Tales from Topo Oceans irony

for a short while I got into the punk movement. I wisened up, however and fell back in love with progressive. Punk has the anger and angst but often the musicians(if you call them that) were too stupid to express it well

It's pretty sad what our world has come to. All these little punk, goth, jap, wigger groups... ahh. Now, being punk means dying your hair black or red, and tripping cripples. All the punks in my school, don't even know who the sex pistols were, bad religion, black sabbath, nothin'. Infact, they think that prog=punk, and punk=non-pop. So yea, they all suck. But, they think that any song over 3 minutes is prog. And I ask them, "know any songs by ELP" and they'll be like "your forgetting the 'h'." But one day, in my religion class, on kid named Jon blew me away... we were in a lesson about Creation "genesis" and we launched into a debate on who kicks more ass, Phil Collins or Peter Gabriel. That was the only time I met another kid who likes prog rock.

the punk v prog debate....
Punk definitely represented a shot in the arm for a
musical culture that was stagnating in a welter of
self-satisfied coke-addled self-indulgence. Nothing
wrong with self-indulgence as long as it has
direction, vigour and movement, if there's a goal at
the end of the exploration. Simply saying, to use a
Tap-ism, 'it's time i recorded my album of acoustic
guitar solos with the London Philharmonic' is not
good enough. Such indulgences are usually the
refuge of the artistically bereft.
A lot of bands and musicians in the mid 70s, not just
prog, had seemed to have crawled up their own
nether regions, from Yes to Elton John to a whole
slew of California dope fiends more interested in
paying for private islands and propping up the
economy of Columbia than making interesting,
challenging (to themselves and their audience)
music.
Indeed, of the pre-punk rockers only Bowie seemed
to genuinely pursuing artistic boundary pushing (and
yes, he was admittedly one of the worst dope fiends)
but his work in 1974-79 was exceptional (Thin White
Duke to Berlin period to Scary Monsters). Neil Young
too was always pushing himself and his art.
However, while the arrival of punk was a
much-needed wake-up call the way in which it was
embraced by the music press as a cleansing emetic
was beyond all proportion.
Indeed, it seemed to amount to a pop-cultural Year
Zero in which anything pre-Pistols was judged to be
some kind of rock n roll hate crime.Even the
relevance of the Beatles and Stones were called into
question. This despite the fact that punk, sonically,
by and large harked back to the fundamentals of 50s
rockabilly.
Unfortunately, the zealots of the NME etc persisted
with the dogma of that cultural revolution for
decades, consigning some of rock's most liberating,
challenging, creatively inspired music in pop music
history.
Close-minded opinion became received wisdom in
throughout the 80s and 90s and it is only recently
that much of prog rock and hard rock - particularly led
Zep, early Genesis, Yes and Pink Floyd - have been
subjected to a critical reappraisal. Even dear old
AC/DC have finally been embraced as the crafters of
some superb pop songs.
Perhaps it is something to do with the
genre-skipping nature of contemporary, proper, rock
music in which ultra-distorted guitars can sit with
ambient techno, or in which Indian scales can
effortlessly blend with chart-friendly R&B. Even the
wonderful Jeff Buckley covering Genesis' Back in
NYC seems to have pushed an agenda whereby
prog is almost acceptible again - witness releases
such as the Best Prog Rock Album in the World Ever
to a mainstream audience.
Whatever the reason, the critical re-evaluation has to
be a welcome thing. no longer will Floyd fans have to
gather in darkened corners to celebrate a David
Gilmour solo for fear of being burned at the stake for
their appalling lack of taste.
Personally, I find it all very amusing. Even as I fell in
love with Echo and the Bunnymen, Joy Division,
Stone Roses, Nirvana, Leftfield, Underworld, FSOL,
Bjork, Mum, the bands of my youth were still there
always relevant and always fun and having stuck
with my 'appalling' taste since the height of punk, i
just love to see the former punk apparatchiks of the
music media backtrack and admit that they 'always
loved Dark Side'.
The fashionistas of the music media are always to
be largely ignored.
Elements of punk were great, elements of prog were
great, bits of ska, reggae, country, dance, trance,
ambient, trip-hop, whatever daft tag you choose to
apply were and are all great.
It's music, you either like it or you don't, the box some
people want to thrust it into is irrelevant.
Just let your ears be your guide.

Blimey! you read all that nonsense?!!!?
Fair play

cheers, must be something to do with being such a
saddo that I'm in work on a Staurday night and trying
to avoid anything to do with actually fulfilling my
reponsibilities to the company.
What I]do they pay me for anyway?

Whenever there is some music nostalgia program on, about the 70's the program makers always seem to use Yes and ELP as examples of how terrible things were in those days.

When you consider some of the sh!t that was actually going down in the 70's music scene, it makes you wonder what it actually is that people look for in music. I dont expect everyone to understand prog rock, but for Christs sake, is it too much to ask that people at least try to appreciate musicians who can play, and actually write songs??

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Brilliant!  I feel that way when people praise Nirvana while Dissing prog...I don't get it...

Tales from topographic oceans is one of the most overrated prog album.

I must admit I do not like it! Bland album!

Look, if many proggers bash this album, even Wakeman himself, then it proves something is wrong with it!

Here is why:

http://rateyourmusic.com/user_albums?show=0&order_by=lat est&album_list_id=36207&list_type=all&show_revie ws=1&show_ratings=1&searchterm=topographic&searc htype=album