The Single Non-Event that Changed Prog Rock ?

fuxi wrote: ExittheLemming wrote: For all its faults Punk gave the music industry the huge kick in its loon patchouli pants it had long deserved i.e. it scattered the output of complacent hippies to the underground margins where their brand of smug cosmology could only be enjoyed from the privacy of their own pampered fantasy worlds.Punk too in a very short time degenerated into another dissolute train-wreck fuelled by speed instead of weed where Tales From Topographic Oceans was supplanted by the equally obese Sandinista. However for a few fleeting months (probably similar to the musical climate of halycon 1969) there was a genuine mood in the air that popular culture just might actually manage for once to mirror the thoughts and feelings of its audience.We keep gettin' fooled again and again This is very true. If you'd like to look at the situation from a non-anglocentric point of view, punk's DIY spirit also encouraged dozens of young & lively bands to spring up in The Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany, most which put out recordings IN THEIR MOTHER TONGUE (Dutch, French, German). This had been comparatively rare until then. As for punk's influence on prog, the sudden change in fashion was more than a media-generated storm. If you look at most of the late 1960s/early 1970s generation of British prog bands (Yes, Genesis, Caravan etc.), it seems undeniable that they had nothing left to say. But there were bands who COULD have developed more, e.g. National Health. Only, the public's sudden change in preference for fun & easy bands that could be pogoed to meant that the Health were banished from the UK's club and college circuit virtually overnight. (As explained in Dave Stewart's liner notes to the CD reissues.) Wire, Ian Dury, Elvis Costello, Magazine, Television, Pere Ubu: there are numerous reasons why the mid-seventies Change of the Guard was actually a good thing. (But let's not forget Disco and soft rock probably sold far more than punk or new wave.) But I'll never forgive them for the downfall of Canterbury's best and brightest!

Yep, some excellent points there certainly and you do highlight the totalitarian nature of fashion. I think I get irritated by some proggers refusal to accept that even allowing for the rabid brainwashing of the music press, consumer sovereignty dethroned the Prog genre and that it was mostly intelligent/discerning music fans who stopped 'fattening the golden calf'

Our stubborn mantra that 'fads can't hurt us, the music will survive on its own merit' is just plain delusional from even a pragmatic economic perspective. Only the top tier of 1st division prog bands could absorb a seismic shift in the market as extreme as that of Punk. As you also point out, integrity never appeared on a balance sheet and offers scant consolation to bands or artists who cannot get a gig or record deal in a prog-unfriendly climate.

Boy, am I grumpy today !? (Time to cuddle the cat methinks)

Elcroft wrote: Kashmir75 wrote: [  Very well said. Punk failed to kill prog. But it did harm the media's perception of it. A stupid trend that lasts to this very day. The mainstream music mags still rave about punk like it was the second coming, pretend nothing existed before 1977, and rave about the latest trendy emo bands. Prog is still disparaged in most of the so-called 'guardians of music taste' mags.   There was a very good article by David Hepworth in Word Magazine a couple of years ago about punk, titled: "It's Like Punk Never Happened ... That's because for most people it never did and as for the rest of us, isn't it time we got over it?"  He basically exposed all the nonsense around it, describing it as a "media-driven fashion movement" that produced an almost totally malign influence on music and spawning the biggest con in music ever, the "indie" movement. He also made the point that some of the most popular and acclaimed albums of all time were made in the mid-1970s, when punk's adherents would like you to believe nothing good was happening.

WARNING! RANT ALERT!!
Looked at from an anglocentric point of view (sorry!) I think punk was just about the worst thing that could have happened to the UK music scene.

It's true that most of the old wave bands had passed their peak and new blood was needed, but punk was not the solution IMHO. It's year zero approach was narrow-minded in the extreme, and it damaged a culture of ambition, imagination and good musicianship in favour of image, attitude and a short term fix. The US, from being highly receptive to UK bands, eventually lost interest in the stream of over-hyped mediocrity (Oasis anyone?) being shipped over to the extent that in recent years it's not unknown for the Billboard top 100 albums to feature no UK artists.

None of the punk bands (the Jam, the Clash, the Pistols) became a global commercial phenomenon like Floyd, Zep, Yes etc, and anyway I always thought the original US 'punk' bands (The Stooges, MC5 etc) were much better and more powerful than the rather quaint sounding UK variety. The Stranglers were one of the best and most imaginative UK new wave acts and they got grief from the punk fundamentalists for being too proficient (and 'ideologically unsound').

