Kansas vs Styx

SteveG wrote: Logan wrote: SteveG wrote: verslibre wrote: CHanse97 wrote: verslibre wrote: SteveG wrote: CHanse97 wrote:  Because, frankly, if I were to sit and use the same nondescript and undefined metric y'all use to say Styx isn't prog, I could probably make the same case that Kansas, Supertramp, and Pink Floyd past Meddle aren't prog either. Fine with me! "A soul intension that's learning to fly."  But seriously, WYWH not prog? Come on.   If Pink Floyd is prog, then Kansas is undoubtedly prog!  I'd say that Floyd could be far more easily defined as prog before Kansas is.   I reckon you should give a listen to "Journey from Mariabronn," "Apercu," and "Death of Mother Nature Suite" from Kansas' s/t debut.  Then, from the second album, Song for America, the legendary title track, plus "Lamplight Symphony" and the epic "Incomudro – Hymn to the Atman." If that isn't evidence enough, your ears may deceive you.  Also, a version of "Incomudro" was recorded by Kerry Livgren's pre-Kansas band, Proto-Kaw, and they sound even less commercial. I like Floyd (not everything they've done, but I like them), but they're a glorified psych band, no? Let's be honest, Floyd's music isn't challenging. They have a lot of catchy hits. They're on par with Genesis and Yes in that regard. Like most people, you're probably hung up on DSotM, which, to me, is more psych than prog. But WYWH and Animals is more prog than psych. Listen again to both. If that's not evidence enough, your ears may deceive you. For me, The Dark Side of the Moon is more art rock/ lite prog rock than psych/space, and Wish You Were Here and Animals I would describe as Art Rock/ Prog Rock and not as psychedelia. I will happily describe earlier albums such as Atom Heart Mother and Meddle as Art Rock Prog meets Psychedelic and Space Rock. Before that I might describe the music using psychedelic as my primary descriptor. For me Pink FLoyd and Kansas made kinds of Prog and other sorts of music. The dichotomy of calling bands Prog or not Prog often doesn't work for me when bands have a diversity of style and approach. I say often you have to go the individual album level and often to the track level. But I could understand someone saying, say, they don;t think of "The Atom Heart Mother" suite or "Echoes", or "A Saucerful of Secrets" or "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" or "The Embryo" or whatever as Prog depending upon how they use the term. Sometimes people make such such claims without hearing enough of the discography, or understanding the diversity of ways to approach the question "What is progressive rock, and does it have set boundaries?" if people were to ask me what kind of music Pink Floyd makes, well it would depend on the period. I tend to think of a lot of it as Art Rock primarily. I'm not keen on Kansas, but of course that has no bearing on whether or not I consider it Prog. I am fine with calling various albums and individual tracks Prog by Kansas, but not all of it (I haven't heard all of it, but I've heard quite a bit, and owned Leftoverture). So is it a Prog band, I'd sooner call it a band that made Prog music and other music, partially because I don't think of bands themselves as Prog. I find that can lead to over-generalisations. I often like to leave pigeon-holing to the pigeons. Unfortunately, without labels we couldn't describe the music that these bands make. We have a pretty good idea of what symphonic prog, electric prog, etc. sounds like. If someone says that such and such artist is great, we ask "what do they sound like?" If someone says Avant/RIO, then we have a pretty good inkling of what to expect without referencing an artist that we may or may not be familiar with. The bottom line, imho, in determining if a rock album is prog, or not, is simply to compare it to what else is or was popular at the same time. Does WYWH sound like Red Octopus by the Jefferson Starship? Or does it sound like Born To Run by Springsteen? These albums were all released at pretty much the same time back in 1975. It's silly to me to say albums like DSotM, WYWH and Animals are not prog when compared to the typical rock music of the day. The same with Kansas which, like you, I'm not a fan of. But that's neither here nor there. These groups are either prog or they're not. And if not, then we're all congregating at the wrong music forum.

