Prog’s bad name: who’s responsible?

Hard to blame anyone specifically. Prog had a few good years and then people got bored and went off into other genres. But it didn't do itself any favours with some of the pretentious, overblown extremes (ELP, Wakeman) or the attempts to become more mainstream and commercial (Yes, Genesis).

Rule 1 of media seems to be "Find something new and shocking and push it" and that's what they did with Punk. That Grundy interview with the Sex Pistols was probably a catalyst for the demise of prog, since Punk was suddenly "dangerous" and therefore sexy.

I've just remembered a name of a real grade A arse...Lester Bangs.

"[Lester Bangs] was the great gonzo journalist, gutter poet, and romantic visionary of rock writing.."

Yeah right!

What an oaf that man was (may he rest in peace). read his biography, well 12 pages, before throwing it in the bin.

iguana wrote: i shan't go into bashing the music press – one must always be nice & considerate to people who are just plain DEAF. besides, most of them have their heads so far up each others' backsides that they must at best be ignored at any time. my choice of scapegoat would be jon anderson and steve howe, who completely lost the plot in 1973 and created "tales from topographic oceans", IMHO the biggest turd ever released under the prog rock banner and largely responsible why everyone else screamed "enough already!" in the aftermath. both have redeemed themselves very quickly since but the genre and music in general have never quite recovered...

 

     I find this chronic Tales bashing rather simple minded, especially the whole notion that they'd gone "too far"...what is too far? Should fans and critics dictate where the limits of artistic creation lie? I think artists must be free to explore, Yes was moving into totally unexplored territory, and while imperfect, the research & experience gained in Tales made Relayer possible. The "redeeming" that Yes went through later was, in IMHO, moving back onto safe, unchallenging territory and that's what killed progressive, not courageous exploration.

     As for the myth that everybody attacked Tales as being "enough already", Time Magazine named it as album of the year the year that it came out, and expressed great appreciation for the courage and ambitions of this young group. It doesn't get any more mainstream than that in terms of recognition, the revised history that it was immediately despised by all was adapted later by jounalists to support their anti.prog agenda. I loved it then and now, you don't have to take the concept so seriously, it's just great music.

I dont know, but i think that there have always been moments in prog where bands and even fans got too pretentious. I can say that since i see a lot of comments around here speacking of prog rock above all other music generes (or many of them) and of progfans who see themselves far above of fans of other generes. For those reasons it is very possible that this amazing genere is put under the lable of a "snob" genere. 

Now... don't get me wrong.  Phil Collins did some amazing sh*t... but he went WAY too poppy afterwards.  Makes me sick.  A friend of mine says sometimes, "Phil Collins has a tendency of taking a big ol' dump on his music career sometimes."  Hahaha.  And I believe that is sooo true.  He should really just stop... seriously... for the love of god and the prog name.  Stop Collins.

I would say that Wakeman might be worse for Prog... his stuff definately is a lot more sh*tty than Collins but most people have no idea who he is or know that he has made 204335972 albums.  Where-as... Collins is well known...

Absolutely the media. The media couldn't have an intelligent form of music
flooding the airwaves. It would blow people's minds.

EDIT: And as Fripp said, saying that your affiliated with prog when talking
about a record contract, is like poison.

Edited by FragileDT

 

  other than that there is a Greek saying that those who the Gods want to destroy they first make crazy

 

  The Gods decided to destroy prog through four pieces of craziness in chronoligacal order

 TFTO by Yes

 ELP's works tour where they took a symphony orchestra to play mediocre material and went bust

 Roger Waters mental self indulgence , woe is me ,

 Genesis desire for money

 

Froth wrote: thefalafelking wrote: Rick Wakeman without any doubt. cheers   flfkng dont know about that. Wakeman wasn't taking himself 100% seriously and was just having fun, and making some amazing music at the same time. Jon Anderson, Chris Squire and Steve Howe on the other hand did. I do think the music press didnt do Prog any good either, largley cos they consist, with some obvious exceptions, of miserable tone deaf punks cant cope with stuff they dont understand.... yep thats NME for you!.    Oh for the days of melody maker!

In this case, it's not important how Wakemen saw himself. The issue is about the perception of the outside world. He indeed made amazing music, with Yes..