Prog albums that didn't age well

Raff wrote: Perhaps I'm odd, but this 'dated' thing has never been a big issue with me. Obviously, many Seventies albums sound way different from those recorded now, but that's part and parcel of the experience. In my very limited view of the world, there's music I like, and music I don't like, and that's all... And I'm afraid this is another of those threads that offers people a ready excuse to bash music they don't like with the excuse that it hasn't 'aged well' (makes me think of wine ).

I agree entirely.

I wouldn't say anything sounds 'dated'.

I would define dated as something which sounded fresh when you heard it fresh when it was new but now sounds a little stale.  Doesn't necessarily make it bad.  Sometimes listening to something that reminds of the era or year it came from can be quite nice.

A B Negative wrote: fusionfreak wrote: I don't care either about "dated" sounds as long as I dig the stuff:

^ ^


By the way , what exactly means 'dated' in music?

I discovered SEBTP and THE LAMB before I got to know Genesis' earlier albums. (This was just before the release of A TRICK OF THE TAIL.) I thought they sounded pretty "modern" then. When I first heard FOXTROT and NURSERY CRYME, I was shocked that they sounded much more old-fashioned. Especially Tony Banks's Hammond organ solos. Technically, these solos were far more pedestrian than Emerson's or Wakeman's, anyway.

There was a time I was really fond of the "Supper's Ready" finale, but I must admit it has never stopped bothering me that FOXTROT as a whole sounded so amateurish! For many people, of course, that's part of its charm. I can also imagine that those who first got to know Genesis through A TRICK or later albums might have similar feelings about SEBTP...

Anyway, I hardly ever listen to FOXTROT for pleasure nowadays. But I've just voted for SEBTP in a poll of "The best prog albums of the 1970s".

JD wrote: I'm sorry but you've got it all wrong. Music doesn't age. It's not bottled up and changes over time. It is what it is. It's the listener that ages. By your logic classical music is "dated" as would be jazz etc. If your "tastes" have changed then so be it. sell what you don't like and move on to what strikes your interest now. For my part when I was first getting into prog (early 70's) I had no interest in "rock" music. I mean I listened to the Beatles and enjoyed them, but while my friends at school were listening to Kiss and Iggy Pop and such I had no interest in that kind of music whatsoever. However, after a few decades I decided to go back to see what all the fuss was about and lo and behold I discovered lots of music that I actually enjoy (now). But at the time not at all. So maybe my tastes are suffering from the Benimin Button syndrom and are aging backwards?

You have a perfectly valid point there. It's all in the eye of the beholder. Let me give you one example. When I grew up (late sixties, early seventies), few TV programs or TV Game Shows featured rock guitars, rock keyboards etc. Many game shows (or chat shows) still used old-fashioned big bands. (You could say something similar about the Disney cartoons of the period. There's no rock music in THE JUNGLE BOOK or the ARISTOCATS. Around 1970, Disney had only just discovered jazz!) Even as a ten-year old, I used to think big bands were incredibly old-fashioned. I couldn't imagine I'd ever listen to them for fun.

Sure enough, I first went through at least ten years of discovering rock music (prog, punk, new wave etc). I also listened to lots of fusion and 1970s/1980s jazz (ECM etc). But in the late Eighties I discovered Duke Ellington's music from the 1930s-1940s. And it was a real eye-opener. So colorful, so varied, so inspired! Not at all like run-of-the-mill game show music. I imagined how new and exciting this music must have been to those who heard it when it was just released. And I still love it.

So all you have to do is get rid of your blinkers and forget the idea that any music MUST NEEDS BE OLD-FASHIONED. The problem is when a certain musical genre has undergone technical or stylistic innovations. For example, many Romantic composers (Berlioz etc) looked down upon Haydn's music because it seemed too neat and tame to them. And from about 1800 until the 1970s hardly anyone performed baroque keyboard music on harpsichord, because they all believed the piano did a far better job. In a similar way, someone mentioned (earlier in this thread) that Frank Zappa's 1960s albums sounded terribly old-fashioned. I tend to agree. I love Zappa's 1970s albums, but those so-called classic albums with the Mothers... Just listen to those jangly guitars! Surely Zappa only found his footing when he started sounding proggy? Perhaps it'll be up to future generations to really enjoy early Zappa...

Here's a silly thought, what kind of fuzz is growing on your prog albums that didn't age well? 

Probably what sounds trite or what reminds one of a sound from a particular era when some musical quality became overused tends to get described as not aging well. 

Both very early Genesis and early Ten Years After sound like the smell of an rug in your grandparent's basement.

most prog that aged well was prog that had either a funk or groove to it, aside from everything else, for example, the gong trilogy is still a fine work because of all the influences that are driving the music, the PASSPORT album INFINITY machine, remains one of my desert island classics because of the last 3 tracks on it, which I could hear again and again, and have replaced the album continously since I first got it in high school in the early seventies, I think that Genesis Selling England by the Pound still ages well, what doesn't age well is STYX, KANSAS, MANFRAD MANN(who never had an origional tune), and even RUSH to me has not aged well,  Rush to me was at first a Led Zeppelin wannabee, and when they failed at that, they  went to plan B: YES  with an even more castrated jon anderson type on vocals, I never liked then back then, and i think them utterly irrelevant now.   Yes had a  brief chance with trevor rabin to become relevant again, but tossed that aside, and has gone back to the grooveless, castrado music of jon anderson and company, ELP had a real good groove filled jazz album in them, but never evolved passed the pete sinfield days.   I could go on listening to GONG and company until I am in the ground because of the bebop, acid, grooves, and space rock all mixed into one, and not too mention CAN who were way ahead of their time, and were anything but that awful "neo prog" sound that should be given a rest!!

It's funny, everything is a product of it's time and sounds dated later. J. S. Bach's music was an extension of his idol Buxtehude. His music took what was there (popular) and refined it. By the time of Bach's death his music was considered dated. A generation later it resurfaced and his stlylings remain. I guess my point is: who gives a dump if the music sounds dated now? Everything older is going to sound dated later. Let's appreciate it for what it brought, use it's innovations, and move on.