Why many people dislike The Flower Kings

Why don't many old proggers like (or why do you hate) The Flower Kings so much? They are wonderful...Maybe they didn't invented it, maybe they had a lot of influence by Yes, but thay have their unique sound (now that i've heard all Yes records, all genesis records, most ELp, GentleG records, couple by Camel) I can see that THEY DO HAVE their unique sound... and they are great!! I saw them playing live 3 weeks ago...Stolt is a genius.... They have one of the better technically speaking rhythm section (Reingold, Lillequist) in all of today's prog.... they have mammoth songs but full of melody and still with some ROCk in their prog-ROCk....yes, sometimes they kind of suffer from what I call elephantism (4 double cds, each with more than 130 minutes of music, with a lot of 20+ minutes songs), but other than that, they are marvelous....They are, in this day and age, the only SYMPHONIC rock ala Yes that sti;ll survives and carries that torch with pride...

yeah, that's the attitude...

I love the flower kings , I listen to them all the time  and get so much enjoyment from them , I don`t care what anybody else thinks I love em.  

I am 49 years old and I hardly listen to "modern prog", despite I have a few records . I owe one from The Flower Kings ( Space Revolver ) and it is one of few I enjoy and listen regularly . In the end, the answer is always the same: everything is just a matter of taste.

soundsweird wrote:            1.   I don't like singers who sound like dozens of other singers.          2.   Let's say there are two people listening to a Flower Kings album.  One is 53 years old, has been listening to prog (as well as other types of rock) since he was a kid, has been playing music since the late 60's, etc.  The other is 25 or 30 years old.  Over the years, the old guy has heard the keyboard sound on the album hundreds of times on other albums, the drumming style hundreds of times on other albums, the guitar chords, similar lyrics....   you get the idea.  The younger guy hears the same album, and it all sounds fresh and new.

What does age have to do with what music you've heard? The only obvious difference between a 60 years old and a 30 years old person is that they perceive the "classic" bands (or indeed any music they hear) differently. The older person "was there", and may have a more authentic view on the classic bands ... but on the other hand that person might be biased towards them, as they represent their youth. The young person on the other hand may never be able to grasp the feeling of the 70s ... but on the other hand they can hear the new music of the 90s without any preconceptions about how prog should sound like.

BTW: Roine Stolt was an active musician in the 70s, let's not forget that ... they're hardly a "young" band.


Edited by MikeEnRegalia - October 25 2006 at 02:25

Masque wrote: I love the flower kings , I listen to them all the time  and get so much enjoyment from them , I don`t care what anybody else thinks I love em.

i don't like them. i find their stuff technically good but boring, hackneyed
and dated. it leaves me completely cold. at age 37, thus being the "neo
prog" generation, so to speak, i guess i have just moved on.

saw roine stolt with transatlantic five years ago and the guy's arrogant
"headmaster of prog lecturing the ignorant" stance on stage plus some of
the stuff he says in interviews completely turns me off. compared to him
steve howe comes across like johnny ramone (R.I.P.)! mind you, sitting
down with him over a beer and a chat is probably a good experience ---

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probably not ––– but el frippo is a true originator and still a visionary artist
who pushes boundaries and has done more than enough to reinvent the
way the guitar is played. one certainly cannot say that about mr. stolt,
although he is by all means a gifted player. but what is the point? i'm sorry,
but playing relatively mundane guitar and acting like it is manna from
above does in fact influence my opinion on the music.

ah, mustn't grumble, let's not dwell on that... good on yer, roine, keep
playing, because after all it is important that this is kind of music is played!

I really liked 'Paradox Hotel' which saw a far, far greater focus than any previous album of theirs I owned, even though it's a double. I don't take to 'The Rainmaker' or even less 'Unfold The Future'- they are full of long, long jazzy ambles that just don't register in my memory bank no matter how much I play them.
And there's the rub. For me it's not the lyrics (which were never the genre's strong point for many old bands either) or the fact they are very derivative. I personally think their whole career can be summed up by two albums- TFTO and 'Focus III'. Both Yes and Focus are obvious influences but it's those two albums with all their slothfulness that seem to form the basis of The Flower Kings sound. That issue aside, myself I very much like that 70s style of symphonic prog. (I however would have rather turned to the 80s neo prog bands than either these or Spock's Beard.)
The biggest problem for me was always the songwriting- there's too few hooks to latch upon and too much noodling. I love solos but not gratuitous ones. And it's THIS band, more than any other of the symphonic acts then and now, that have songs that exist solely for soloing. Most of their albums seem to have long winded, almost jam like instrumentals that don't show great skill to me but rather a sheer lack of quality control, imho.