Vangelis was progressive!

New Age is the poor cousin of Prog that the other relatives speak of in hushed tones as not to wake grandma Rock. New Age is a vague and unspecified tag that can be levelled at just about any piece of consonant, tonal music, and indeed it has been, with artists from Vangelis to Oldfield to Wakeman, from Jarre to Giltrap to Tangerine Dream, from Andy Summers to Michael Hedges to Brian Eno all being slapped with the New Age kipper at one time or another. New Age is not a genre, it is a rack in the record store where the staff put all the albums that have landscape pictures on the covers.

I disagree Dean:

1.      New Age is not the poor cousin, New Age was extremely popular mainly in two groups pf people, the Yuppies and the self proclaimed Gurus of spirituality and New Age philosophy, and as a fact was much more successful and economically profitable than Prog ever was.

2.      New Age is a genre, but a genre created for the exclusive purpose of relaxation, a genre that took all the Rock component of Prog for a generation of the 80’s obsessed with healthy food, Jane Fonda's aerobics and healthy music.

New Age music is peaceful music of various styles that is intended to create relaxation and positive feelings. Some but not all new age music is associated with New Age beliefs. New Age music is typically relaxing and inspiring, and is often used by listeners for such activities as yoga, massage, meditation, reading, as a method of stress management[1] or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments. The harmonies in new age music are generally modal, consonant, or include a drone bass. The melodies are often repetitive, to create a hypnotic feeling, and sometimes recordings of nature sounds are used as an introduction to a track or throughout the piece. Songs of up to 30 minutes duration are common. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Age_music No author mentioned

It’s clear, thoise characteristics are enough to call it a genre.

New Age is much maligned, because of its association (valid or otherwise) with New Age philosophy, the pseudo-sciences and Mind-Body-Spirit spirituality, the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, of middle-age, middle-class wannabe hippies and scented candles and 'alternative' lifestyles, for whale-song, stolen world-music and Gregorian chants, for wind-chimes and lazy synthesised pads and drones; not elevated for it's roots in progressive rock, acoustic/folk, minimalism, musique concrete, textural ambient/electronic and contemporary jazz, nor for paring music down to the bone and reconstructing it from elemental tones and rhythms. New Age kept the secrets of Prog through the New Waves of the 80s, commercially more effectively, (so evidently more successfully), than the Neo Proggers who buried it underground; than the turncoats of the 70s that lept the sinking ship or the poor souls who went down with it.

Again I disagree, New Age is maligned because it’s boring, lame and harmless, without the risk of Classic Rock and the adventurous component of Prog.

As I said before, New Age was mainly listened by:

1.      Yuppies: A generation of young technocrats who based all their intellectuality in profit and success, they felt too intelligent for top 40’s stuff but at the same time were too mechanized for Prog, which they didn’t understood. They required music to relax after a hard day in the stock market. I remember the older brothers of some of my friends who were managers at the age of 25 (Most of them fired at the age of 26 because their lack of experience) listening Yanni, Vollenweider (however is written) and Kitaro, as if it was music for intellectuals, because they believed they were the intellectuals of the decade.

2.      Relaxation and New Age gurus, who used 30 minutes of whales or waves sounds to guide the innocent through a spiritual journey that lasted as long as their pockets could afford it.

But the real problem were the bands, usually competent musicians who sold themselves and their art, in some cases like Rick Wakeman, because their early contracts were so bad that they required to survive, and in others just because they didn’t liked Rock.

Some New Age is Prog, some is even Post-Prog, some is Contemporary Jazz, and some is just a dire dirge, but then, so is some Prog.

I don’t believe so, IMO there is not Prog without Rock, Jazz or Metal, and this guys avoided this genres.

So, yes, Vangelis made some New Age albums, they could still be Prog, I grant you - not Symphonic Prog or Progressive Electronic - but Prog never-the-less.

Vangelis was a Prog artist in his youth, Aphrodite’s Child was released despite the protests of a more conservative Roussos, and albums like Heaven & Hell were masterpieces of Symphonic or Electronic as Albedo.

But as soon as his youth ended and his pockets were empty, he went for cheesy soundtracks as “Chariots of Fire” or “The Conquest of Paradise” and New Age music because it was profitable.

And Soundtracks can be prog - some of my favourite soundtracks can be found here, filed under Peter Gabriel (Crossover).

Some of them, for example in the case of Vangelis, Blade Runner was Prog but Chariots of Fire was pure Cheese.

In conclusion...

I'm happy with Vangelis's early work being Prog and his later work being New Age Prog and for three of the best movie soundtracks of all time (which could easily be Prog or New Age or Adult Contemporary). I'm also happy with him living in Prog Related since it would be impossible to place him comfortably anywhere else.

Well, I believe his first albums were Prog but his soundtracks except Blade Runner, not.

The call is on Phillippe, because Vangelis can’t be in other place, and he has the last word, with whom I agree BTW, too uch New Age and Cheese to be included as totally Prog.