Punks Hate Prog.

The Miracle wrote: ^why? why the f**k would you ever revive this??? Please delete this sh*t for good!!![IMG]style="WIDTH: 83px; HEIGHT: 66px" height=69 src="smileys/smiley13.gif" width=93> [IMG]style="WIDTH: 67px; HEIGHT: 59px" height=59 src="http://www.progarchives.com/forum/smileys/smiley11.gif" width=41>[IMG]style="WIDTH: 67px; HEIGHT: 59px" height=59 src="http://www.progarchives.com/forum/smileys/smiley11.gif" width=41>[IMG]style="WIDTH: 67px; HEIGHT: 59px" height=59 src="http://www.progarchives.com/forum/smileys/smiley11.gif" width=41>[IMG]style="WIDTH: 67px; HEIGHT: 59px" height=59 src="http://www.progarchives.com/forum/smileys/smiley11.gif" width=41>[IMG]style="WIDTH: 67px; HEIGHT: 59px" height=59 src="http://www.progarchives.com/forum/smileys/smiley11.gif" width=41>[IMG]style="WIDTH: 67px; HEIGHT: 59px" height=59 src="http://www.progarchives.com/forum/smileys/smiley11.gif" width=41>[IMG]style="WIDTH: 67px; HEIGHT: 59px" height=59 src="http://www.progarchives.com/forum/smileys/smiley11.gif" width=41>[IMG]style="WIDTH: 67px; HEIGHT: 59px" height=59 src="http://www.progarchives.com/forum/smileys/smiley11.gif" width=41>

So much anger, man! Drink some camomile tea and calm down

goose wrote:    So much anger, man! Drink some camomile tea and calm down

No no no, not anger I just think that bringing up this old crap is slightly... inappropriate

I sure have nothing against punk -- I own lots of albums that would broadly be considered punk.  But it is instructive that punk is remembered primarily as a social movement (especially UK punk) and prog is remembered primarily as a musical one.  Punk was eventually going to happen -- rock could only get so bloated.  And it happened at a pretty good time, since the world kind of sucked in the late 1970s.  Would have been nice if it could have waited another 3 years or so and formed the basis of anti-Reagan/Thatcherism, but oh well.  The values of punk are important, I think, as long as one goes along with the presumption that popular music can function as a populist force.  I *do* think that there are times that nihilism and destruction as values in popular music are needed (right now would be a *really* good time for a punk revival, in the social sense, especially if you live in the USA).  Unfortunately, it was the musical aspects of punk that were recuscitated and co-opted by the music industry, not the political ones.            

why the hell is this tripe back at the top

Fantômas wrote: OLD PAGE! I'm kidding. Well, the punk/post-punk/hardcore of the late 70's and the early 80's ranks among the best music that was ever done. Any prog-guy who doesn't like punk should check it, at least to be able to say that doesn't like it...

Stuff like Wire, Butthole Surfers, Minutemen, Gang of Four -- that stuff was great, but those guys were actually creative. 

con safo wrote: why the hell is this tripe back at the top

very good question

maybe we should forget it and let it slide off the page?

I've been mixing punk in with my prog purchases.  Current favorites are Wire, Iggy and the Stooges, and Pere Ubu.  I saw Gang of Four in concert a couple of weeks ago and they put on a great show.  Their guitarist (Andy Gill) actually reminds me a bit of Alex Lifeson, in look & attitude.  Another great punk guitarist to watch is Billy Zoom of X - saw them live a year and a half ago and that was a fun show.  I'd say any of those bands have intelligent music and concepts.  The Clash don't really do that much for me, frankly.

Edited by bartok

con safo wrote: yargh wrote: Fantômas wrote: OLD PAGE! I'm kidding. Well, the punk/post-punk/hardcore of the late 70's and the early 80's ranks among the best music that was ever done. Any prog-guy who doesn't like punk should check it, at least to be able to say that doesn't like it... Stuff like Wire, Butthole Surfers, Minutemen, Gang of Four -- that stuff was great, but those guys were actually creative.  There are many creative punk bands who slip under the radar. Even bands still recording today, in fact propagandhi just released an excellent new album.

That's right. I could spend hours and hours saying punk bands that are really creative. The funny thing is: Prog-fans complain that punks hate prog without an apparent reason, but the same goes for themselves. Most don't even know all the genres in punk and say that is "the return to stupidity in rock music". Gimme a break.

     What's interesting is that progressive really was villified for years after the 70's not only by the punks, but by the mainstream press as well, who bought this rationale hook, line and sinker. It's always easier to fee COOL if you can point your finger and go, "Oh man, THOSE guys are SO uncool", when really you're just jumping on one more trend. What's changed through the rear-view mirror of history is that most punk tends to date rather quickly, since it's a form constantly mimicked and reinterpreted by newer bands. Musical development along the lines of Passion Play, Relayer and The Lamb however pretty much stopped there in the mid-70s, so listening to it today, for most people it sounds really radical, fresh and unique, like "what? There were bands crazy enough to break with the slavish dogma of the 3 minute song?" (A marketing concept, above all, how could punks try to portray that as revolutionary?) I'm not speaking of the so-called "neo-prog" of the 80s that just tended to rehash the glory days and not really bring anything new to it.

     But obviously this guy (like many critics) is burned up by the fact that this music does stand out as a monument of creativity, why else would he waste so much screen space on it? If somebody else is turned on by something I don't like, like KISS or David Hasselhof, why should I go railing against it, when obviously some people have a need for that? But interest in the creativity of early prog is growing, not diminishing, it's no longer a source of shame for musicians to admit it, and many bands now are bringing a thoroughly contemporary interpretation, like Mars Volta, with their experiences of punk as well.

 

Being only a freshman in college, I've been in the center of prog-hating. When I was in high school, there were kids who wouldn't listen to anything, and I mean ANYTHING, older than about five years, and that was pushing it. Anything that sounded older was considered "bad rock" too, like the Darkness, for example. Anything that was more complex than three chords was also thought of as "gay music" as they called it.

I don't hate punk. I like Green Day. However, prog is my first great musical love. Bands like Rush, Yes, ELP, Dream Theater, Pink Floyd, and others are the greatest bands in the world. I also like new prog, like Mars Volta, Tool, and Coheed and Cambria, a former emo band that became prog with the release of their newest album, "Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV Volume I: The House of Madness."

Basically, I'm willing to tolerate listeners of that awful music that is pop/punk, but pop/punk listeners who bash prog need to just shut up. Prog is becoming more and more popular again and pretty soon they'll be listening to prog because prog albums will have dominated the charts and most kids only like to listen to the music that's selling rather than what they prefer personally. For example, when I play a prog album for someone, they're really turned on by the music, but when I tell them that it's a band from the 70s or 80s, they look at me funny and walk out of the room, never to listen to it again. How shallow can you get?