Why Is Prog So Hated?

Maybe because during the seventies, progressive rock was (one of ) the main genre, and when it came to an end with the coming of the punk, for many people it was a kind of relief to get rid of that difficult hardly enjoyable genre.

Erm I'm 19 and to be honest I don't 'get' Prog Metal at all, to me it mostly sounds like cheesy power metal or it relies on growling/shouting vocals which I detest.

Prog is rarely hated, people just ignore the existence of our beloved genre, we live in a fast society that tends to find the easy alternative, if we have fast food…..why not fast music?

 

Pop fills this requisite, you listen, like it the first time, you get bored soon and find another fast artist to follow for a couple of months, musical industry has been promoting this for years.

 

On the contrary, it takes months or years to love some Prog albums and when you get them is a life commitment. Prog fan rarely stops loving their favorite artists works, Music Industry doesn’t like that because if it doesn’t sell in the first months and bores almost immediately there is not business.

 

People will never care for Prog it’s too hard, in mainstream music you just listen, in Prog the listener has to make a bit of effort in understanding and people don’t want that in their music or movies (How can you explain that movies like Spider Man fill the theaters while really good films are rarely noticed?).

 

Now there are a few people that really hated Prog like some radical Punks who saw Prog as a betrayal for the 3 minutes song with chorus-verse-chorus structure, but hat’s because Prog represents the opposite of their musical concept.

 

When I was in the University, the only people that an opinion about Prog were Punks (Already talked about them) and Metalheads, which were just the opposite, they respected Prog because they hated mainstream Disco as we did, we used to play poker at my house while listening Iron Maiden, Led Zeppelin, Yes and ELP and they were really informed because as in our case, their music was for a determined group of people, sometimes we jammed with them and  used to play Metal and Prog songs (Well try to play would be more honest) because they were really open to alternative forms of music.

 

POP/Disco fans simply ignored us, they were very busy buying white suits with black shirts and trying to dance as Travolta (Wow this mania survived until the mid 80’s), Prog just was outside of their conception of music.

 

People like what they listen, being there’s no Prog in radios, it’s hard for today’s kids to like Prog, they have Rap and Hip Hop in TV, radio, school, etc, that’s what they are going to like.

 

But as people can’t like what they don’t know, they rarely hate what they don’t know, so it’s hard to find people who hate Prog, at the most they don’t care about Prog.

Iván

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - November 07 2006 at 13:40

artguyken wrote: I'm right there with you, N Ellingsworth! (except I'm 50). I listen to the classic bands, but also the new stuff. Prog came along during my teen years. I've always loved it, though not all of it (any more than any other genre), the metal side being a prime example and certainly the primal screaming vocals are a major turnoff.Someone earlier suggested that prog was mainstream in the '70s. Not so. It was pretty much a sub-culture of its own then, as it is now. Occasionally a prog band would have a "cross-over" hit on the radio, but it was generally ignored by the public at large. The thing we DID have then were radio stations with much more open formats, though mostly late at night. They'd play entire albums. That's how I first heard Phil Keaggy's "The Master & the Musician" which anyone who likes Ant Phillip's "Geese & the Ghost" should check out. (got to see Keaggy live last Friday night. Excellent show)Many people seem to simply like whatever the DJ will play. I don't know how else to explain the popularity of many artists (and I use the term loosely) today. Repetition on the radio waves breeds familiarity & popularity.Prog doesn't fit with today's radio, because the songs are too long and they can't play enough commercials. Hurray for internet radio! But still, it's a niche market.

    


I must back artguyken on his stand. Prog wasn't mainstream, at any point. Actually straight hard-rock wasn't mainstream in the 70s, can you imagine that? Neither were blues, folk, and very few classic rock acts were actually mainstream. They may have been the mainstream of rock, but nothing more.
Just take a look at this playlist of a "Top Hits" cd covering the year of 1972 (what a year for prog!), based on the actual charts:

01 - Gilbert O'Sullivan - Clair
02 - Lobo - I'd Love You To Want Me
03 - Nilsson - Without You
04 - Daniel Boone - Beautiful Sunday
05 - Helen Reddy - I Am Woman
06 - Billy Paul - Me And Mrs. Jones
07 - Tony Christie - Amarillo
08 - Looking Glass - Brandy (You're A Fine Girl)
09 - Chicory Tip - Son Of MyFather
10 - Don McLean - American Pie
11 - Sammy Davis Jr - The Candy Man
12 - Johnny Nash - I Can See Clearly Now
13 - Bill Withers - Lean On Me
14 - America - Horse With No Name
15 - Alice Cooper - School's Out
16 - Hot Butter - Popcorn

This may lead to the idea that most good music wasn't, isn't and won't ever be mainstream. Could be. Still, there's something strange; if you check the audience numbers for prog or straight rock events in the 70s the result is amaizing - how could those non-mainstream bands gather tens of thousands people for a concert? Was this some kind of counter-mainstream? This could be an answer. The edgiest example is Woodstock for the 60s music. Several non-tophits bands gathered half a million people for a three days concert. The playlist for the 1969 cd, the year of Woodstock, goes like this:

01 - Elvis Presley - In The Ghetto
02 - Zager & Evans - In The Year 2525
03 - The Move - Blackberry Way
04 - Thunderclap Newman - Something In The Air
05 - Amen Corner - If Paradise Is Half As Nice
06 - Henri Mancini & His Orchestra - Love Theme From Romeo
07 - Bobby Gentry - I'll Never Fall In Love Again
08 - Fifth Dimension - Aquarius
09 - Steve Wonder - Yester Me Yester You Yersterday
10 - Desmond Dekker - Israelites
11 - Peter Sarstedt - Where Do You Go To
12 - Sly & The Family Stone - Everyday People
13 - Tommy James & The Shondells - Crimson And Clover
14 - Tommy Roe - Dizzy
15 - The Archis - Sugar Sugar
16 - Steam - Na Ha Hey Hey Hey Goodbye

Any idea? Answers like artguyken's are good, but don't cover the width of such a huge problem. My hypothesis is that in the 60s people became aware as (biological, social, cultural, political) generation throug pop-culture, especially through it's music. They bonded, connected their common goals and ideals, by relating to the same symbols - and music was the most important. This doesn't mean their music was made with such goals. Most of us, like myself in the 90s, discovered it later just as great music, without being aware of the mentioned corelations. The secret of that era may have been the combination of those specific attitude&music, I think that made it all such a phenomenon.
How about the 70s then? I think there's a great difference; their approach to music and pop-culture was not ethical, like in the 60s, but aesthetical. They made great music for the sake of making music and for their own pleasure. They dressed, behaved, lived in extravagant ways, for the sake of being extravangat. There was quite a lot hedonism into all that (anti-ethical attitude, I mean). Was this a way of life that was best expressed through the 70s music and was there a generation that felt like that and related for that to the music we are talking about (rock & especially prog)? I would incline to say yes, after hearing people saying the 70s generation grew tired of the politicalðical debate and just wanted to fell good so it let itself be, but I have no final answer as I live in a totally different era&country.
How about our days? Of course prog is not hated, there is just a totally different context. People have no more reasons to relate in mass proportions to good music. People do not have any more common social goals to express or symbolise through some music, though good music is still being made as always. Our society doesn't generate common goals and ideal any more, doesn't generate "generations". There hasn't been any social contents music since street rap; now we have hiphop and "r&b" and "soul" (they call them like that, I don't know why...). The only ideology lasting that keeps stirring young people is in fact generated by the same 60s generation: ecology. There isn't even an anti-ideology attitude, like it was in the 70s.
This is my explanation.
Our era is the normal way to be, the 60s and the 70s were the exception. We should get accustomed to that and stop complaining, or do something great, "epical". What are the standings?
    
    

Edited by andu - November 07 2006 at 14:51

A quick aside, regarding the songs of '72. Bill Hubauer, of the prog-tinged band, Ten Point Ten, does a very nice proggy rendition of "I Can See Clearly Now"

bullocks? how so? prog tends to have greater complexity in its construction, pure and simple. does that make it superior? in some minds, I suppose it does. which is why lovers of classical and jazz are also thought to be snobs. are they?

someone who is passionate about any particular form of music, who prefers one type over another is easily labeled a snob by those who don't share those tastes. of course, it's also easy to put down other forms of music as inferior, rather than chalking it up to simple matters of taste.

my tastes are pretty far flung, though there are certainly types of music that don't appeal to me in the least. However, I do love a good "hooky," well crafted simple song. Complexity does not necessarily make something better.

some prog hides a lack of true originality or lack of melody by wrapping things in complex instrumentations. I'll pass on that stuff and go for the simple pop song (though it's likely to be one from 20 years or more ago)


Edited by artguyken - November 07 2006 at 16:34

I think it's becuase a lot of it's fans acted like they had superior music taste to everyone else. "Are music is art, unlike your pop music that commercial and simplistic," and "I'm listening to real music, not three chord garbage anyone can play." I think it was that silly elitist attitude that gave prog a bad name, not the music itself. To me prog isn't any better than other types of music and has no more artistic credibility. It's just a different type of rock that happens to have a lot of bands that I love.

Kid-A wrote: aspinosa wrote: because its require patient to understand, its like classical music or jass.    because people talk this kind of pretentious bollucks about it to make it seem superior

The Wizard wrote: I think it's becuase a lot of it's fans acted like they had superior music taste to everyone else. "Are music is art, unlike your pop music that commercial and simplistic," and "I'm listening to real music, not three chord garbage anyone can play." I think it was that silly elitist attitude that gave prog a bad name, not the music itself. To me prog isn't any better than other types of music and has no more artistic credibility. It's just a different type of rock that happens to have a lot of bands that I love.

I don't care about what people think.
Listening to prog is better than eating a nice, hot, full of cheese and delicious toppings pizza. That's good enough music for me.