What you think?

Obviously, nothing is as good as the music that I think is really good.  Anyone who says otherwise is wrong.

Have I summed up the thread?

Okay, I forgot we are asking if post 70's bands can be "better" than 70's bands.  I say, absolutely they can.  Whether they are or not is pretty much up to the person listening though, I think.

If we're going to talk about even more subjective things like creativity and "originality", then I still would say that yes, modern bands can do that too.  The problem with saying that no one will ever top "Close to the Edge" is that for the person saying that, it is quite obviously true.  They will not be open to such a possibility.....either the music in question will be a pale imitator, or it will sound so different from Close to the Edge that the person will not be able to compare them in any meaningful way to decide that one is "better" than the other.

But I agree with the poster who said it was because of the drugs.  I know that was what got me listening to prog rock in the first place.

cstack3 wrote: lazland wrote: Some of the very best music i have in my collection was recorded and released way after the 1970's. Thank you Lazland!  Please provide me with a few specifics?  I've not heard the equivalent of "Apocalypse in 9/8", nor "I Get Up, I Get Down" in the 40 years since they have been recorded.  This is not a slam on any of the following bands, the classical world had a devil of a time following up on Bach & Beethoven!  I see this as a valid comparison.  Trust me, there is much modern prog that I love dearly, but nothing that I thought moved the earth like the bands from the 70's.  Tangerine Dream is another one.   The only band I can think of that comes close is Discipline-era King Crimson.  Don't get me started on Dream Theater, all technique & no heart.   Solo after solo after mind-numbingly-perfect solo.

I don't think there's any point people directing you to new music, because it's painfully obvious you don't want to believe anything holds a candle to the classics.

Edited by JS19 - October 31 2011 at 14:59

Fragile wrote: Alitare wrote: I'd take Kid A, Terria, Perfect Element, Human Equation, Bath/Leaving Your Body Map/Part the Second, Blackwater Park, Second Life Syndrome, OK Computer, Operation Mindcrime, and all that over Close to the Edge, Foxtrot, or anything by Rush in any given day of my sweet stupid life. And I don't like Dream Theater for a damn, either. To quote one of my favourite Americans you cannot be serious,either that or you are seriously ripping the pish comparing that list of dross to ' Close to the Edge' the greatest piece of music prog has ever produced and the almost equally brilliant Foxtrot.

Lol, Close to the Edge is terrible snobby w**k


There, I sound just like you

cstack3 wrote: JS19 wrote: cstack3 wrote: lazland wrote: Some of the very best music i have in my collection was recorded and released way after the 1970's. Thank you Lazland!  Please provide me with a few specifics?  I've not heard the equivalent of "Apocalypse in 9/8", nor "I Get Up, I Get Down" in the 40 years since they have been recorded.  This is not a slam on any of the following bands, the classical world had a devil of a time following up on Bach & Beethoven!  I see this as a valid comparison.  Trust me, there is much modern prog that I love dearly, but nothing that I thought moved the earth like the bands from the 70's.  Tangerine Dream is another one.   The only band I can think of that comes close is Discipline-era King Crimson.  Don't get me started on Dream Theater, all technique & no heart.   Solo after solo after mind-numbingly-perfect solo.   I don't think there's any point people directing you to new music, because it's painfully obvious you don't want to believe anything holds a candle to the classics. Not for lack of trying....a friend just tossed me a CD containing music by these bands: a) Barock Project b) Windchase c) Mindgames d) Raison de Plus e) Hannah f)  Kaipa g) Oaksenham h) Arena i) Manala Vallis j) Quidam k) Aviva Omnibus l)  Knight Area m) Eclat n)  Gerard ....I had to fight the impulse to fling the thing out the car window while it was playing!!    Although I found a bit of this stuff mildly interesting & some even listenable, I can't say that I heard one guitarist with Steve Howe's talent in the lot.   Realize, I'm an "amateur" musician who's been playing for over 40 years (my profession is environmental science).   I have an open invitation to jam with John Goodsall, and I'm trying to get the time to travel 400 miles to sit down with him and record.  In my discussions with other musicians, I've noticed that very few enjoy sitting around & listening to much music at all.  Bob Fripp has written about this many times when people ask him "who do you like?"    Jeff Beck etc. all say the same thing.    The hunt goes on......I'll let you know.

