Do you ever feel sorry for "Prog" fans who just do

Lol, this has spiraled into cryptic abyss, so I'm going to ignore everything else that has happened and focus on this:

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Nuke wrote: A non-valid response I've seen on this thread time to time is the "fans of X are close-minded, so there is no reason for me to be open-minded." Come on, you certainly see the logical fallacy in that. Quoting what others think of prog is no reason for any beliefs you may hold. Yeah, punks are on a high horse, so what? Does that mean you should be?    believe you are making a "Reductio ad Absurdum", nobody says it's ok to be close minded because: LIKING ONLY PROG IS NOT BEING CLOSED MINDED You like what you like, nobody can force you to like everything because it's "politically correct" to say, "Hey I'm very Eclectic, I like Rap, POP and Prog,, how great and open minded I am, everybody should be like me or I'll be sorry for them" The point about the example on other forums, is that this is a Prog devoted forum, we should not criticize anybody for liking Prog, it's absurd, as if somebody in a Rap forum wanted to force you to like Prog or Classical Music......This forum was created for PROGRESSIVE ROCK, whatever else can be discussed, is secondary and should be posted in the General Music forum, for people to join, not join and express their positive or negative opinions.. But we believe we are so great and so superior, that we want to tell Prog fans, what is good for them, if they only like Prog, poor of them, they are worth nothing, just a close minded elitists who are limiting themselves, better be like "me" and listen everything because that is the correct thing to do. Saying that a Prog listener is close minded is a contradiction, you can't be fan of an unpopular genre, that nobody except a few people like us like, that doesn't make you cool or fashionable and at the same time close minded. You had enough open mind to say no to radios, DJ's, labels, musical industry, critics and your friends to say I like Prog and I give a damn about what this people say, this is the antithesis of being close minded. Iván

Talking to Eric at Spin-It today. Seems that there's this DVD documentary on Punk Rock. And there's this old guy (mid 40s) who goes on this spiel that true punk & especially hardcore punk died by the early 80s.
Eric and others in our local music scene find this hilarious. Kinda like those here who insists that real prog died in 1977.
Add to this, I always share a good laugh with them when they go on about the "purists" (that's a nice version of their words) who claim that punk (or insert your favourite genre here) is the only honest / good / real music there is. I sometimes wonder if it's local punk legend Ray Auffrey's doing. His attitude to music - "you never know where you'll find good music". The guy is into just about everything, punk to prog, metal to maritime old time country singers, classic rock to some classical. Something about his main goal being to find music to enjoy, with no need for the music to "prove" how superior he or his tastes are.

Now back to Fear of Lipstick's "Indie Band" EP.

Ivan, I'm saving myself some time here

the main flaw in your arguement  is this - that everything that is not prog, is pop. that mainstream media (radio, tv, mags) present a complete picture of what most people listen to. that the very tip of the sales figure iceberg represents the same breakdown in sales per genre as the rest of the iceberg. you never volunteer the criteria for how you decide any genre is to be considered as "popular" or "unpopular". Indeed, the closest you ever came was to state that that are not prog..

then, when some of us make it a point of providing factual information contrary to yours, you simply sign off by saying that it doesn't matter what we've said, you still believe prog is unpopular.

You have never defined what you mean by "Pop". You have never addressed the reality that most record & ticket sales are not for the top dozen or so acts. You don't seem to realize that one act that is able to make a career out of playing their music means more than a one hit wonder who ends up working as a Walmart Greeter within a year after their single leaves the "charts".

You regularly present the impression that your taste in music, mostly prog, is objectively based. You often come across as the type of person who proclaims their self to be superior to others by the simple fact that whatever characteristic makes for a superior person are those that you just happen to have.

There is a term with the same initials as Prog Archives that aplies all too frequently to you.

Please, it is all just music. None better than another. One's preferences are just that. TO spend one's time pointing out the supposed crown of thorns one wears proudly as a symbol of the persecution that one endures for proudly stating that one loves a genre of music does not mean that there is any truth to one's assumed perception.

John Lydon was brutally beaten by 3 men in an alley, and when the police arrived, he was charged with assault. THAT IS PERSECUTION. You, on the other hand, are surely not faced with most of life's challenges as faced by most of the rest of us. Living from one paycheque to another, scrimping & hoping to be able to save enough money to send your kids to college or university, wondering if your job will be there in a year, worrying if you'll be able to affford medical care if a major emergency should happen.

In other words, you seem to believe that you are what you have achieved, when all you are is lucky that you have gotten to where you are. Don't talk about hard work. There's more than a few people at the poverty level that would ring your neck for even insinuating that they are poor because they don't work hard. You may be intelligent enough to have succeeded well at University. Many intelligent people didn't get the chance to get there. many un-intelligent people have managed to achieve success in their studies and their work through hard work and luck. some deservingly, some not.

In many of our MSN conversations after our genre team meetings, I felt like I was being given your resume. As if being told of your accomplishments was relevant to our working at PA. Rarely, if ever, did you seem to talk about things that weren't "successes", or supposed challenges that you heroically managed to overcome.

