My generation

I'm 20 (this feels like a Current Generation Anonymous thread...) and I don't think generation has a whole lot to do with it. I mean in our parents' generation, prog was more popular than it is now (in Canada, US and UK, anyway), but they had their own share of rubbish music. You just never hear most of it because it isn't very enduring and as a result the only 60s and 70s pop that people are still aware of today are the really big names. Even when the OP references classical music, in those days Joe Average wouldn't have wandered down to the concert hall to hear the latest symphony, he would have wandered down to the tavern to hear some travelling minstrel sing a three chord song about sex with a milkmaid. Today no one really cares about those minstrels (except, perhaps, Ian Anderson) but everyone knows who Beethoven is. I'll bet you that in twenty years there will be kids listening to Dream Theater or Symphony X and thinking, "Man, our parents had some great music!" and no one will even know who Rihanna is.

It pains me to listen to the pop scene of today, most of it being talentless rap or Disney-sponsored pop.  I'm more than happy to listen to the classics.

KingCrimson250 wrote: I'm 20 (this feels like a Current Generation Anonymous thread...) and I don't think generation has a whole lot to do with it. I mean in our parents' generation, prog was more popular than it is now (in Canada, US and UK, anyway), but they had their own share of rubbish music. You just never hear most of it because it isn't very enduring and as a result the only 60s and 70s pop that people are still aware of today are the really big names. Even when the OP references classical music, in those days Joe Average wouldn't have wandered down to the concert hall to hear the latest symphony, he would have wandered down to the tavern to hear some travelling minstrel sing a three chord song about sex with a milkmaid. Today no one really cares about those minstrels (except, perhaps, Ian Anderson) but everyone knows who Beethoven is. I'll bet you that in twenty years there will be kids listening to Dream Theater or Symphony X and thinking, "Man, our parents had some great music!" and no one will even know who Rihanna is.

I've been getting the impression that prog is having a renaissance (excuse me for that ).  Part of the problem is there's a whole lot more of it out there from the past and new artists coming along in the present, so it's certainly diluted.  There's plenty of '70's crap that's still around and I'm not going to name names because there are plenty in your parent's generation (which is mine) that have some nostalgia for it.  On the bright side that generation did have kids and they discover prog either by accident or on purpose, so now you have old fans and new ones.  The new ones may not exist in your particular circle of friends but I've been rather impressed by new ones (quantity and quality)  I've run into on this site.


Edited by Slartibartfast - June 08 2009 at 22:11

That's another thing.  I can hardly dance to the mainstream stuff.  I'm probably one of the only kids I know that actually likes to "dance," but mainstream pop sends the opposite message.  It's hard, if not impossible, to dance to rap; I see it as "moving" or "bouncing," but it doesn't flow as smoothly as dancing.

I stick out like a sore thumb at proms.

WalterDigsTunes wrote: The Quiet One wrote: but please Cumbia and Reggaeton are just beat-less/rythm-less/un-danceable!!! Oh, they have a beat. They just happen to be genres where the beat never changes.

Back in the old days you had metronomes for that.

I'm an old guy who's going to turn 49 in a couple of days.  What Slartibartfast said is true - there was plenty of crap in the 70s.  Just look at what was actually on the top of the charts at the time, if you can find it (sorry, I don't know how to ), and you'll see what I mean.  When I was a kid, I listend to AM radio, and it was all top 40.  Then I discovered FM, which played more album rock.  Although some of our Prog classics were popular, they were islands of quality in a sea of mediocrity, or as some say, a pat of butter in a sea of grits. 

Slartibartfast wrote: I've been getting the impression that prog is having a renaissance (excuse me for that ).  Part of the problem is there's a whole lot more of it out there from the past and new artists coming along in the present, so it's certainly diluted.  There's plenty of '70's crap that's still around and I'm not going to name names because there are plenty in your parent's generation (which is mine) that have some nostalgia for it.  On the bright side that generation did have kids and they discover prog either by accident or on purpose, so now you have old fans and new ones.  The new ones may not exist in your particular circle of friends but I've been rather impressed by new ones (quantity and quality)  I've run into on this site.