JS19 wrote: I didn't spit on your preferences at all. I prefer music that stirs emotions inside me also. I just think the way you phrased that post was like because these artists weren't playing emotional music, that they weren't worth anything, which I don't agree with. It's just a different type of music, although I do have a hard time enjoying some of it. namely King Crimson, which seems to have had every emotion sucked out with a bloody hoover on purpose....

JS19 wrote: Well I guess you are trying :) I think though, there's a lot of great bands in that list, so If you didn't enjoy anything a great deal, I seriously would stop trying, because it's probably a waste of time. If 70s classic prog is what you enjoy, no-one's forcing you to diversify. Stick with what you know. I can see my last post could be taken quite harshly, and I apologise. i didn't mean it that way. It's just I find it very hard to relate to such an opinion, although i do respect it. I didn't spit on your preferences at all. I prefer music that stirs emotions inside me also. I just think the way you phrased that post was like because these artists weren't playing emotional music, that they weren't worth anything, which I don't agree with. It's just a different type of music, although I do have a hard time enjoying some of it. namely King Crimson, which seems to have had every emotion sucked out with a bloody hoover on purpose....

Edited by cstack3 - October 31 2011 at 23:52

70' prog can be very inventive at its best but can be just too pretty

Edited by richardh - November 01 2011 at 02:39

There are approximately 200 albums I like more than Close to the Edge. There are approximately 450 albums I like more than Foxtrot. There are approximately 600 albums I like more than Brain Salad Surgery. There are approximately 750 albums I like more than Permanent Waves, 2112, or Hemispheres. These numbers aren't falsified. I could name most all of them for you. I have a list.

cstack3 wrote: Not for lack of trying....a friend just tossed me a CD containing music by these bands: a) Barock Project b) Windchase c) Mindgames d) Raison de Plus e) Hannah f)  Kaipa g) Oaksenham h) Arena i) Manala Vallis j) Quidam k) Aviva Omnibus l)  Knight Area m) Eclat n)  Gerard ....I had to fight the impulse to fling the thing out the car window while it was playing!!    Although I found a bit of this stuff mildly interesting & some even listenable, I can't say that I heard one guitarist with Steve Howe's talent in the lot.   Realize, I'm an "amateur" musician who's been playing for over 40 years (my profession is environmental science).   I have an open invitation to jam with John Goodsall, and I'm trying to get the time to travel 400 miles to sit down with him and record.  In my discussions with other musicians, I've noticed that very few enjoy sitting around & listening to much music at all.  Bob Fripp has written about this many times when people ask him "who do you like?"    Jeff Beck etc. all say the same thing.    The hunt goes on......I'll let you know.

This is interesting, I've read similar things before about artists not listening to other music much, or even at all.  Steven Wilson seems to listen to a pretty fair amount of music (though not much prog, by prog archives standards anyway) and he seems able, at least on his latest album, to come up with very interesting and original music.

I'm an amateur musician myself, and have been playing for 25 years or so.  Yet I'm able to find quite a bit of modern prog (and other genre's as well) that I love as much, and in some cases more, than the 70's stuff.  To be honest, I find I can't really listen to most of the "big" 70's prog bands anymore because I've heard their albums so many times I can hear them in their entirety in my head with every nuance in place (except Gentle Giant, I still pull them out and listen to their stuff and still keep finding little things I'd not noticed before).  I still do pull things out occasionally, but find that my mind wanders.  They just don't have the impact on me they used to, while I find newer stuff that does (and, thanks to this site, some very old stuff I never heard before that does as well).

I could give examples I suppose (Altair actually listed a couple earlier in the thread), but I'm not sure it matters.  You've likely heard of them if you are a regular here, and probably don't like them.

I understand the idea that people don't think there is anything anywhere near as good as the bands from the 70's were able to do.  I used to think that myself.  Luckily for me, tastes and attitudes change, and I keep finding stuff that moves me in exactly the same way as when I first discovered Yessongs or Tarkus.  Lucky me, I guess.

Theriver wrote: The big four ( Yes, King Crimson, Genesis; ELP) are always taken as reference for the prog movement. But do you think we can say some post 80's are better or have done better that those 70's bands. I don't want to go in the usual "yeah Genesis so over rated......" or "Dream theater so under rated........" but really to know if you thin some 80's, 90's or 00's bands have done better musically than the 70's giants.

I never heard about "The Big 4", I always heard about "The Big 6"