Did Punk Rock really kill Prog Music?

freyacat wrote: You can't just say that one form of music came and destroyed another form of music. The music by itself doesn't do anything. Rather, the fans changed. Robert Fripp noted that in the sixties, fans expected rock music to be the "voice of god." Progressive rock tried to live up to that by being a voice worth listening to. But it was incredibly idealistic, and I think it was hard to keep that idealism up forever. Midway through the seventies, I think everyone realized that it took more than a record to change the world, and the whole generation got a little older, stopped sitting in front of their record players all day, got jobs, and had kids. Meanwhile, a subsequent generation wanted to distinguish itself. It couldn't get more complex and idealistic, so it opted for image (disco) and attitude (punk). The pretension of the punks was that they were more "authentic" than the prog rockers. In retrospect, this was just another marketing ploy.

For all the torrents of verbiage that have been produced about this subject on PA I think this is the closest anyone has come to nailing it.

As many said before, it was a combination of factors. As many other genres, what we call prog survived, like jazz, classical, etc, due to the fact that is music to be appreciated. Genres like disco and others did not have such luck, due to the fact that substantially, the music did not have very much to offer, nor did it contribute to the development of music itself. 

SteveG wrote:  And despite their stereotype, most barbarians were not uneducated, did not raid villages to start off with (save the Huns) and were far from unthinking. Most people I know, and probably yourself, are a descendent of some form of European Germanic or Nordic 'barbarian' culture or tribes.

I agree (village-raid jokes aside), and I don't necessarily love the Roman Empire either, but what was your comparison supposed to mean then? My main problem with the question is that it seemed to set up the idea that punk was inferior to prog, because many people view barbaric cultures as inferior to Empires considered ripe with cultural advancement, and to answer it seemed to require that I agree with that assessment. 

Polymorphia wrote: SteveG wrote: Polymorphia wrote: SteveG wrote: Prog Music, The Barbarians and the Fall of the Roman Empire. I like relate present day things to past events or institutions. It gives me a reference for modern events. I always seem to be relating Progressive Rock to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 C.E. Not that Prog has or will fall but the feeling or impression seems the same to me. The golden Era of Rome was well past when the old Empire was split into the latin speaking Western Empire still ruled by an Emperor in Rome and the Greek speaking Eastern Empire ruled by it's own Emperor in Costantinople (modern day Istanbul, Turkey). The Western Roman Empire was at first involved with multiple wars with barbarian Goths to the north and east, Huns to the North West and Vandals that had captured all of the Empire's Northern African colonies. After a period of slow decline added by civil wars, the Barbarians had come to win victories against the Western Romans and had risen to positions of power within the Western Empire. Right up to the Emperor's court, including high ranking military commanders. Can you recognise the "Barbarians" that have reached within Progressive Music's court?  Or how about rock becoming prog rock being signified the rise of Julius Caesar and the abolition of the Roman Republic? Or how about rock music, including prog, being the barbarians that ravaged the empire of classical music that, obviously, we should all be extolling?  The barbarian comparison is a little hyperbolic methinks. Punk musicians and fans weren't uneducated or unthinking (nor did they raid villages), they just made and listened to (respectively) comparatively simpler music.  Fair enough. But it always amazes me on how people focus on the form of a question instead of focusing on the answer to the question and that, Good Sir, is not hyperbole. Was "no" not direct enough?  Unless you mean the one about recognize the Barbarians reaching within Prog's "court." You kind of have to agree with the comparison to answer the question, and I don't quite.

Would Death growls not qualify as a 'barbarian' infuence? Perhaps I should have said Prog of the present.


Edited by SteveG - September 03 2014 at 08:47

How did we get here?  I'm lost.

HolyMoly wrote: How did we get here?  I'm lost.

I compared modern day prog to the later Roman Empire by saying it had 'barbarian' influences. Which is not always a bad thing.


Edited by SteveG - September 03 2014 at 08:53

^ I am one of the Barbarian Goths.  Kneel before me, heathen.

Edited by SteveG - September 03 2014 at 09:24

SteveG wrote: HolyMoly wrote: How did we get here?  I'm lost. I compared modern day prog to the later Roman Empire by saying it had 'barbarian' influences. Which is not always a bad thing.

I guess I need to read back further and see what I missed, but that makes it a little clearer.

SteveG wrote: Polymorphia wrote: SteveG wrote: Polymorphia wrote: ^We're talking about metal now?  We are talking about one of Progressive Music's popular sub genres, Extreme Technical Prog Metal. It's listed in PA. I assure you. I could call growls barbaric when they're intentionally used to create such an image, and they often are in regular death metal (not in Ex/Tech, though?). Punk, on the other hand, is less comparable to barbaric cultures. The only comparison I can think of is that it's simpler and not quite as ornate as prog. But I don't want to place genres in enmity with one another. I like prog, I like punk, I like metal. I don't want to think of prog as anything superior to the other music I listen to. Not at all. I welcome outside influences that were once thought of being perhaps a bit crude by some people to be in prog. I'm far from a snob and like Ex/Tech prog metal. The barbrians in late Rome give it it's last rise to prominence, but again that's a comparison that probably only makes sense to me. And some EX/Tech groups like Cynic did employ growls at one time and others still do.

I'm just referring to the image it evokes. Death metal and black metal often draw from Nordic cultures— actual barbarians. I wouldn't think of Cynic and Between the Buried and Me to be attempting to create that image with growls, but I guess influence obviously exists from the more "barbaric" metal bands. Anyway, I get your comparison now. But I'm still wondering how it fits into the scheme of the discussion. Are you referring to Extreme/tech metal as that last surge of popularity for prog?

Polymorphia wrote: SteveG wrote: Polymorphia wrote: SteveG wrote: Polymorphia wrote: ^We're talking about metal now?  We are talking about one of Progressive Music's popular sub genres, Extreme Technical Prog Metal. It's listed in PA. I assure you. I could call growls barbaric when they're intentionally used to create such an image, and they often are in regular death metal (not in Ex/Tech, though?). Punk, on the other hand, is less comparable to barbaric cultures. The only comparison I can think of is that it's simpler and not quite as ornate as prog. But I don't want to place genres in enmity with one another. I like prog, I like punk, I like metal. I don't want to think of prog as anything superior to the other music I listen to. Not at all. I welcome outside influences that were once thought of being perhaps a bit crude by some people to be in prog. I'm far from a snob and like Ex/Tech prog metal. The barbrians in late Rome give it it's last rise to prominence, but again that's a comparison that probably only makes sense to me. And some EX/Tech groups like Cynic did employ growls at one time and others still do. I'm just referring to the image it evokes. Death metal and black metal often draw from Nordic cultures— actual barbarians. I wouldn't think of Cynic and Between the Buried and Me to be attempting to create that image with growls, but I guess influence obviously exists from the more "barbaric" metal bands. Anyway, I get your comparison now. But I'm still wondering how it fits into the scheme of the discussion. Are you referring to Extreme/tech metal as that last surge of popularity for prog?

IMHO, yes. Or at least prog metal in some form.


Edited by SteveG - September 03 2014 at 09:55