I like some Kansas, and some Kansas grates for me. Funnily enough, I was planning to do a Magma vs. Kansas poll after the little Magma joke I made earlier (it can still be a joke even if it is not funny) and finding I liked more Kansas than I thought, and actually I was going to excuse my poll for Magma being so different from Kansas, but the similarities struck me (could also liken both to Gentle Giant) Especially Kansas and Magma can share a similar jazzy intense energy, and the violin of Didier Lockwood and Robby Steinhardt is comparable. I'll do that poll later but when I can work out how similar I can get the two to be so its not apples and oranges -- at least I knew it wouldn't be apples and motorcycles. I love to find similarities, and common ground generally, even if others don't hear/ see things the same way.

Yeah, I certainly wouldn't advocate for doing away with labels, those are useful descriptive tools, and I have advocated for more, not less, labeling. I prefer multi-tagging albums with as many labels as applicable/ reasonable. When I search for music, I use labels. My problem is when people oversimplify things. They put it all in one tidy box when in fact those boxes are amorphous and that box overlaps with various boxes (what I called an amorphous hyperbox in another topic about putting things in boxes). I'm not keen on just labeling a band in PA with one given category, and then saying that's all, that;s what it is, despite how diverse the discography. I'm fine with that as a very general descriptor for the band's style, but for a band with diversity/ range, it doesn't always tell you much about individual albums, and leads to confusion. Say people citing Miles Davis Kind of Blue as an example of why Miles Davis should not be in JRF here. Well, Miles Davis is not in PA for kind of Blue but we have complete discography policy and we can't tag individual album, let alone multi-tag them. Avant/ RIO itself, or themselves, those categories could be split, is so diverse. Rock in Opposition itself is more a movement and approach than a style, and some of that is more avant prog than others.

The quite refined chamber rock or chamber music approach of some avant prog is going to be very different from some of the others which are weird and noisy (of course what is weird often depends on the listener, often it;s just that which one is unfamiliar with). Buy yeah, if one say RIO to me, then I have a good idea despite the diversity there, but then some people include more music in that than I would. For instance, some say Zappa is RIO, to which I'd say he was never part of the movement and I couldn't imagine him signing on to the manifesto even if he had been invited to participate in the festivals and join with Henry Cow, Samla Mammas Manna, Univers Zero, Etron Fou Leloublan, Art Bears, Aksak Maboul, and Art Zoyd (to stick with the core RIO bands). One can find similarities. Sorry, I'm rambling and getting away from your point.

My problem was never labels, labels are very useful, it is too simplistic labeling which doesn't give great insight and can actually be misleading. It's like one person says Genesis is Prog and another says, no, Genesis is pop. I'd say Genesis made Prog and Genesis made pop, and maybe some poppy prog even, or proggy pop, so let's talk about individual albums and pieces of music instead of generalising so much.

That's an interesting approach to determining what is prog, and certainly progressive rock can be used to contrast with mainstream rock (though prog can be quite mainstream rock itself). Comparing is to be expected. I often look at progressive rock as unconventional rock. It is music within a rock framework, that is free from typical rock conventions, can bring in a diversity of styles, and breaks with rock canon and tradition. Eventually it could progress so far from the roots of rock that it ceases to have an obvious relationship with rock music. It's also a sort of underground rock, relates to art rock, experimental rock.... The Prog umbrella is quite diverse for me. For some it just means music that sounds similar to early Yes and Genesis.

