Why isn't prog as successful as metal as an indus

In 1970, intelligent kids would question Black Sabbath's "The Wizard". They would react ..."Okay, I've read many books on wizards" and the lyrics in this song are kind of plain and simple, lacking the essence of surreal art. Other people were obsessed with the lyrics , not thinking of them as shabby and wanted to have a role playing game with those lyrics which made them feel very good...as if they were part of something that had a  supernatural connection and for their very small agenda. Then a few years later, more kids were interested in a role play or adapting the song personally to themselves than questioning it and the Metal community grew to be large and powerful. Metal music had the power to lure in the youth and I even think of that process as hypnotic rather than compacting people and claiming that it is totally up to the individual who hears the music, likes it, buys it, and sets the example of living the perfectly normal life. To understand an artist, you cannot allow their work to overshadow your thinking process. You must occasionally back off and allow your own thoughts to resurface, no matter how lured in you are by their music. Obviously..not many people were thinking for themselves...because Metal was quite the opposite with it's style of album covers, lyricism, subject matter, and driving "Speed Metal" volume. It created a personality and a mentality that was quite different than Spinal Tap, (although they had the hair), as there wasn't an abundance of pathetic humor ..unless it was sadistic in nature. It definitely had a huge impact on the youth of the 80's and 90's and the Metal bands were presented through the news media as the ideal candidates of corruption to the minds and mentalities OF the youth and there was no doubt the government got involved ...which was sometimes laughable

You cute one  maybe the cause might be us, the so called prog fans who are too critical to see beyond anything good, especially the great contributions new bands are bringing to us. Instead of being happy we tend to undermine them and this is wrong. xxx  

idk, when I was into metal in a big way, I knew people who didn't per se have much patience with complex music of any kind but loved extreme metal.  In extreme metal, the complexity or inaccessibility is more of a by product.  The intended purpose of harsh vocals, crushing riffs and really fast drumming is more to convey aggression.  Metalheads love how aggressive the music is.  This is why those who like 'real metal' often mock power metal because it is seen as too happy sounding and lacking the aggression or, to use the appropriate metal terminology, brutality that is an essential component of metal.  Prog doesn't have any one particular hook that way to draw in listeners.  That is simultaneously its strength and weakness.  It demands a lot of patience and perseverance from the listener (who has to be a really intrepid sort to begin with) to start loving prog.  But on the flipside, it is less boxed in and more open to possibilities.  In theory.  In practice, of course, nostalgic yearning for things that sound like "made in the 1970s" seems to have swept all over prog in recent years.

 

Again, Dio was all about fan entertainment. Not Satan or the occult.   

It definitely does as a point of interest.

Nothing is true till the fat lady sings, ok  ok now pls bring back Heston Blumenthal, that pic of him wearing a tiny pink bikini top while barbecuing..... jajaja yep ahum oui da si sim  that pic is priceless!  hugs

Ladies and gentlemen, I am a 49 year old musician. I have listened to God knows how many thousand albums. I have been around since "heavy rock" became "heavy metal", and that was simply because heavy rock musicians who weren't good enough to make it realised that adding a pantomimetic touch of drama pulled crowds in. They were going to see the spectacle and not the music or musicianship. 

I have heard tons of heavy metal albums, from some of the first stuff to the later c r a p which was issued under the NWOBHM bandwaggon and unlike some of the people posting here, I understand it from a musical point of view. A great deal - 95% of heavy metal - relies on a boring adherence to repetitive arpeggios and simplistic chord progressions which have little bearing to proper music or musicianship.

Hence sh*te. 

I am not regurgitating anything and it seems a bit off to turn around and say - with no evidence pro or con - to say that I haven't listened to any. I have sat through a lot of badly played, tedious marketing exercises designed to entertain the gullible and remove them of their money - at the lowest possible level. So I'll say it again. Heavy metal is sh*te. Anyone who listens to it needs to (a) get a haircut (b) get a life and (c) learn to think for themselves. Take your spandex trousers, copies of Kerrang, Metal Hammer and all your Myofist, Budgie, Twisted Sister albums and put them on a lovely big bonfire. Then sit back, listen to some REAL music and actually think, listen and become a real human being instead of a cardboard cutout.