Punks Hate Prog.

yargh wrote: 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 find punk too pretentious, claiming to change the world. Much better listen to prog - it's just music innit?

yargh wrote:   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.

It's a shame really, that any genuine development of the arts, of culture, of society, are either

i)taken over by (eg.) the record industry, and subverted into moneyspinners: not only have they rejected the values that punk and indie (or at least some punk and indie) brought to the table, they've also essentially guaranteed that it can't happen again. "A punk revival? But we've got punk in the charts already!", when of course in spirit we have anything but punk in the charts...

ii)buried: in the modern DIY scene (I suppose, to all intents and purposes this could be seen as a modern parallel to punk in the '70s), and of course in prog, post rock, and I'm sure every stylistic possibility under the sun, there are genuinely inventive artists today. And who's heard of them? Well... we have, but hardly thanks to the omnipresence of conglomerate record labels in the music industry, it's rather difficult to. Happily the Internet is changing this, to some degree . I suppose prog suffered a slightly more dignified fate in that it was at least posthumously buried, rather than never having a stab at the spotlight at all...

Also, why did thread get moved to the NON MUSIC forum??? It quite clearly belongs either in the main lounge or the non-prog music lounge.