Edited by Logan - February 14 2020 at 15:48

Logan wrote: SteveG wrote: Logan wrote: SteveG wrote: verslibre wrote: CHanse97 wrote: verslibre wrote: SteveG wrote: CHanse97 wrote:  Because, frankly, if I were to sit and use the same nondescript and undefined metric y'all use to say Styx isn't prog, I could probably make the same case that Kansas, Supertramp, and Pink Floyd past Meddle aren't prog either. Fine with me! "A soul intension that's learning to fly."  But seriously, WYWH not prog? Come on.   If Pink Floyd is prog, then Kansas is undoubtedly prog!  I'd say that Floyd could be far more easily defined as prog before Kansas is.   I reckon you should give a listen to "Journey from Mariabronn," "Apercu," and "Death of Mother Nature Suite" from Kansas' s/t debut.  Then, from the second album, Song for America, the legendary title track, plus "Lamplight Symphony" and the epic "Incomudro – Hymn to the Atman." If that isn't evidence enough, your ears may deceive you.  Also, a version of "Incomudro" was recorded by Kerry Livgren's pre-Kansas band, Proto-Kaw, and they sound even less commercial. I like Floyd (not everything they've done, but I like them), but they're a glorified psych band, no? Let's be honest, Floyd's music isn't challenging. They have a lot of catchy hits. They're on par with Genesis and Yes in that regard. Like most people, you're probably hung up on DSotM, which, to me, is more psych than prog. But WYWH and Animals is more prog than psych. Listen again to both. If that's not evidence enough, your ears may deceive you. For me, The Dark Side of the Moon is more art rock/ lite prog rock than psych/space, and Wish You Were Here and Animals I would describe as Art Rock/ Prog Rock and not as psychedelia. I will happily describe earlier albums such as Atom Heart Mother and Meddle as Art Rock Prog meets Psychedelic and Space Rock. Before that I might describe the music using psychedelic as my primary descriptor. For me Pink FLoyd and Kansas made kinds of Prog and other sorts of music. The dichotomy of calling bands Prog or not Prog often doesn't work for me when bands have a diversity of style and approach. I say often you have to go the individual album level and often to the track level. But I could understand someone saying, say, they don;t think of "The Atom Heart Mother" suite or "Echoes", or "A Saucerful of Secrets" or "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" or "The Embryo" or whatever as Prog depending upon how they use the term. Sometimes people make such such claims without hearing enough of the discography, or understanding the diversity of ways to approach the question "What is progressive rock, and does it have set boundaries?" if people were to ask me what kind of music Pink Floyd makes, well it would depend on the period. I tend to think of a lot of it as Art Rock primarily. I'm not keen on Kansas, but of course that has no bearing on whether or not I consider it Prog. I am fine with calling various albums and individual tracks Prog by Kansas, but not all of it (I haven't heard all of it, but I've heard quite a bit, and owned Leftoverture). So is it a Prog band, I'd sooner call it a band that made Prog music and other music, partially because I don't think of bands themselves as Prog. I find that can lead to over-generalisations. I often like to leave pigeon-holing to the pigeons. Unfortunately, without labels we couldn't describe the music that these bands make. We have a pretty good idea of what symphonic prog, electric prog, etc. sounds like. If someone says that such and such artist is great, we ask "what do they sound like?" If someone says Avant/RIO, then we have a pretty good inkling of what to expect without referencing an artist that we may or may not be familiar with. The bottom line, imho, in determining if a rock album is prog, or not, is simply to compare it to what else is or was popular at the same time. Does WYWH sound like Red Octopus by the Jefferson Starship? Or does it sound like Born To Run by Springsteen? These albums were all released at pretty much the same time back in 1975. It's silly to me to say albums like DSotM, WYWH and Animals are not prog when compared to the typical rock music of the day. The same with Kansas which, like you, I'm not a fan of. But that's neither here nor there. These groups are either prog or they're not. And if not, then we're all congregating at the wrong music forum.  