They say history is written by the winners and punk must have won its 'battle' with prog (if there was one) since it continues to get a much better press in the mainstream media. A lot of journalists tout it as a musical revolution that over-turned all that had gone wrong before, yet ten years later we had the pap of Stock, Aitken and Waterman dominating the charts. Perhaps the need for Rick Astley was "Why Punk Had to Happen"? You can still see this form of narrow-minded fundamentalism being practiced today with the reluctance of the "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame" to induct proggers.

Still with the advent of the internet and sites like this, music commentary is being democratised  and I don't think the NME, Rolling Stone et al are quite the bibles they once were - so things are looking up! Sorry for the rant (quiet day at work)

...off for a nice relaxing cup of tea now.

Cactus Choir wrote: [ None of the punk bands (the Jam, the Clash, the Pistols) became a global commercial phenomenon like Floyd, Zep, Yes etc,

Raff wrote: Just a question for you and others... Are the mainstream media really that important? Is being praised by them really the highest accolade one can receive - not to mention being inducted in that joke that is the R'n'R Hall of Fame?  As we all should know by now, this is a world that rewards shallowness and mediocrity at all levels. Let them set up their idols and tear them down in the space of a few months - we will continue to enjoy what we want, regardless of what the 'majority' thinks of it.

Hi Raff. As I said in my post the "media" is thankfully getting less important (after all we writing on the internet are the media now). The fact that 'prog' is not quite the four letter word it used to be is evidence  attitudes are changing - people like Steven Wilson don't have to be so worried about having the label applied to them for fear of the commercial harm it might do.

I think my point (if indeed I had one!) was that a lot of damage was done over many years in the post-punk period. Again I'm probably getting anglocentric here and thinking of the UK but. I think due to punk's 'scorched earth' policy and the media attitudes that pervaded afterwards, plenty of young musicians would have been discouraged from pursuing anything ambitious (and in my view interesting) that might be labelled  'pretentious' in the prevailing orthodoxy.

Still at the end of the day punk 'fundamentalism'  was only a musical phenomenon rather than a political one, no one lost the vote because of it, and as you say we are all free to enjoy the music we like!

Raff wrote: Just a question for you and others... Are the mainstream media really that important? Is being praised by them really the highest accolade one can receive - not to mention being inducted in that joke that is the R'n'R Hall of Fame?  As we all should know by now, this is a world that rewards shallowness and mediocrity at all levels. Let them set up their idols and tear them down in the space of a few months - we will continue to enjoy what we want, regardless of what the 'majority' thinks of it.

Yes, that's a valid perspective Raff and I do agree that it really shouldn't matter a discarded fig what the prevailing media view of your favourite music is

BUT:

If the marketplace is skewed sufficiently so that it ceases to become viable for aspiring prog artists/bands to pursue careers it does effect our ability as consumers to source the types of new/fresh  prog that we seek.

Do you remember trying to buy jeans that weren't narrow in circa '77 ? (Quantum Calculus would have been easier )

Cactus Choir wrote: Raff wrote: Just a question for you and others... Are the mainstream media really that important? Is being praised by them really the highest accolade one can receive - not to mention being inducted in that joke that is the R'n'R Hall of Fame?  As we all should know by now, this is a world that rewards shallowness and mediocrity at all levels. Let them set up their idols and tear them down in the space of a few months - we will continue to enjoy what we want, regardless of what the 'majority' thinks of it.  Hi Raff. As I said in my post the "media" is thankfully getting less important (after all we writing on the internet are the media now). The fact that 'prog' is not quite the four letter word it used to be is evidence  attitudes are changing - people like Steven Wilson don't have to be so worried about having the label applied to them for fear of the commercial harm it might do. I think my point (if indeed I had one!) was that a lot of damage was done over many years in the post-punk period. Again I'm probably getting anglocentric here and thinking of the UK but. I think due to punk's 'scorched earth' policy and the media attitudes that pervaded afterwards, plenty of young musicians would have been discouraged from pursuing anything ambitious (and in my view interesting) that might be labelled  'pretentious' in the prevailing orthodoxy. Still at the end of the day punk 'fundamentalism'  was only a musical phenomenon rather than a political one, no one lost the vote because of it, and as you say we are all free to enjoy the music we like!

Great discussion this has turned in- ---- wait a minute - shocked sidetrack - what on God's scorched Earth is that American Idol ad doing just above the reply box I am now typing in?!?!  Yuck!!  Let me try and recover...

Okay... apologia/rant begin...

