Has the flame finally gone out?

lazland wrote: I have never felt so positive about the future of great progressive rock music. 2014 has energised me more than most previous years, and this in nearly 40 years now of listening and buying. There is some great music out there. There is some great new music out there. Whether we like it, or not, the torch has passed to new generations, and, you know what? They are doing mighty fine, thank you very much.

Indeed! Anyone who was there on Saturday at the Orion Studios in Baltimore was treated to a quartet of incredible bands, each very different from the other, but each one of them flying the flag of modern progressive music without the need to indulge in nostalgia trips. It is up to us to keep that flame burning by supporting the modern scene.

Has the flame finally gone out?

Not for Magma.

I never considered Pink Floyd as part of the big 5.

 Yes

Genesis

Gentle Giant

King Crimson

ELP

ALL of the legacy groups dropped the torch in the '80's.  Fortunately there were bands around to pick it back up.  And then most of them dropped the a decade or two later and yet other groups picked it up.  The real question is how long will progressive rock survive as a genre.  Some styles (symphonic would be a good example) are definitely losing the interest of listeners.  Others are not yet so anemic.  I would not bet on progressive rock lasting forever, although if medical science advances quickly enough you can expect to see Yes at your local casino every two or three years for the rest of your lifetime.

The flame has only gone out if you are simply one of those prog listeners who refuse to listen to anything after the early 80's, and who clutch onto only a core group of a few artists who haven't been relevant for decades now.

There's too many good modern (and after 80's) artists and albums throughout a variety of different styles offering superb progressive-related music that are carrying on the fine tradition of the genre, and there's still been plenty of enjoyable albums from `the big five' even if they're not challenging or complex anymore in the way that we would like.

richardh wrote: Power To Believe is a great album so King Crimson can safely be left out of this hypothesis.( however read my later comments) ELP's last album was crap but then they were virtually crippled and trying to churn out an album to save a dying record company ( they might just as well as bombed it for the good it did). Their last brilliant album anyway was 1973's Brain Salad Surgery Yes - Relayer was the last time they made a significant progressive rock statement imo although there are plenty of good albums that followed and I do like the most recent. Genesis and the descent into pop music has been discussed to death but then they stopped being a proper working band 20 years ago. Jethro Tull is the one band of the big five I don't own much of. I'm guessing though that they haven't made anything as good as say Thick and A Brick or A Passion Play since those albums. They found massive success in the USA in the eighties although I gather a lot of it was not proggy . The recent stuff by ian Anderson I do own and its very good but not exactly earth shattering. Other than KC the big five were on slippery slope from about 1975 onwards. King Crimson has bucked the trend by to all intents and purposes being an ongoing project of Robert Fripp rather than a band in any traditional way. A band has to have an ongoing collaboration of a core membership. King Criimson barely had that at all. Fripp decides what he wanted to to do and then recruites accordingly. Nothing wrong with that and avoids the possibility of lurching head first into self parody which often happens to bands that have been around for thousand of years.

Edited by fudgenuts64 - November 10 2014 at 16:59

Catcher10 wrote: Another issue for some, could be that some of the newer bands are more crossover than say full prog as in the 70-90s.....They hit a wider sweet spot

as well as being ..ahem.. simply being more progressive and bringing in wider styles and influences rather than the same old sh*t man.  Crossover has become a catch phrase of sorts for progressive rock which has made the break with the dried up, played out, stylistic norms of 70's prog rock. God bless them....

yuribujuri wrote: Absolutely, and sadly, the flame is gone. Certainly, the "prog genre" is full of live: a lot of bands from a great variety of countries, so many albums with great sound, awesome production and enjoyable live performances. All that is true. BUT... the "flame", the kind of innovative spirit, the gorgeous attitude of the seventies' bands is definitely gone. For a years I am looking for an album that give me a full and kinda spiritual experience like Close to the Edge, Dark Side or Selling England. No way man. The genre is alive but the historical moment with creativity and experimentation on top, with never-listened-music bands is gone for me, and the signal is not necessarily the low-rating albums of the "big 5". Nothing new is coming from the prog bands of our days. Great albums, yes, but nothing deeply stunning like before, IMHO.

nice first post.

Welcome to the forum.

However if I may say, I think you mistake your fond memories and nostalgia for the lack of creativity and experimentation today.

 It is out there, it is simply more underground than 70's prog rock ever was.  And yes wiser bands see that prog rock is dead genre..thus the lack of identifing with it, the lack of trying to appeal to the conservative and backwards looking fans of it,  the key to survival now is to simply make great music and let the listener today make it what they will.  As one of my favorite stories goes... we went to see a concert of a full blown prog (as we would call it) album done with enough pretention to satisfy the most earnest ELP fan... yet if you had asked the bunch of teenage girls that were there what they thought about prog.. or if they liked it.. they would have likely looked at you as if you had had two heads.  It simply doesn't matter to a lot of bands, nor the listeners.  It is the old farts (god bless them) or internet forum freaks that really seem to care about this.

Good music lives, and will always live.  What people call it really doesn't matter. The days of pigeon-holing bands is as dead as the power of the industry that profitted immensely FROM it.

Cheers and welcome to the forum!

JD wrote: With the recent release of the long awaited Pnk Floyd album WE once again see that our heroes have fallen a little flat. (...)

Edited by Svetonio - November 10 2014 at 18:12

SteveG wrote: ^

What do you mean

I think in their heyday Pink Floyd was not in their league. 

HolyMoly wrote: On the one hand, I don't know if we'll ever again be able to experience the buzz of seeing something as truly amazing as Yes at their peak in the early 70s, or King Crimson around that time, or you know, just the TOTAL BIRTH of the idea that rock can do this sort of stuff.  I mean, I think that's what the naysayers kind of miss - the idea that - WHOA, I never thought that could be possible! Even the Beatles never thought of that!! But on the other hand, barring the lack of that WOW surprise factor, there is more great music being made nowadays than ever before.  EVER BEFORE.  Because anybody can do it.  You don't need a fancy label and a big budget to record your masterpiece any more.  You can pretty much do it yourself.  Or if you have fans, you can ask them directly to help you pay for it.  It's beautiful.  It's like we've cut out the middle man.  It's how it was always meant to be.  Of course, that means schmucks like me can put albums out too, which is a lot of fun of course, but it brings down the average quality a bit.  But if you have the time and desire to look for it, the sky's the limit.  Dream up your ideal album and someone's probably made it for your listening pleasure - and probably for free.