I like some Kansas, and some Kansas grates for me. Funnily enough, I was planning to do a Magma vs. Kansas poll after the little Magma joke I made earlier (it can still be a joke even if it is not funny) and finding I liked more Kansas than I thought, and actually I was going to excuse my poll for Magma being so different from Kansas, but the similarities struck me (could also liken both to Gentle Giant) Especially Kansas and Magma can share a similar jazzy intense energy, and the violin of Didier Lockwood and Robby Steinhardt is comparable. I'll do that poll later but when I can work out how similar I can get the two to be so its not apples and oranges -- at least I knew it wouldn't be apples and motorcycles. I love to find similarities, and common ground generally, even if others don't hear/ see things the same way. Yeah, I certainly wouldn't advocate for doing away with labels, those are useful descriptive tools, and I have advocated for more, not less, labeling. I prefer multi-tagging albums with as many labels as applicable/ reasonable. When I search for music, I use labels. My problem is when people oversimplify things. They put it all in one tidy box when in fact those boxes are amorphous and that box overlaps with various boxes (what I called an amorphous hyperbox in another topic about putting things in boxes). I'm not keen on just labeling a band in PA with one given category, I'm fine with that as a very general descriptor for the band, but for a band with diversity/ range, it doesn't always tell you much about individual albums, and leads to confusion. Say people citing Miles Davis Kind of Blue as an example of why Miles Davis should not be in JRF here. Well, Miles Davis is not in PA for kind of Blue but we have complete discography policy and we can't tag individual album, let alone multi-tag them. Avant/ RIO itself, or themselves, those categories could be split, is so diverse. Rock in Opposition itself is more a movement and approach than a style, and some of that is more avant prog than others. The quite refined chamber rock or chamber music approach of some avant prog is going to be very different from some of the others which are weird and noisy (of course what is weird often depends on the listener, often it;s just that which one is unfamiliar with). Buy yeah, if one say RIO to me, then I have a good idea despite the diversity there, but then some people include more music in that than I would. For instance, some say Zappa is RIO, to which I'd say he was never part of the movement and I couldn't imagine him signing on to the manifesto even if he had been invited to participate in the festivals and join with Henry Cow, Samla Mammas Manna, Univers Zero, Etron Fou Leloublan, Art Bears, Aksak Maboul, and Art Zoyd (to stick with the core RIO bands). One can find similarities. Sorry, I'm rambling and getting away from your point. My problem was never labels, labels are very useful, it is too simplistic labeling which doesn't give great insight and can actually be misleading. It's like one person says Genesis is Prog and another says, no, Genesis is pop. I'd say Genesis made Prog and Genesis made pop, and maybe some poppy prog even, or proggy pop, so let's talk about individual albums and pieces of music instead of generalising so much. That's an interesting approach to determining what is prog, and certainly progressive rock can be used to contrast with mainstream rock (though prog can be quite mainstream rock itself). Comparing is to be expected. I often look at progressive rock as unconventional rock. It is music within a rock framework, that is free from typical rock conventions, can bring in a diversity of styles, and breaks with rock canon and tradition. Eventually it could progress so far from the roots of rock that it ceases to have an obvious relationship with rock music. It's also a sort of underground rock, relates to art rock, experimental rock.... The Prog umbrella is quite diverse for me. For some it just means music that sounds similar to early Yes and Genesis.

