Prog Related...my problems with this category!

Teaflax wrote: Peter Rideout wrote: Words don't "contain" "confine" or "control" art! If you want to discuss music, you're going to need words to do it with.   I'm not sure I do -- it seems increasingly pointless. Our reactions to music are so individual, and the term "prog" is so slippery and subjective.   And those words need to be related to some sort of consensus (which is why I am bothered by the watering down of Prog to include all sorts of mainstream aspects). To rail against classifications is to want to discuss music in vague terms "upbeat, but still kind of aggressive" (which could be a description of a million different things from The Ramones to Frank Sinatra). That just makes no sense - the more specific we can be in what a word and term means, the more effective it will be as a tol of communication. The hyper-specific sectioning of modern electronic dance music is a great boon to me, because it makes so much easier to avoid the repetitive marching-band crap as it tends to have its own genres (House, Techno, Hardcore, Gabber, Trance, Goa, etc.), whereas the good, grooving and intelligent stuff nestles together in other qualifications (Breakbeat, Breaks, Trip Hop, IDM, etc.).   I like broad categories, but I think actually hearing the music is the best way to see if you like it. (Reviews can be useful too.) I also can relate to "sounds like" comparisons, but I'm not "up" enough on modern music terminology for many of those categories to mean much to me. They seem very subjective, and often so close as to overlap.   For me, just the word "metal' in a category is enough to warn me away from a band. It's just not to my taste. I prefer "light" and the music of the elves to "dark" and the music of the orcs, if you will. It is by no means limited to Proggies or Metal heads. (by the way, speaking of communication, the quotes on the words above make it look like you don't actually mean contain, control or confine, but are using them as similes for something else. But I can't figure out what that would be, so I will assume that's just a stylistic quirk)   You are right, I was wrong (maybe I was drunk at the time), so the offending quirky quotation marks have been removed. Mea culpa. Now, are you still my pal, TF?

MikeEnRegalia wrote: Peter: There are also dark elves.

Peter Rideout wrote:   I like broad categories, but I think actually hearing the music is the best way to see if you like it. (Reviews can be useful too.) I also can relate to "sounds like" comparisons, but I'm not "up" enough on modern music terminology for many of those categories to mean much to me. They seem very subjective, and often so close as to overlap.   For me, just the word "metal' in a category is enough to warn me away from a band. It's just not to my taste. I prefer "light" and the music of the elves to "dark" and the music of the orcs, if you will. Smiles...I agree with you to a point, but for some people categories are important as they want to explore 'more of the same' and sometimes categories are there to help sort out which artists relate to others. There are two many artists on PA to listen to the whole lot...so we need to break it down. You yourself demonstrated this when you say that anything that is metal puts you off. Supposing you bought an album by The Hairy Hobbit Orchestra for obvious reasons and they turned out to be Metal. You'd be well P***** off!...and then to top it all you'd spent £25 getting it shipped from the far east cos it's so rare you have never heard what they do, but that name just grabs you!...get the picture!..smiles

Edited by BilboBaggins - July 09 2006 at 00:31

^ but a too theoretical approach *can* lead to a lack of enjoyment!

I'm with Certif1ed in that I find that analysis helps me cut to the core of what I like and why.

Obviously, some music will confound analysis - I'd say about 25% of my enjoyment or lack thereof is almost impossbile to quantify, that's Factor X. Pure Reason Revolution are to me objectively good, but subjectively fantastic. Izz are objectively good, but subjectively fairly middling - something's just not clicking about them, although I don't really have too much to point to as being bad.

But the reason I keep arguing on here is that I think it's a misunderstanding that Progressive Rock as originally formulated was much about Rock at all; it moved away from that so rapidly that by about 1971 or 72, almost none of the top Prog bands had much in the way of quantifiable Rock in their compositions (this was probably the beginning of their popular downfall, mind you - I hear many people who are not Prog fans who say that The Yes Album was the last good thing they did - and that's the one where there's a bit of regrettable Boogie Rock that they never again returned to).

So, when bands come along these days and are called Prog bands, yet have this Rock feel to much of what they do, I have to point out the error in comparing them to the bands of yore without pointing out the obvious and large difference in style.

And this is a difference where even the simplest of analyses - not requiring much in the way of knowledge of musical theory - can be used to prove the point. Take (almost) any Neal Morse song and edit together just the vocal sections. Now, does that sound like something you might hear on US Rock Radio? I posit that it pretty much does.

Now do the same for a song from any of the Prog greats from the 70's (and quite few more obscure modern Prog bands). Even with all the instrumental interludes removed, it's probably going to sound at least somewhat different (and usually significantly so) from what you'd hear on an AOR station.

So, obviously there's a difference in that some of these hailed modern bands have moved Prog back towards Regular Rock, and though I find that a little sad, I think it can easily be countered by acknowledging that they are not of a kind with Prog as it once was.

I come to Prog for something that looks beyond the mainstream, and while many of the bands that count in the broad spectrum of Prog since its original heyday may be derivative, they're derivative of a style that really hasn't even begun to be explored to its limits. So there's all this unclaimed territory for Prog bands to go, yet some of them stay within often quite safe bounds, with catchy, "pleasing" tunes that really aren't a million miles away from chart music.

I'm not saying everything Prog has to be atonal and super-experimental all the time (rather the opposite - just making annoying noise is also quite easy), I just ask that it not be pandering with the same tricks that have been used literally a million times by tens of thousands of bands throughout the last 60 years of music history.

There are ways of writing melodies and using harmonies that are pleasing and beautiful without being predictable, repetitive and simplistic.

Again: listen to the opening 45 seconds of Dancing with the Moonlit Knight. It's all over the place, wandering through several keys and hardly repeating itself at all, yet it is quite pleasing and beautiful - there's depth in the beauty, and that's all I ask.


