Why Is Prog So Hated?

 

It can overwhelming for people who have been lsitening to hook drive pop melodies for their whole life.  Imagine a person who listens to the TOP 40 every week listening to "Supper's Ready" for the first time.  they would get diintereested immediately becsue they either lack the patience or fail to appreciate talented muscianship. 

 

Marillion to Mahavishnu

 

Mars Volta to Man

 

Prog has it all. 

The punk movement in the 70s bred the greatest amount of emnity between the different rock genres because punk in its simplicity was meant to be pure anarchy and they saw prog as part of the establishment for using the ideas they did, in their music, from eras that punks despised and I think this translated, through the help of record companies and producers who operate purely for profit, into a complex division of genres that compete in the global marketplace of ideas for their share of the publics affections. Divisions have always been there and music lovers have always had their fanatical elements.  I don't think it is hated so much as either; misunderstood, ignored, considered elitist or paradoxically by some fans - enjoyed just to be considered unique.

 

Prog doesn't get the mainstream radio play, generally because of song length and popularity so for a vast majority it is unheard of. Lets face it, there are some prog fans who would drop their fav artists if they became universally popular. They would see it as a sell out because they don't believe that the average music listener has the intelligence to understand and appreciate the type of music they listen to. That though, says more about that person than it does about the average music listener.

 

IGNORED by people, and this because it's a difficult, elaborate style of rock... and most people when they think "rock" they think Elvis, Beatles, Stones, and stuff like that (about Beatles: they'll be thinking about the love me do beatles...)... they think something funny, something with pure kinetic energy, something SENSUAL (remember the "rock musician" figure is always a crazy, women-machine guy).... people don;t know or can't get the idea of a rock played by not-crazy musicians, with songs that maybe won;t make you dance (for sure)... with songs that have like 8 different parts instead of the usual three...with songs with solos longer than the usual same-melody-as-the-vocal-melody pop-rock solo....with songs that last sometimes up to 10 TIMES what a usual rock track lasts.... played by musicians who are not larger-than-life figures....so common people just DON't know (or if they know, they probably WON't accept) the idea of a complicated, elaborated rock....

 

As is ignored by regular rock fans, it will also be ignored by LABELS... I mean mainstream (Inside Out is not mainstream....Elektra, Sony, Virgin... that's MAINSTREAM)...... the time when Yes, genesis made millions is a thing of the past... so if ignored by labels, it will continue to be ignored by people...and the circle will go on and on....and also, if not commercial, radios won't play it (besides, what kind of advertising can you put on in your radio to be able to keep it on the air if you have to wait more than 10 minutes in between??)... the time when radios played Yes and Genesis is long gone...so, MTV (Mentally-challenged TeleVision) won't play it...

 

IGNORED by the press... by the music press, for three reasons:

 

a) the most educated musical press will have problems accepting the idea of a GOOD (musically speaking) rock.... most educated musicologists are trained in classcial, jazz...for most of them every style of pop music (pop as in POPular, not as in POP Madonna) is utter crap (and compared to classical, most of them are)....so they don't have in their mindset the idea of elaborated rock...and they choose to ignore it even before having a chance to know it (and again, those in the press when Yes and genesis were around are long gone)....

 

b) In relation to commercial values, if prog doesn't sell, if prog is not advertised, nor played in radios...the press is owned by the same people that own the giant labels... so it's just obvious that they will write about SELLABLE music, and not about some crazy music-for-music's-sake weird thing like prog....

 

c) The press in magazines like rolling Stone are not mostly musicologists, and they choose to dispise prog for it being "pretensious, overblown, etc"....because: 1) let's give it to them: prog is rock PRETENDING TO BE SOMETHING BETTER than it originally was (rock)... and, 2) imagine comparing the latest release by Beyonce to BE by Pain of Salvation?? it would make the little poppy (poopy) thing look like ....WHAT IT IS...FACTORY MADE MUSIC (there's someone around that may like that concept...)......

 

So my point is, prog is not hated, just ignored....