Gotcha! 

Still seems odd to me that Kansas are seen as 'uninspiring'. The main issue with those mid seventies albums is the way they were produced. I hear a lot of great music and songs but a truly insipid production that just sucks the life out the thing. I realised this to be especially true when I saw them live and was expecting something a bit too 'safe' and clean. It wasn't that at all and seriously Steve Walsh is one of the best musicians I've ever seen play live.

Edited by richardh - February 14 2020 at 16:53

richardh wrote: Still seems odd to me that Kansas are seen as 'uninspiring'. The main issue with those mid seventies albums is the way they were produced. I hear a lot of great music and songs but a truly insipid production that just sucks the life out the thing. I realised this to be especially true when I saw them live and was expecting something a bit too 'safe' and clean. It wasn't that at all and seriously Steve Walsh is one of the best musicians I've ever seen play live.

CHanse97 wrote: SteveG wrote: Logan wrote: SteveG wrote: verslibre wrote: CHanse97 wrote: verslibre wrote: SteveG wrote: CHanse97 wrote:  Because, frankly, if I were to sit and use the same nondescript and undefined metric y'all use to say Styx isn't prog, I could probably make the same case that Kansas, Supertramp, and Pink Floyd past Meddle aren't prog either. Fine with me! "A soul intension that's learning to fly."  But seriously, WYWH not prog? Come on.   If Pink Floyd is prog, then Kansas is undoubtedly prog!  I'd say that Floyd could be far more easily defined as prog before Kansas is.   I reckon you should give a listen to "Journey from Mariabronn," "Apercu," and "Death of Mother Nature Suite" from Kansas' s/t debut.  Then, from the second album, Song for America, the legendary title track, plus "Lamplight Symphony" and the epic "Incomudro – Hymn to the Atman." If that isn't evidence enough, your ears may deceive you.  Also, a version of "Incomudro" was recorded by Kerry Livgren's pre-Kansas band, Proto-Kaw, and they sound even less commercial. I like Floyd (not everything they've done, but I like them), but they're a glorified psych band, no? Let's be honest, Floyd's music isn't challenging. They have a lot of catchy hits. They're on par with Genesis and Yes in that regard. Like most people, you're probably hung up on DSotM, which, to me, is more psych than prog. But WYWH and Animals is more prog than psych. Listen again to both. If that's not evidence enough, your ears may deceive you. For me, The Dark Side of the Moon is more art rock/ lite prog rock than psych/space, and Wish You Were Here and Animals I would describe as Art Rock/ Prog Rock and not as psychedelia. I will happily describe earlier albums such as Atom Heart Mother and Meddle as Art Rock Prog meets Psychedelic and Space Rock. Before that I might describe the music using psychedelic as my primary descriptor. For me Pink FLoyd and Kansas made kinds of Prog and other sorts of music. The dichotomy of calling bands Prog or not Prog often doesn't work for me when bands have a diversity of style and approach. I say often you have to go the individual album level and often to the track level. But I could understand someone saying, say, they don;t think of "The Atom Heart Mother" suite or "Echoes", or "A Saucerful of Secrets" or "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" or "The Embryo" or whatever as Prog depending upon how they use the term. Sometimes people make such such claims without hearing enough of the discography, or understanding the diversity of ways to approach the question "What is progressive rock, and does it have set boundaries?" if people were to ask me what kind of music Pink Floyd makes, well it would depend on the period. I tend to think of a lot of it as Art Rock primarily. I'm not keen on Kansas, but of course that has no bearing on whether or not I consider it Prog. I am fine with calling various albums and individual tracks Prog by Kansas, but not all of it (I haven't heard all of it, but I've heard quite a bit, and owned Leftoverture). So is it a Prog band, I'd sooner call it a band that made Prog music and other music, partially because I don't think of bands themselves as Prog. I find that can lead to over-generalisations. I often like to leave pigeon-holing to the pigeons. Unfortunately, without labels we couldn't describe the music that these bands make. We have a pretty good idea of what symphonic prog, electric prog, etc. sounds like. If someone says that such and such artist is great, we ask "what do they sound like?" If someone says Avant/RIO, then we have a pretty good inkling of what to expect without referencing an artist that we may or may not be familiar with. The bottom line, imho, in determining if a rock album is prog, or not, is simply to compare it to what else is or was popular at the same time. Does WYWH sound like Red Octopus by the Jefferson Starship? Or does it sound like Born To Run by Springsteen? These albums were all released at pretty much the same time back in 1975. It's silly to me to say albums like DSotM, WYWH and Animals are not prog when compared to the typical rock music of the day. The same with Kansas which, like you, I'm not a fan of. But that's neither here nor there. These groups are either prog or they're not. And if not, then we're all congregating at the wrong music forum.  I personally don't view Prog as being this dichotomy of it "is or isn't" prog. It seems like the anti-prog to have such a dichotomy, especially with how insanely expansive and verbose progressive rock is.

That's because you drop the "rock" portion in the descriptor of "Prog Rock". The music we like is not strictly "progressive music" but "progressive rock" music. A combination of progressive music elements and rock or progressive elements in rock. It will have other musical elements like rock, folk, classical, jazz, R&B, etc. in the mix or we would most likely not be attracted to it. It is, by nature, a hybrid and doesn't fit into the "is" or "isn't" camp.

Edited by SteveG - February 15 2020 at 07:45

Edited by verslibre - February 15 2020 at 12:56

verslibre wrote: P.S. Steve, are you the very same guy I used to argue with many years ago? Are you the one who used to sing the praises of Linkin Park?

I have no doubt that you were arguing with your self. There is help for people you like.