Yeah and I think you're absolutely right. Straight-up classic prog that we all know and love might not be making a comeback yet, but there's certainly a lot of Prog-ish leanings developing. Bands like Protest the Hero, Between the Buried and Me, Coheed and Cambria... while they might not be pure, straight-up prog, they've got plenty of prog elements, and they were bands that were pretty big among the musicians at my high school. Dream Theater and Opeth are pretty well-known by anyone who's into metal, and post-rock bands like Explosions in the Sky and Godspeed! seem to have a decent following in the Indie crowd. And of course, even to this day you can't swing a dead cat around without hitting a Rush fan, though that might be because I'm Canadian, and when you want a band to be patriotic about, it's either them or Celine Dion

I mean, Viva la Vida wasn't exactly an album with a lot of depth, from what I've heard of it, but it's certainly more sophisticated than your average pop album, and it was considerably successful with both critics and fans. Things are certainly looking up, I'd say. But then, that's the natural cycle, isn't it? Rock music is rudimentary, musicians begin pushing the music further and further, it begins to become less and less of a commodity and more of an art form, eventually it ends up becoming too inaccessible, and a new wave of rudiementary musicians come in to recapture the public. Wash, rinse, repeat.

topofsm wrote:   The thing is even if those artists are just as bad as Rihanna or T-Pain or Fall Out Boy, at least in the 70's prog still topped charts and there were great bands we consider classics today. To be honest do you think Nickelback is going to be considered a classic in 30 years? To be honest I feel like there isn't going to be classic rock (or classic pop or whatever) radio playing anything from this generation of music. All the bands are fading into obscurity after a couple months of their hit single playing on the radio. Even the crappy 1-hit wonder songs from the 80's are still being played today, but there isn't anybody today whose one hit more than a couple months ago is still being played. Maybe I can see the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Radiohead being 'classic' bands, but that's about it.   Do you think any of these bands are going to be regarded as classics in the next decade?   Red Jumpsuit Apparatus Fall Out Boy Green Day (ok, I admit it, people might remember some of American Idiot) Coldplay The All-American Rejects Plain White T's Paramore Panic at the Disco We The Kings Linkin Park   This is pretty much the only rock music that general mainstream radio is playing. Of course there is mainstream rock radio that plays other stuff, but mostly bands like these and lesser-known ones. I highly doubt that lesser known great bands like The Mars Volta and Coheed & Cambria will be classics, and don't even think about the even lesser known Porcupine Tree.

You'd be pleasantly surprised in Linkin Park's case.
The album Hybrid Theory is still getting talked about on internet forums, believe it or not. People still talk about Korn, people still talk about Limp Bizkit.
Look beyond some of the silly lyrics in Limp Bikzit, ignore the fact that Fred Durst is a douche and you had a band that had an influence that seeped it's way into more genres of metal than most people like to believe.
The band SikTh, listed on PA, is an example of a band that combined a fair bit of nu metal dynamics with devastating musicianship and tech metal.
Most of nu metal largely faded away, but Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit and Korn all have albums considered masterpieces by many people.

It is hard to get anyone of my generation into prog, I am going to be 19 in a few months and have 4 younger siblings all of whom completely ignore the music I purposely play as loud as possible. My youngest sister in particular exemplifies the reason why it is so hard for prog to be excepted today - she doesn't care about the music, all she cares is the singing and whether or not the singer is cute. On the other hand, last night I showed my dad some videos of John Mclaughlin playing with Al di Meola and Paco de Lucia last night and he liked it. My sister does like In the Air Tonight y Phil Collins though. Maybe the way to get her, and anyone else for that matter, into better music is to start with music that is prog related and work my way into more demanding music. I don't think music appreciation is dead to my generation, but it is in a coma.