but through tired exasperation - Trolls have assumed free-speech on their side - we have the kill-switch on ours - check-mate, cheque please. Hyperbole is okay, everybody exaggerates millions of times a day, it never wins an argument though; hammer the point home too hard and you punch through the otherside, destroying whatever you were trying to build in the process. Sarcasm is harder and seldom amuses more than one person, but it is so rarely executed with any finesse that is is rapidly becoming a lost art. Much of what passes for sarcasm is merely mean spiritedness and petty cruelty that it loses any value other than to offend and upset - and for what end? Two seconds of smugness? Seems a shallow victory to me.   What people post is a reflection of themselves - hiding behind screen-names is no defence, the characters may become badly drawn caricatures, but there are still a real people tapping at the keys revealing a little of themselves with each key-press. Over time we can all construct a profile of the personality behind the mask, even mine.

Quite a post Dean, well said as usual

Equality 7-2521 wrote: Plus it's fun to bash prog because the average prog fan is so uptight and desperately tries to validate his opinions by adding some objective metric to music that doesn't exist. I mean this is the easiest site in the world to troll because the concepts of hyperbole and sarcasm seem very foreign to many who post here.

This. 1000x this.

Slartibartfast wrote: your skin makes me cry?

And in creeping do not know?

your skin makes me cry? 

Edited by Slartibartfast - February 22 2010 at 20:54