Listening through the Top 100

If I may suggest, and I am the oddball here sometimes, simply forget the top 5 bands and go listen to something else ... if you came from "classical music" (and now I doubt it due to your postings!), you would know that there are composers and music elsewhere, and you have not tackled BANCO, PFM, ANGE, and even the German contingent, TERJE, GARBAREK (specially early days), GISMONTI, HADEN ... and so many others that make the definition of music look silly, stupid, and above all ... immature.

While those bands have music that I love dearly, they are not the "top" for me, and never will be. There is far more music out there, that you and I have never heard, to consider one band this or that ... that's just sad, and totally uneducated and off kilter, when it comes to music, and its abilities and sources.

Of those 5 bands you mention, only KC might be considered a bit "classical" and it is not quite/necessarily on their compositional side, one of the strongest in rock music, but their approach to the music and their presentation is highly classical, and defies the definition of the poor rock music out there that is liked by so many folks ... and is just another top ten song! And I do not believe that any musical definition of most of those 5 bands you now "prefer" actually stand up in a true music class ... some KC pieces will ... but the rest can take a flying leap into the toilet!

I started with classical music, as my dad had a massive collection of LP's and over 50 operas, for example.

For me, rock music had what classical music, specially opera, was lacking ... the emotional depth. Things like the works of Puccini, Verdi and so many other composers are about an imagined "emotional depth" and as is the case with Mahler, the stories about so many of the pieces, like his wife left him, and he had composed a Symphony for her ... and those kinds of things.

Rock music, does one thing, that was great at the start, but is now, very poor in general ... it TELLS YOU what this and that is all about, and leaves no space for you to define the music. I'm not sure that is a good thing, since when compared to previous examples, it's almost like saying that the older music did not have any emotional context and neither did the "lyrics" (in the case of an opera or the like), and you and I know that is not true.

The most important part of the list, is that it was a time for new instruments, and the chance to express one self with them, and that made it sound like "new music", when, sometimes, if you unplug it ... you will find there is not much new in there at all ... but there are some extreme and outstanding examples ... go check out Rachel Flowers and her piano (or organ) solo efforts of Keith Emerson's material and specially that stuff that comes from ELP ... all of a sudden, when you hear TARKUS on the piano, you can not help say ... that is a magnificent piece of composition and deserves more attention ... fur the issue, and sometimes all too clear here, is that we have a nasty tendency to look at it all as a "song", and not as "music", though some criticize me for saying that and that it is all "music". I do not specifically say that a song is not music, but the process and design of the music is more centered on a small design, than the more free form material that is found in classical music ... though I can not say that many here have said that Symphony such and such is full of meandering, like they do so many of the longer pieces of music in rock ... funny they don't say that about jazz ... it's weird, actually!

My only tip, is ... listen to it for what it is, not what it is supposed to be. I do not consider any of those albums any different than anything from classical music from the past 600 years ... to me they are music done by a much younger generation, and unlike 100 years ago, we have the advantage of the media and we can hear these things, when in those old days, no one really knew much of any music except what you heard in the local bar, or occasional concert hall party!

To me, a lot of that music is nothing but classical music by my generation, despite its form being defined as "rock music" and my hope is that in the future that separation disappears ... to me there is no black and white ... there is just humanity! 

Same thing for music! There are some definitions to help define a particular this and that, but in general, it is all about the human nature in all of us ...