Is Prog Underrated?

micky wrote: ^ bingo and a point I've made often..  prog does have a bad rep out there.  Pointing why it does, and agreeing with it to a certain extent is not the same as same rediculing those that enjoy having silly and often stupid attempts of intellectualism injected into rock music.  But do understand that the bad rep is not the product of w**kers unable to play more than 3 chords in a song.. it is for most people music is simply not an intellectual exercise and is supposed to be able fun.. not overly serious, not hyperintelletual by muso's no smarter than the average knuckle dragger.. not thinking but feeling.  As I've often said.. there is nothing better than good prog.. for the best of prog hits the heart and soul.. but conversely there is nothing worse than bad prog. Prog that forgets the heart and soul and piles needless complexity upon itself for its own sake... upon stupid and silly lyrical themes

When someone thinks that Progressive music is just pop music, I like to refer them to go listen to RACHEL FLOWERS do Keith Emerson/ELP on a straight piano or just organ ... and by the end, it is like you are exhausted with the emotion content and design of the music, and how grand it was in the first place ... can you picture Keith actually showing this to his mates and then explain ... this part in that synth, this part in that one, and this part in the loo and this part in the mellotron ... and you can see the incredible detail and setup to help develop these pieces.

The compositional elements of Tarkus, and many other pieces, are second to none to very few, and you don't have to like ELP to appreciate great music ... just listen to this piano version, or organ version, and then just live down some of the ugly comments on a lot of this music. And I'm not sure that some of this is as "simple" as it is made out to be. Comparing ELP's version with Rachel's shows how out of it we are and unable to listen to things with a wide open state of mind!

As I've noted many times over the years... we are in the midst of a similar time today with the dying off of major labels, magazines and f**king MTV who made beaucoup bucks by compartmentalizing music and its listeners to make it easier to market music to them. (and in large part demonized prog.. because.. well..  it suppose it might have fun.. prog is such an easy target. With a kick me sign on its back. See pictures of 70's Genesis or even Rush haha) 

Today's listener in large part, today's youth, can give a sh*t about tags and labels. Is is prog.. or not? Doesn't matter to most listeners today .. only what matters is if the music is good. Which again brings us back to the ills that prog occasionally has... forgetting that in the end...  forget the art, the complexity, virtuosity and all that jazz... what matters is if you can write good music that connects with people.  In that .. because of the post Napster generation coming of age.. much of the barriers between rock and prog (or to really be accruate call it Progressive Rock for prog is truly dead and should remain buried).. the lines between the youth and energy of blue collar rock and the artistic white collar Progressive rock have been blured.. perhaps for good for as we know.. Rock Music.. is dead. A few surivivors pushed by the survivors major labels putting out music that few really care about.. or buy as they once did. Old Pete called it.. just took decades for it too happen. 

IMO Progressive rock today is indeed the last chance rock has to survive for the death of the major labels might make it impossible for any of them to get rich.. but it gave them artistic control over their music and today anyone can make, produce and sell music. Rock may never occupy the top shelve of societies musical conscience.. but thanks to Progressive Rock.. it may well survive.. if underground.

Yes Tom.. I know few care about that. I hear that directly from today's artists... it is in large part why the prog revival of the late 90's early 00's has sort of fallen down the stairs.  Very little interest by 'prog fan' in what is going on today.... most are still stuck with their 70's heroes and don't care about today's groups trying to make it.

SteveG wrote: My own opinion is that prog is more or less where it should be in public opinion. Its just an offshoot of rock that was given to flights of pretension and, at times, riddled with virtuoso overplaying. ... As Iain has noted, it does not stand up academic scrutiny and cannot be placed in the same category as classical music, no matter how many "suites" a given prog song is professed to have. ...

I would not state that it was an "offshoot". More like an EXTENSION, in that some parts were merely extended, and this is exactly what happened in classical music that we have listed in history in the 1400's and then 1500's and then into Mozart and others. All of a sudden the music pieces are longer and have more to listen to, and just as you mentioned, it could be said to have flights of pretension and/or simply riddled with virtuoso over playing, something that has been used over and over and over and over and over as an excuse to NOT LISTENING to the music as a labor of love and dream extension. When you love something, it can only be 32 seconds long? Is that how long your loving is for your family?

Put it into a proper context! Stop thinking of it as a top of the pops and the idea and criticism will die off real quick!

That it does not stand up to "academic scrutiny" is more of an issue that a lot of academic places do not want to be known as the first to look at rock music, and consider some of its works, exceptional, and of a very good value in terms of the classical music traditions. 

The issue here, might be that an average rock fan, is not a great listener, in the sense that they also listen to other music's, appreciate music in general in its forms, and are aware of the various differences in music in a lot of its history. Some of the comments made, and found here, it's like ... who gives a cahoot about the history of music, since this or that is what I like, and that person is only showing their lack of maturity and knowledge, and ... let's just wait until they pull that on their wife and children, and see how much fun that will be for them!

It's really hard to not think of some of the works of Anthony Phillips as classical music, when "Slow Dance" (just to name one) is on par with any Symphony you have ever heard. But a metal listener will not bother hearing it, because it ain't metal, and is too long and has too much superfluous playing all around. Like Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and others never did! The argument is stupid and only specifies that the person is not a good listener.

When you look at some of the groups listed and their history, considering it "underrated" or "overrated", is more of a disturbing lack of understanding of arts in one's life and society. Heck, everyone thought that surrealism was way overrated and then in the 60's totally underrated ... but it survived.

The fact that it survives, is what makes its history ... it was not "underrated", because it has been remembered and will continue to be so. We may die ... but the music and the art ALWAYS continues to live! You can not kill the human spirit, plain and simple, and in music, paint, words and other arts is the greatest example of its magnanimous strength and depth of desire and love. The question always is ... where are you?

THIS is the post I was trying to squeeze out of you the other day! 

I hear you my man LOL.