I'll end here, and post a few questions to see if you can clearly define what is pop or not ...

Are Abba AND AC/DC both pop ?

Them Crooked Vultures and Bon Jovi ?pop or maybe kinda like rock , but not the same sort of rock music as each other. 

50 Cent and Trans Siberian Orchestra (currently # on the Billboard album chart) ? obviously both pop, because they' re on Billboard pop chart.

last "pop" bit
Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon , every year, outsells 99% of that year's new releases.
John Lennon, Ramones, Kurt Cobain,  T-shirts outsell all of this year's top 40 chart makers. You're more likely to meet someone wearing a pink Floyd , Lamb of God, Dream Theater T-shirt than Celine Dion or Michael Buble.

Prog is, was, and always will be one music genre that will hold its' own. It doesn't rely on trends, its' bands draw fans despite musical fads, its' past music still sells as well as other music of its' time, its' current scene does more than survive, and indeed, along with many niche genres , it thrives. Not because the sales charts are filled with Prog acts. Metal, punk, and other genres don't represent anything close to a major part of any record sales chart. But there are many new groups out there making a go of it, many careerists who are still around after 10-20-30 years. There's bands with cult followings. Just the same as most genres.

So if you are really proud of prog, take a moment to see that prog is still here, and not about to disappear. Prog has many festivals. Most don't draw millions. But then, most music festivals don't.

O.K., so when someone mentions prog or asks about it, just say that, yeah, it's still around, there's a ton of good music there, that a lot of people would be surprised to find out that there's prog that they already like or might, and that even if most people don't care about it, that there's still a sizeable fan base that supports a thriving scene.

For comparison's sake, a lot of the sub-genres in metal, punk, country (yes, it's called alt-cournty, outlaw, honky tonk, traditional and more), rock, even such pop genres like Dance do quite well despite having little visibility on sales charts or mainstream media.

because they draw music listeners to their music. because their music is enjoyed by music listeners. same as prog.

debrewguy wrote: Ivan, I'm saving myself some time here the main flaw in your arguement  is this - that everything that is not prog, is pop. that mainstream media (radio, tv, mags) present a complete picture of what most people listen to. that the very tip of the sales figure iceberg represents the same breakdown in sales per genre as the rest of the iceberg. you never volunteer the criteria for how you decide any genre is to be considered as "popular" or "unpopular". Indeed, the closest you ever came was to state that that are not prog.. then, when some of us make it a point of providing factual information contrary to yours, you simply sign off by saying that it doesn't matter what we've said, you still believe prog is unpopular. You have never defined what you mean by "Pop". You have never addressed the reality that most record & ticket sales are not for the top dozen or so acts. You don't seem to realize that one act that is able to make a career out of playing their music means more than a one hit wonder who ends up working as a Walmart Greeter within a year after their single leaves the "charts". You regularly present the impression that your taste in music, mostly prog, is objectively based. You often come across as the type of person who proclaims their self to be superior to others by the simple fact that whatever characteristic makes for a superior person are those that you just happen to have. There is a term with the same initials as Prog Archives that aplies all too frequently to you. Please, it is all just music. None better than another. One's preferences are just that. TO spend one's time pointing out the supposed crown of thorns one wears proudly as a symbol of the persecution that one endures for proudly stating that one loves a genre of music does not mean that there is any truth to one's assumed perception. John Lydon was brutally beaten by 3 men in an alley, and when the police arrived, he was charged with assault. THAT IS PERSECUTION. You, on the other hand, are surely not faced with most of life's challenges as faced by most of the rest of us. Living from one paycheque to another, scrimping & hoping to be able to save enough money to send your kids to college or university, wondering if your job will be there in a year, worrying if you'll be able to affford medical care if a major emergency should happen. In other words, you seem to believe that you are what you have achieved, when all you are is lucky that you have gotten to where you are. Don't talk about hard work. There's more than a few people at the poverty level that would ring your neck for even insinuating that they are poor because they don't work hard. You may be intelligent enough to have succeeded well at University. Many intelligent people didn't get the chance to get there. many un-intelligent people have managed to achieve success in their studies and their work through hard work and luck. some deservingly, some not. In many of our MSN conversations after our genre team meetings, I felt like I was being given your resume. As if being told of your accomplishments was relevant to our working at PA. Rarely, if ever, did you seem to talk about things that weren't "successes", or supposed challenges that you heroically managed to overcome. I'll end here, and post a few questions to see if you can clearly define what is pop or not ...

WTF This and the subsequent 'machine gun' postings are borderline bipolar ?

debrewguy wrote: In other words, you seem to believe that you are what you have achieved, when all you are is lucky that you have gotten to where you are. Don't talk about hard work. There's more than a few people at the poverty level that would ring your neck for even insinuating that they are poor because they don't work hard. You may be intelligent enough to have succeeded well at University. Many intelligent people didn't get the chance to get there. many un-intelligent people have managed to achieve success in their studies and their work through hard work and luck. some deservingly, some not.

This thread has gone way beyond the realms of prog, and as such sits better in the general music discussions.