So, the sentence I bolded above is what I wanted to follow up on.  This is true in a very real sense for me, and it took me ages, and a bit of 'therapy', to come to admit it.  I was born in the late 60's and, thanks to an older brother's record collection, grew up listening at a very young age to the great music that was current then, all known as Rock though now we call much of it some variant of Prog.  I was enthralled with the likes of KC and ELP and Genesis and Yes and Zeppelin and DP and Miles Davis and Tull and, the list goes on, you get the picture.  I taught myself guitar by playing along with these albums, got rather good; thought outside just the guitar too, drumming along with Bruford and Bonham as best I could there in the old basement, and thinking along strictly theory lines, trying to write things.

Though it's a nice personality quality, perhaps unfortunately for me I am a sensitive person; and not so good for me is the fact that I was also pretty impressionable and needy as a boy and teenager.  So, though I grew up on the brightest and most titillating music I think there was, when the late 70's and especially early 80's came along (the time this Punk business filtered to me where I was) I was made to feel like a freak or something by all my peers (I had one buddy, but that was it, and he was real stuck on being cool so was mainly only into the heavy side), and my brother didn't help either.

I only realized it in recent years - around 40! - that I had let that social influence oppress my pursuit, as a musician and man, of my favorite music.  Unable to stomach punk in any real way, I tried to find solace in things like Sonic Youth and Talking Heads, but I can see now that it never lived up.  I never made the conversion through heavy metal to Marillion and their ilk (no loss in my opinion, sorry).  I went naturally to Classical music, the stuff that is expected to challenge (I see my reason now: here I would not be criticized for listening to complexity and long forms).  Still, I would secretly listen to prog - yeah, secretly!  The discouragement you (Cactus Choir) bespoke in your post was probably the largest culprit, so strong and ultimately subtle as to grind me down in this way. 

Then, one day not many years ago, I woke up.  I said, what am I doing?!  I resolved to fully embrace that past, and to make it into my present if I could.  Now I'm excited to say that a composer friend and I are working to make 'symphonic prog' music and to form a band.  We have a number of rather ambitious numbers already that greatly excite us, and which I believe should attract other musicians of quality to join us on our little quest, when we're ready.

And every now and then - and likely for the rest of my life - I ask myself, how did I let this country and world's social-critical machine, one I so often criticize and see right through with its appetite for destruction and pablum, how did I let it grind my heart down for so long?

Oh my gosh! It's actually Birds and Buidlings that got to the top spot! But never mind - it's still Dan Britton!

I'm glad that both "mainstream" prog and classic rock didn't keep their high profile in the late 70s and what was to follow. They were too "tired" in regards of creativity. Thank God for punk and the change in taste. I wish punk would have wiped out AOR and hair-metal too, though. 

lazland wrote: Raff wrote: ExittheLemming wrote: Raff wrote: Just a question for you and others... Are the mainstream media really that important? Is being praised by them really the highest accolade one can receive - not to mention being inducted in that joke that is the R'n'R Hall of Fame?  As we all should know by now, this is a world that rewards shallowness and mediocrity at all levels. Let them set up their idols and tear them down in the space of a few months - we will continue to enjoy what we want, regardless of what the 'majority' thinks of it.  Yes, that's a valid perspective Raff and I do agree that it really shouldn't matter a discarded fig what the prevailing media view of your favourite music is BUT: If the marketplace is skewed sufficiently so that it ceases to become viable for aspiring prog artists/bands to pursue careers it does effect our ability as consumers to source the types of new/fresh  prog that we seek. Do you remember trying to buy jeans that weren't narrow in circa '77 ? (Quantum Calculus would have been easier ) What you say is very true, but I'm afraid it is a reflection of the way the whole world is going. If you think about it, nowadays everything is much more about quantity than quality. While in the past you bought things (cars, electrical appliances, furniture, clothes... you name it) that were built to last for a long time, nowadays you are lucky if you can keep anything for five years before you have to chuck it away. China has become a world power because of that.  I believe the same is true about music and art in general - the market is mostly structured to accommodate one-day wonders, and the real quality stuff is unfortunately fated to be little more than an underground phenomenon, even if occasionally emerging from near-obscurity. That's about the best discourse I have seen about the modern throwaway society I have seen in ages. Also witness the interminable and frankly obscene obsession with so called celebs who dominate virtually every facet of the media, even extending to the old quality press. However, I do take a very healthy and positive attitude to the whole debate. Witness the number of young, intelligent, and discerning people who contribute to this and other forums. They are proof positive that quality music, art, political debate, and civilisation itself is in safe hands.

Pekka wrote: harmonium.ro wrote: I wish punk would have wiped out AOR and hair-metal too, though.  Didn't grunge do just that?

It must have done, since hair-metal was predominantly a 1980s genre. "AOR", on the other hand, never seems to have gone away. Anyhow, sometimes I wish people would forget about metal in ALL its incarnations. The party won't go on forever, you know! It's just that nobody can predict what will come in its place...