PA Albums of 2024: Official Results

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ I think that "Prog" is on the decline in general, in terms of number of listeners. As many have pointed out, there is a trend towards "simpler" music. Websites like PA (and AP, to a lesser degree but still) which focus on Prog are becoming more and more "special interest". I think this cannot be helped, and who knows? The trend might reverse when/if new generations of listeners become bored with the trendy generic music they've grown up with and are looking for interesting stuff.

Grumpyprogfan wrote: However, progressive rock isn't as popular as it once was.

I'm not going to pretend like prog is as popular as it's been in the past, and I also won't deny that ProgArchives is kind of inherently geared towards an older demographic. However, plenty of young people find experimental and progressive music interesting (example, I'm 24 years old)—they ARE getting bored of generic music and many of their ears are open to new sounds. 

Grumpyprogfan wrote: There is no solution. People get bored with the same forum topics and move on. Or some, e.g., Man With Hat (still miss him) leave due to conflicts with other members. Others start YT channels and some have podcasts.

And this is just defeatist. There's absolutely truth in it, and those things will always pose problems to some degree, but saying there's no solution is just pessimistic and will only lead to PA dying out further. Why not think about ways we can revitalize the forums instead? I don't know, maybe I'm talking out of my ass, but in my opinion looking at things this way is pointless if one actually cares about PA continuing to survive.

Lewian wrote: Add to this the outdated software, technical issues, and lack of care by the owner of PA.

In my opinion, Lewian is the only one focusing on the right problem here (and also one of the only problems that isn't a larger societal factor that we can't do much about).

I do have some knowledge of the internet though, and of the atmosphere in different websites, social media, and forums.

And I don't really feel what you said in the end (to be sure, I might not always be able to read though the lines, and once again I'm not that much knowledgeable in prog and in music). If anything, I appreciate the forum for its somewhat friendly and light mood, at least contrasted with Reddit and other similar places. I have barely faced (I don't mean necessarily just suffering it, but even simply witnessing it) any deep snobism. At least during the last weeks, after I arrived here and started browsing regularly (not just on the threads I intervened into). It's clear the members know a lot about music, and they have asserted opinions, and they can be slightly judgemental... but they never get that far.

Of course, in this very specific thread, people have been discussing similar topics, and there is also a current thread dedicating to pointing out "Bad albums made to fulfill contractual obligation", but these don't seem to me to reflect completely the kind of atmosphere in here.