Edited by Teaflax - July 10 2006 at 20:48

^I find it to be a distinct, if Prog-related style. It makes little sense to think that just because you like Genesis, you should dig The Flower Kings, or that a Yes fan will automatically like Spock's Beard or, indeed, Saga.

(and even back in the 80's, I don't remember anyone calling Saga Prog - not in my circle, anyway).

And I wouldn't be bothered if it was just one or two bands, but I thinkl it's quite a distinct and well-populated subset. And it would be one thing if there were no more modern bands that actually played what I consider to be just plain Prog, but I was just listening to Wobbler, and they could certainly never be confused with anything other than Prog, even if you take a 30 second snipept at random.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ It's funny that you mention Wobbler ... even they themselves say that they're not a very progressive band. They are regressive, they try to sound (and compose their songs) like the classic bands.

    
There are a lot of bands that try to sound like their favourite bands...

Are they all regressive because of that fact?

Teaflax wrote: ^It makes little sense to think that just because you like Genesis, you should dig The Flower Kings, or that a Yes fan will automatically like Spock's Beard or, indeed, Saga. 'I totally agree, did anyone say otherwise?' (and even back in the 80's, I don't remember anyone calling Saga Prog - not in my circle, anyway). 'I don't know where you are Teaflax but I had many prog friends in the UK and ironically they were the first to tell me of this exciting new band from Canada called Saga at the end of the 70's. Let's not forget that the UK were the first to nurture Prog!' And I wouldn't be bothered if it was just one or two bands, but I thinkl it's quite a distinct and well-populated subset. And it would be one thing if there were no more modern bands that actually played what I consider to be just plain Prog, but I was just listening to Wobbler, and they could certainly never be confused with anything other than Prog, even if you take a 30 second snipept at random. 'This is typical of the kind of view that is being held by certain 'Prog Heads'. You shouldn't be able to play (what you call) plain Prog, there is no such thing as playing 'Prog'...instead you are progressive or a Prog Rock band! You see, Prog has no musical boundaries and if you start to say they are playing Prog then you are guilty of stifling the music, restricting it to your idea of Prog...how progressive would that be? Do you think Genesis had a fixed idea of what Prog was when they helped shape the future of Prog. ...And Then They Were Three sounded totally differant to Nursery Cryme...but it was still Prog. Saga sounded totally differant to anything before them and their first albums were Prog...as were several albums later in their career...but they too changed but retained the Prog elements. By denying them Prog Rock status you are denying their hugely valuable contribution to Prog that was differant to anything that had happened before..and so the Prog line continues to evolve. Stop harking on back to a fixed idea you have of Prog...you are weighing down the genre!! I can't recall who said that Prog doesn't sound much like rock...does it really matter?...some of it sounds like Classical, some sounds like Jazz, but whatever you call it, we all know what it is (to some degree anyway...grins)..so I don't really think it matters!

Edited by BilboBaggins - July 11 2006 at 21:36

Teaflax wrote: BilboBaggins wrote: Saga sounded totally differant to anything before them and their first albums were Prog...as were several albums later in their career...but they too changed but retained the Prog elements. Sounding mainstream and using regular Rock melodies, harmonies and structures =/= Prog. It's really that bloody simple. You can't say "Prog is about exploring uncharted musical areas, so you cannot exclude those who don't", because it makes no sense whatsoever.

I'm sorry Teaflax, I don't mean to belittle you, but you are quite simply wrong. In 1978, 'mainstream' was precisely what Saga where not. Sure, some of their later albums where more mainstream as were those  of Genesis and some other prog bands. But Genesis (my favourite band by the way) never really returned to their prog roots whereas Saga have, several times.

These 'regular Rock melodies, harmonies and structures' that you mentioned, did not exist before Saga..therefore it is impossible label their seventies contribution as 'mainstream'.

Teaflax wrote: BilboBaggins wrote: These 'regular Rock melodies, harmonies and structures' that you mentioned, did not exist before Saga..therefore it is impossible label their seventies contribution as 'mainstream'. I don't know what band you're listening to, but the main component of Saga's music is really quitwe regular Pop/Rock, which has been around in various forms since the late 50's. And even should you set down some really rigid parameters that they manage to end up outside of, they're still disqualified by the short, repetitive and very cadence-adherent melodies that define most simple music and is very rare in real Prog.

I have to agree - having checked out their first two albums (supposedly the most proggy), I then compared them with two other groups beginning with S, from before the time that Saga released their debut; namely Styx and Supertramp.

Styx's "The Grand Illusion" is marginally less proggy than Sagas - but that's not saying much.

Saga's wanders off into kludgy white-man's reggae and white-man's funk territory, and, while some good noises emmanate from the guitars, the same cannot be said about the keyboards.

Supertramp's debut (look up the year that was released...) has a thick "Prog Rock" sound, and does delve into Prog on many an occasion - although the ballads do drag it out of Prog Rock "proper". "Crime of the Century", however, has some simply stunning moments, and even though Supertramp don't wander out of the same soundscape for too long, what they do in that soundscape is often incredibly proggy.

I think reviews on all should follow, since all are in the archives - although I really don't get Styx...

Saga are Prog-Related for sure. They're not quite in the simple realms that Teaflax seems insistent upon - but the timbral and arrangement experimentations do nothing to enter the upper echelons of "proper" Prog.
    
I hear nothing advanced in the harmonies or melodies - and the rhythms are too constricted by fat.

Good band though - that turns out some very enjoyable AOR, as well as some cringeworthy "reggae", etc. Fortunately, on their later albums, they drop that nonsense and stick to styles they can play in - once more underlining their non-progressive nature.
    

Edited by Certif1ed - July 17 2006 at 10:01