Was Anglagard the reason why Prog rock rebirth?

There was a rebirth?

Sick'em Walt.

Prog died?

manofmystery wrote: There was a rebirth?

Okay, I know where you are going with this but, the underground prog scene in Europe at the time of the Anglagard release was surfacing a little more to American fans. I mean it seemed that way and it may not be true. ELP'S Black Moon was a kind of statement to the media that prog could be reborn to everyone in the world as opposed to the hush hush underground world that takes itself too seriously and doesn't remember the days when prog was promoted to all classes of people. It;s a shame really because even fans of top 40 bubblegum yukos took prog seriously because it was being promoted. In the end, it remained as underground with 3 Nearfest gigs a year and silly degrading picnic concerts. There is no money in that and if anyone deserves to make money, it would be in fact be the underground prog people who live off peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches for the sake of art.

Edited by TODDLER - October 25 2010 at 09:05

Prog went back underground  but not a s a dead body of music. Anglagard are definitely neo.prog to my ear, but too obscure to be responsible  especially with a limited body of recordings for a 'rebirth' or perhaps more realistically, reappearance of prog above ground. You have to look towards the persistence of bands like IQ against the odds put against the genre, e.g. the heckling  by the mainstream music press and radio in the UK. Or transplantation of UK bands to the USA (and Japan) where there was relatively greater tolerance and indeed money to keep going. OR the appearance of the Scandanavian  prog scene evolving out of the likes of Anglagrad.. Not simple at all.

Starhammer wrote: Anglagard isn't even that much of a well known band in PA.

WalterDigsTunes wrote: richardh wrote: The ninties saw a  general shift in attitude about music. Proper bands that could play their own instruments came back into vogue basically because people got fed up with the prefrabicated over produced bullsh*t that littered the eighties music scene. Nirvana and Oasis became massive in the 90's showing this shift as well as anything. The most important band to me in the British rock scene was Mansun who produced one of the best albums of the decade with Attack Of The Grey Lantern including more than a few nods to progressive rock. Radiohead also emerged and were actually tagged 'prog rock' in some quarters. It was a safe time for prog bands too emerge from the closet properly and with a proper sense of pride about what they were doing. There was also too some extent a positive re-evaluation of progressive rock. It was just a very healthy decade for music (despite what Walter may think otherwise) That atrocious narrative deserves to be shot in the back of the head with a Colt 45. Its absolute rubbish. The 1980s were the last decade that offered modernist innovation, for it was a time where faith in the promise of technological achievement allowed new sounds to develop thanks to the digital revolution. The 90s were the beginning of the end, a dark age when banal slackers recycled old ideas and sold them as new. Oasis and Nirvana and Anglagard? Give me a break. None of these idiots ever came up with an idea that wasn't already done (in a superior fashion) before 1989. They had no sense of fun or originality; dour derisive and derivative, their crimes against culture should be prosecuted by all nations.

At least I should be grateful you actually bothered to explain your view. But that is all it is. I'm not throwiing out my albums made post 1989 thats for sure. All music looks backward to some extent for inspiration.Nothing happens in a vacuum. Prog in the seventies arguably started to get stale after 1972 when bands were already starting to recycle ideas.That's one reason why punk and new wave happened because many people saw the fallacy of bands like Yes ,Genesis and ELP passing off their music as 'progressive' when it obviously wasn't. (I still like it though)

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: [QUOTE=Dick Heath] Anglagard is pure Symphonic, doesn't have that 80's sound of Neo or the mixture of elements from New Wave, New Age, AOR, etc, as a fact, Anglagard was so Symphonic that they refused to use any instrument not availlable in 1974. Neo Prog tends to be less elaborate than Symphonic and Anglagard is much more elaborate than most Symphonic bands [

moshkito wrote: WalterDigsTunes wrote: No, 80s neo-prog was the last attempt to keep the genre alive.   I respectfully disagree.   Prog never died, and just continued on. And the 80's was a new breed, just like the 90's and then the new century.   We may look back and appreciate some of the older ones, but it is hardly fair to say that the new ones did not "have it" ... specially when we would probably trash KC's first album if it came out today instead of 1969 ... for being temperamental, selfish, over indulgent and pretentious! And of course, it is not metal, which means that it would'nt be considered "prog" ... and no one wants to hear cheasy lyrics and poems nowadays, unless you have some bigger noise.   Music has changed and the times changed. There was music in the 80's and 90's that was just as progressive as the ones we love to compare it to, but we're too damn stuck up to appreciate the differences and the new sounds and can only compare to some idiosyncratic master or hero.   It's too easy to say that Anglaagard and Anekdotten were influenced by KC ... and sadly, it takes away from their own inner voice and talent ... they are much better on their own, without any comparisons to anyone else.

Also I can't think of anything else that sounds like Hybris. Its one of the most original prog albums ever made and alerted prog fans to the previously untapped talent from Scandanavia.

I continue to disagree with you and stick to what we first generation progressive rock/music fans ironically meant by neo.prog when this music first appeared. Were you there?!

Edited by Dick Heath - November 03 2010 at 06:44